Wow, the penalty for cancelling held trades is outrageous

[spaceboy]

I don't usually do these kind of trades, but I did one yesterday. Supposedly there are warnings before you click ok, but I guess I skipped passed them. I would never have guessed Steam would have such an extreme penalty that seems to have no logic to it, but, we are talking about Valve here, so I guess I should not be making assumptions about customer service.

If you cancel a non-hold trade, there are zero penalties. You can cancel unlimited trades each day. No penalties.

But god forbid you feel sorry for someone who can't afford a smartphone and trade with them, willing to wait 15 days for processing, but then change your mind, or realize you made an expensive mistake, or just didn't put the right items in, and then BOOM, Steam says,

"YOU SCUMBAG GAMER, HOW DARE YOU CANCEL A SINGLE HELD TRADE DURING THE WAITING PERIOD!!!!!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!!"

And so they punish you with a 7 day hold. Even though a cancelled trade is the very mechanism that is used to Prevent bad trades and stop fraud at the last second, they still punish you. The corporate concern and deep thought makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Knowing this now, and given the fact that I do tons of trading every day and a 7 day hold would cause me lots of problems, I will never do held trades again. Thanks for thinking this one all the way through, Valve.

[Zekiran]

You're given plenty of warnings about this when you cancel the trade.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Once you agree to the trade, it's a contract.

You can't back out of a contract lightly.

That's the gist of it.

The time to decide whether to enter into the contract at the given terms was before you agreed to it.

also the item economy was a mistake

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Anyhow, the reason why it's a 7 day trade hold is that it's for people whose accounts got hijacked to force them to trade. If they can't confirm the trade via a second device, then they at least have seven days to hit the self-lock button on their account, contact Steam Support, and get their hijacked account looked at by Support, instead of simply losing their items forever.

Sure, Valve could instead give them back the item, but this involves either (1) undoing some number of market transactions and/or trades, or (2) creating a duplicate item and devaluing the item. The first option would involve too many headaches, particularly with regards to screwing up subsequent transactions/trades that were themselves legit, and the second option is...what I'd choose, personally, but I guess Valve doesn't want to do that since they want to keep their stuff valuable.

[cinedine]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

but then change your mind, or realize you made an expensive mistake, or just didn't put the right items in, and then [...]

... then what? If it were a non escrow trade, you'de be screwed. Changing your mind isn't even an arguement. Nor is "didn't put the right items in" when you have to confirm three times.

And you cannot cancel a non-escrow trade. You can decline it.

You think this is extreme? In the real world there would be hefty fees from going back on a contract.

[spaceboy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Once you agree to the trade, it's a contract.

You can't back out of a contract lightly.

That's the gist of it.

The time to decide whether to enter into the contract at the given terms was before you agreed to it.

also the item economy was a mistake

The contract argument would make more sense with larger real world business. Most people aren't doing multi thousand dollar deals. For example, two ten year olds trading a 25 cent item is a pretty dinky deal to have this kind contractual penalty.

I'm all for protections and safe guards, but it seems to me that their choice in this case was a one size fits all, anvil drop on an ant. In any case, Steam is what it is and there's no competition so I don't expect much change.

[spaceboy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von cinedine:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

but then change your mind, or realize you made an expensive mistake, or just didn't put the right items in, and then [...]

... then what? If it were a non escrow trade, you'de be screwed. Changing your mind isn't even an arguement. Nor is "didn't put the right items in" when you have to confirm three times.

And you cannot cancel a non-escrow trade. You can decline it.

You think this is extreme? In the real world there would be hefty fees from going back on a contract.

Have you traded recently? When a person sends a non-escrow trade, it is not completed until the other party manually accepts it. Up until that point, the sender can cancel the trade. I've done it countless times. I've canceled trades up to a week later. You have the option to cancel the entire time the trade is active but not yet accepted. It is the recipient that has the decline option.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mysterious Chozo Lore: Quint:

Once you agree to the trade, it's a contract.

You can't back out of a contract lightly.

That's the gist of it.

The time to decide whether to enter into the contract at the given terms was before you agreed to it.

also the item economy was a mistake

The contract argument would make more sense with larger real world business. Most people aren't doing multi thousand dollar deals. For example, two ten year olds trading a 25 cent item is a pretty dinky deal to have this kind contractual penalty.

I'm all for protections and safe guards, but it seems to me that their choice in this case was a one size fits all, anvil drop on an ant. In any case, Steam is what it is and there's no competition so I don't expect much change.

While it's true that take-backsies between kids are not exactly the stuff of million-dollar lawsuits, I would expect Steam to have to do a ton more work playing referee when stuff goes sour should they let take-backsies slide. Specifically, people without mobile auth would be even more screwed, because not only would they have to deal with a 15-day wait, during those 15 days the other party could up and cancel on them anytime without penalty. At least with the current arrangement they can be assured their trades will happen even if they havae to wait.

[Zekiran]

The rules, as I said, are clearly stated.

You - and literally everyone else using this system - must play by them.

