The Dark Underbelly of TF2 Trading Sites

[The Impractical Engineer]

I have long held a low opinion of trading sites in general, but I'm beginning to suspect a lot of the "big" trading sites - especially the ones which deal with real money, are merely a front for money laundering. Per steam rules, I won't name any specific users, but will point out the websites.

What is money laundering?

In case you are unaware, money laundering in a nutshell is the process of making illegally obtained money 'clean' but disguising it as being sourced from legitimate means.

How TF2 trade sites could be used for money laundering

It's pretty simple. Let's say you've got some money you want to launder. You could buy items for real money (using the dirty money) on something like marketplace.tf or mannco.trade, and then re-sell the item (to yourself or a friend) and then the money is clean.

Put this way, it's pretty easy to see how trade sites could be used for money laundering, and they probably are.

But Impractical! Isn't this just a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory?

Without hard evidence of actual cases, maybe. Unfortunately for the trade sites, there ARE cases of this happening in TF2.

In 2012, a user noticed that large numbers of crate keys were being bought at prices higher than the market price and then sold either directly or through other items. If you read the investigation, it is quite damning: https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/today-i-discovered-that-there-are-tons-of-keys-with-doubtful-origin-injecting-into-the-market.14096/

A look into the buyers and sellers of these keys reveals they were of Russian origin (see link). With such a large amount of keys being bought and sold, it is possible that this is linked to the Russian mafia or other criminal organisations with the intention of laundering money.

And let's just say the owners of these trade sites aren't exactly of great moral fiber, see the whole scrap.tf pedophilia owner scandal https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/gxxklo/psa_the_scraptf_owner_jesse_and_many_more_are/

The Creepy Connection

In case it wasn't clear, scrap.tf and marketplace.tf are owned by the same people... yeah...

It doesn't end there

This section is purely my own speculation, but isn't it funny how a lot of these cash trading websites use storage bots? Like if you want to sell something, you first have to give it to a storage bot and then the bot will give the item to the buyer.

A lot of 'scammers' impersonate bots of these websites to steal items. I say 'scammers' because with all the above dodgy business I don't think its much of a stretch to say that these websites could actually be the people behind the scams.

The blend of real and scammer bots makes it difficult to track stolen items and avoid fault of the website while allowing them to continue stealing people's money. The fact people place trust in the middle man of mann.co trade or marketplace is disturbing at best... there's no guarantee the storage bot wouldn't just hold your item, or even sell it for the website's own profit.

Closing Comments

As a side note, I'm not saying they are responsible for ALL the scammer bots, but I would not be surprised if some of them were. I'm also not saying the owners themselves are doing the scamming, but their henchmen.

Some food for thought.

[piatto ’damo]

[fnv]

scrap tf is the best trading site ever but the creators creep me out ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[The Impractical Engineer]

Originally posted by Kat:

scrap tf is the best trading site ever but the creators creep me out ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Yeah, and the more you read about them, the worse it is.

[Kurwa]

who let bro cook🖊️🔥🔥🔥 also yeah they are using the sites for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reasons but its not like any of us can do anything about it

[fireserpent1992]

ok so what you are saying is trading needs to be shut down?

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)󠀰 󠀰]

Originally posted by The Impractical Engineer:

The Creepy Connection

In case it wasn't clear, scrap.tf and marketplace.tf are owned by the same people... yeah...

By bronies? That would make a lot sense

[The Impractical Engineer]

Originally posted by rabbit sounds:

ok so what you are saying is trading needs to be shut down?

Needs to be dismantled in some way.

Originally posted by ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°):

Originally posted by The Impractical Engineer:

The Creepy Connection

In case it wasn't clear, scrap.tf and marketplace.tf are owned by the same people... yeah...

By bronies? That would make a lot sense :cozypoechris:

Idk about brownies but probably pdf-files

[Dye&]

Ok

[fnv]

Originally posted by The Impractical Engineer:

Originally posted by rabbit sounds:

ok so what you are saying is trading needs to be shut down?

Needs to be dismantled in some way.

Originally posted by ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°):

By bronies? That would make a lot sense :cozypoechris:

Idk about brownies but probably pdf-files

they are bronies

[Luigi]

Scrap/backpack/marketplace own the economy of tf2. They have full control, and a monopoly on tf2 items. Their introduction into the tf2 economy killed trading from being a fun thing to another online business that will only be profitable for the richest players in the economy while giving the illusion that “anyone can start tf2 trading” when in reality it will be a waste of time. Sure you may argue it made stuff convenient like shopping in Amazon, but this resulted in the death of strip malls/malls. Scrap.tf and the trading bots killed trading, and unless you want to underprice your stuff, you won’t be beating a bot.

