Sharking ≠ Scamming: Why the trading community needs to grow up.

[john fortnite kennedy]

Recently I went through my Outpost bookmarks to delete some old trades and noticed one user had been banned permanently for "Sharking". Something to do with a high tier unusual hat for a S.F. Bat.

I can understand why people are banned for phishing, hacking accounts, stealing items, impersonating etc.

But Sharking? Really?

Sharking is by no account scamming a person, unless you blatantly lie about the value of something. For example: "I'll give you a weapon for that Salvaged Crate you just found".

If the person with the crate accepts the trade, that is perfectly fine. Both parties are happy with the result, just one person knows a little more. But if the buyer had said "That crate is worth a weapon" that could be seen as crossing the line.

The way I see it, trading is about both parties getting what they want. If somebody doesn't know about the market value of one of their items, so what? They weren't hacked, phished or otherwise scammed.

Does this mean we should ban quickbuyers paying less than spreadsheet price for items? The fact that somebody has been banned from a trading site for simply making a profit is quite frankly laughable and just shows how pathetic the TF2 economy has gotten.

Honestly people, if somebody doesn't know about the values of their items and goes into a trade with somebody it is their own fault, not the "Sharker's".

Please, just grow up and stop looking for reasons to ban people.

Yes, I have sharked before. No, I have never been sharked because when I first got into trading I learnt the values of stuff. Bite me.

[Festive Wind]

^Dis guy.

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

nobody likes sharks.

[Third Strongest Bunny]

I think it's a bit morally grey to rip someone off this way, and it's definitely considered a rip off. The problem is, both parties aren't obligated to divulge the worth of the items being traded, and they shouldn't be.

However, I do very much agree with you that there is absolutely no reason for a person to be banned for doing it, and people should strive to be aware of their items' worth before trading it.

You should edit the end of your post to be less abrasive though. The information you presented is strong enough to stand on its own.

[Evilcheesewheel]

Did you know you have a better chance of being killed by an elephant than a shark?

[Festive Wind]

Originally posted by Pie flavored:

Did you know you have a better chance of being killed by an elephant than a shark?

No, I did not know that.

[john fortnite kennedy]

I'm just sick of people saying "OMG U SCAMMER FOR MAKING PROFIT PERMABAN"
It's like somebody actually put 8 year olds with sharking butthurt in charge of outpost.

[z~Vail~s]

GG

[john fortnite kennedy]

Originally posted by bunny:

You should edit the end of your post to be less abrasive though. The information you presented is strong enough to stand on its own.

I was just preparing for the massive amounts of flaming because I disagreed with the popular opinion.

[Festive Wind]

Originally posted by THAT'S A NICE HEADLOCK THERE SIR:

I'm just sick of people saying "OMG U SCAMMER FOR MAKING PROFIT PERMABAN"
It's like somebody actually put 8 year olds with sharking butthurt in charge of outpost.

I mean, it is a bit narcisistic, but you gotta do research before doing, well, plenty of potentially risky things.

Originally posted by THAT'S A NICE HEADLOCK THERE SIR:

Originally posted by bunny:

You should edit the end of your post to be less abrasive though. The information you presented is strong enough to stand on its own.

I was just preparing for the massive amounts of flaming because I disagreed with the popular opinion.

And by popular opinion you mean the strident minority? :3

[Akutare]

It's of my opinion that if you tell the person what they're trading and they don't care, then that's perfectly acceptable, but people that sit around in servers trying to get things from people that don't know any better is just about as bad as scammers, you're just witholding facts rather than telling lies.

[john fortnite kennedy]

Originally posted by cheesellama | NICE FIND |:

And by popular opinion you mean the strident minority? :3

Precisely c:

[john fortnite kennedy]

Originally posted by Akutare:

It's of my opinion that if you tell the person what they're trading and they don't care, then that's perfectly acceptable, but people that sit around in servers trying to get things from people that don't know any better is just about as bad as scammers, you're just witholding facts rather than telling lies.

Exactly. I got a Disco Beat Down Dragonborn for a Circling Peace Sign Pugilist's Protector and 9 2013 non-strange festives purely because the Dragonborn has no bp.tf price. Regardless it's worth around 6 buds, somebody 1:1'd theirs with a Stormy TC.

[space ghost]

When I was new I got an unusual soldered with the antifreeze effect from my second crate (I was so much of a noob that when I uncrated it I also got a pallet of crates and was more interested in the pallet then the hat). The unusual was pretty much the only thing of value in my backpack so I was getting hundreds of trades a day with people trying to shark it off me for metal, hats and even weaps.

So one day this guy by the name of RAINBOW_DINOSAUR trades me and offers me 9 KEYS, telling me thats how much its worth. That was the best offer I'd ever gotten and was relieved that someone had made a "good" offer. With reluctancy I accepted the trade and because the guy told me "You can use the keys to uncrate another hat" I did uncrate. It didn't go well. I later found out that the hat would be around 6 buds.

So I pretty much hate sharkers with a burning passion now. ;~;

[Nerdygamer1]

Recently, I obtained a professional killstreak weapon. I'm not into the killstreak attention whoring, so I started looking to trade it for a "regular" strange. I managed to trade it for a "regular" strange with a strange part worth a couple keys, as well as a few extra keys (pure). I have no idea how much professional killstreak parts are worth, but I accepted the risk I was taking and was prepared to possibly learn that I could have gotten many more keys from another buyer. The guy was even offering to pay more, but I was happy with the deal and turned him down.

Am I happy with the trade? Yes.
Could I have gotten more out of it? Yes.

In that situation, I was willing to over pay to have something I wanted right then and there. I wanted it badly enough to pay for speed.

[john fortnite kennedy]

Originally posted by ThinkKritz:

When I was new I got an unusual soldered with the antifreeze effect from my second crate (I was so much of a noob that when I uncrated it I also got a pallet of crates and was more interested in the pallet then the hat). The unusual was pretty much the only thing of value in my backpack so I was getting hundreds of trades a day with people trying to shark it off me for metal, hats and even weaps.

So one day this guy by the name of RAINBOW_DINOSAUR trades me and offers me 9 KEYS, telling me thats how much its worth. That was the best offer I'd ever gotten and was relieved that someone had made a "good" offer. With reluctancy I accepted the trade and because the guy told me "You can use the keys to uncrate another hat" I did uncrate. It didn't go well. I later found out that the hat would be around 6 buds.

So I pretty much hate sharkers with a burning passion now. ;~;

That's pretty much your own fault in that situation I'm afraid.