Period. Full stop. It's not punishing you, it's saving them the hassle of hundreds more whiners every week when someone steals their stuff, hijacks their account, or gets stiffed on a deal they thought would be better.

[LeROY]

Should be stricter IMO, so people understand what a binding agreement is and the importance of fullfilling their part of the contract, whether its a legal document or verbal agreement. An offer and acceptence has been made, time or personal circumstances doesn't change that

[spaceboy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von LeROY:

Should be stricter IMO, so people understand what a binding agreement is and the importance of fullfilling their part of the contract, whether its a legal document or verbal agreement. An offer and acceptence has been made, time or personal circumstances doesn't change that

Well, if you want to be that technical, there are many contracts that allow for variations, amendments and for one or both parties to cancel the contract, with or without penalties. This is still video game land with a large percentage of kids and casual players and traders. They could polish it up a bit if they want to.

This is supposedly to help prevent fraud, but yet they won't even do basic keyword blocks and flags in the chat system. Anytime someone uses the words "report, admin or marketable" in chat, a warning box should pop up and the account should be automatically flagged for review, for example, as that seems to be the most popular scam text at the moment.

[LeROY]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von LeROY:

Well, if you want to be that technical, there are many contracts that allow for variations, amendments and for one or both parties to cancel the contract, with or without penalties. This is still video game land with a large percentage of kids and casual players and traders. They could polish it up a bit if they want to.

This is supposedly to help prevent fraud, but yet they won't even do basic keyword blocks and flags in the chat system. Anytime someone uses the words "report, admin or marketable" in chat, a warning box should pop up, for example, as that seems to be the most popular scam text at the moment.

I agree off course but if the trade was done when agreement was made, he wouldnt be able to run back to buyer/seller and trade-back either, they could remove penalty if both sides agred to cancellation and lots of things. But coming here and screaming injustice is IMO worse cause deal was made, items are already gone from both bp's just not arrived yet for security measures made to protect us the dumb

EDIT: They could also ban/issue permits to use BOT in name, or "Username taken, pick another", Not solely rely on automated flagging/banning...

[spaceboy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von LeROY:

I agree off course but if the trade was done when agreement was made, he wouldnt be able to run back to buyer/seller and trade-back either, they could remove penalty if both sides agred to cancellation and lots of things. But coming here and screaming injustice is IMO worse cause deal was made, items are already gone from both bp's just not arrived yet for security measures made to protect us the dumb

EDIT: They could also ban/issue permits to use BOT in name, or "Username taken, pick another", Not solely rely on automated flagging/banning...

Well it's not the end of the world either way, certainly, I would just like to see it spruced up. They have (slowly) polished various aspects of their platform over the years. They may make some more changes to this in the future.

One easy thing they could do would be to have a short "undo window" after each side clicks 'accept'. For example, a one or two hour window where each person can change their mind and alter or cancel the trade. After the window has passed, then it is locked in. and as you suggest, if both sides click a new 'mutual cancellation button', then it would be discarded without penalty.

[Hodman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

Have you traded recently? When a person sends a non-escrow trade, it is not completed until the other party manually accepts it. Up until that point, the sender can cancel the trade. I've done it countless times. I've canceled trades up to a week later. You have the option to cancel the entire time the trade is active but not yet accepted. It is the recipient that has the decline option.

You can cancel trade offers whether they will be held or instant because it's just that, an offer, and both parties have the option to cancel/decline said offer.

After making a trade in which both parties use the mobile authenticator your items are gone, there's no way to cancel anything at that point, you can only ask for your stuff back but they don't have to comply. In case the trade is being held you'll see a yellow banner (in your inventory and the trade offer section) with a box underneath stating that canceling such a trade will restrict you from trading for 7 days and a subsequent message with the same info if you click cancel before you confirm.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

One easy thing they could do would be to have a short "undo window" after each side clicks 'accept'. For example, a one or two hour window where each person can change their mind and alter or cancel the trade. After the window has passed, then it is locked in. and as you suggest, if both sides click a new 'mutual cancellation button', then it would be discarded without penalty.

That's basically just adding an additional step during which the offer can be changed, making the first trading step entirely redundant.

The trading interface already lets you look over every aspect of the trade before you confirm it. You can mouse over items to read their descriptions, you are forewarned when trading with someone who doesn't have mobile auth, and so on.

And it's already done in the style of a lockbox. You have to confirm that the items are correct, in a separate step, after which the items cannot be changed unless you undo the confirmation, before you can actually make the trade.

Giving a one or two hour undo window would simply delay trades by that same amount of time. On top of this, this means that making a trade isn't just agreeing to a trade, but rather, agreeing to a trade then waiting one or two hours to make sure nothing funny happens.

[Kargor]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spaceboy:

If you cancel a non-hold trade, there are zero penalties. You can cancel unlimited trades each day. No penalties.

Which proves you have NO clue what's going on.

You can't cancel a trade that isn't held. Once you agree to the trade, the trade is done. Period.

It's the people that don't use a mobile gadget that get penalized with a 15 day waiting period: once you agree to the trade, the trade is done... but with a 15 day limbo period in between. You only get a minor trade penalty if you back out now.