Your speculation of scammers being part of scrap.tf may not be total speculation. Scrap.tf are known to hate competition, and they would do anything to stomp out their competition. Mannco.store is their competitor, and they have tried to paint the creators in a bad light by banning them from backpack.tf multiple times. https://mannco.store/articles/our-story
In fact, the owner was banned from marketplace because he purchased an unusual from a scammer, and I wonder how it got there in the first place. Most of these scam bots are literally named manncostore bots or some other variant. You never see marketplace.tf bots, and I wonder why. It’s clear they want to stain the reputation of Mannco.store, and in fact it worked. A lot of people think it’s a scam, and advise against using it, and to instead use marketplace. Exactly what they wanted.

The owners of scrap are powerful and cannot be touched. The grooming allegations were instantly forgotten and absolutely nothing was done, because what could be done? It’s like a corrupt politician in a corrupted government, nothing will be done. Nothing will change and unfortunately nothing will ever change as they keep on doing shady business. They don’t care about money laundering because they profit from it, they don’t care about scamming because they are big enough to brush it off and blame the competitor, and they don’t care if dark stuff gets exposed because absolutely nothing will be done.

Valve should’ve banned these 3rd party sites before they got powerful, and before they bred the high tier traders that now control this game. Valve cannot do anything positive or cool because the traders will complain about their virtual pixels dropping 2 dollars in value. Valve will never add spells again because traders will protest, valve will never fix quickswitch because traders will protest, and valve will not stop adding slop and bloat into the game because the traders will complain. All of these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ updates are done to appease traders and the wider audience to make tf2 seem alive and keep the economy going.

Trading overall just led to the creation of a group who transformed a cool concept (like trading baseball cards or pocket monster cards) into a mega monopoly pyramid scheme where they placed themselves on top, and shoot down anyone trying to climb the pyramid.

[tel aviv bus bomb 4000 dead NOW!]

good thing you absolutely dont need to trade ♥♥♥♥ to play this game
insane concept 90% of players have yet to understand

[Luigi]

Originally posted by diesel mechanic:

good thing you absolutely dont need to trade ♥♥♥♥ to play this game
insane concept 90% of players have yet to understand

Only thing I would suggest new players to trade is weapons. Other than that trading in 2023 is an absolute waste of time and you are better of getting a minimum wage job rather than trying to make profit.

If you really want to trade though csgo doesn’t have a single market where everything goes through so it’s easier to make profit there. Backpack.tf tried building a monopoly in csgo, but failed

[George Polaroid]

Wait so what is the issue with trading sites? Lol

[The Impractical Engineer]

Originally posted by The Verminator:

Scrap/backpack/marketplace own the economy of tf2. They have full control, and a monopoly on tf2 items. Their introduction into the tf2 economy killed trading from being a fun thing to another online business that will only be profitable for the richest players in the economy while giving the illusion that “anyone can start tf2 trading” when in reality it will be a waste of time. Sure you may argue it made stuff convenient like shopping in Amazon, but this resulted in the death of strip malls/malls. Scrap.tf and the trading bots killed trading, and unless you want to underprice your stuff, you won’t be beating a bot.

Your speculation of scammers being part of scrap.tf may not be total speculation. Scrap.tf are known to hate competition, and they would do anything to stomp out their competition. Mannco.store is their competitor, and they have tried to paint the creators in a bad light by banning them from backpack.tf multiple times. https://mannco.store/articles/our-story
In fact, the owner was banned from marketplace because he purchased an unusual from a scammer, and I wonder how it got there in the first place. Most of these scam bots are literally named manncostore bots or some other variant. You never see marketplace.tf bots, and I wonder why. It’s clear they want to stain the reputation of Mannco.store, and in fact it worked. A lot of people think it’s a scam, and advise against using it, and to instead use marketplace. Exactly what they wanted.

The owners of scrap are powerful and cannot be touched. The grooming allegations were instantly forgotten and absolutely nothing was done, because what could be done? It’s like a corrupt politician in a corrupted government, nothing will be done. Nothing will change and unfortunately nothing will ever change as they keep on doing shady business. They don’t care about money laundering because they profit from it, they don’t care about scamming because they are big enough to brush it off and blame the competitor, and they don’t care if dark stuff gets exposed because absolutely nothing will be done.

Valve should’ve banned these 3rd party sites before they got powerful, and before they bred the high tier traders that now control this game. Valve cannot do anything positive or cool because the traders will complain about their virtual pixels dropping 2 dollars in value. Valve will never add spells again because traders will protest, valve will never fix quickswitch because traders will protest, and valve will not stop adding slop and bloat into the game because the traders will complain. All of these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ updates are done to appease traders and the wider audience to make tf2 seem alive and keep the economy going.

Trading overall just led to the creation of a group who transformed a cool concept (like trading baseball cards or pocket monster cards) into a mega monopoly pyramid scheme where they placed themselves on top, and shoot down anyone trying to climb the pyramid.

Good points, I never knew the owners got banned from backpack.tf. Makes the whole scammer theory more plausible.

[The Impractical Engineer]

Originally posted by Sparky:

Wait so what is the issue with trading sites? Lol

Read the post, then read the comments, then read the post again. If you have done that and still do not understand I suggest you consult ChatGPT to summarise it for you.