Barter full of sharks...

[Stefanos13]

Welp after beeing a very active trader in communities like the tf and cs ones as well as the steamtrades one i decided to make some trades via barter. Unfortunately a big % of the people i encounter are sending me very very very bad -nicest way to describe - offers.The majority of them are old and 'reputable 'traders . Counter offering or simply asking for good and rare titles in exchange for a 1-2$ game, which is found easily in keyshops .Is that common when many of you encounter new users in here? No need to mention names- yet- not im really interested if some of them wont trade with me but Isimply needed to write down : that kind of behaviour is hideous you people! To the new users: Always double check if what you are offered is at least close to what it is asked from you. Peace... To the olders : Am i unlucky or that is how it is in here?

[luckz]

Not to rain on your parade too much, but today I looked at some of the offers you sent vs the ones you received, and some of the offers you sent were worse than ones you declined as "not equitable".


If you so desperately seek to find a Kiwami 2, why do you have a tradable Kiwami 1? Is your objective to sell them on as a double pack?

[Tecfan]

You can ignore people you deem to be sharks and your experience will gradually become better.

[Stefanos13]

Originally posted by luckz:

Not to rain on your parade too much, but today I looked at some of the offers you sent vs the ones you received, and some of the offers you sent were worse than ones you declined as "not equitable".


If you so desperately seek to find a Kiwami 2, why do you have a tradable Kiwami 1? Is your objective to sell them on as a double pack?

Αs far as i remember the kiwami 1 was part of a 2 game offer for kiwami 2(both games i offered were found in the wishlist of the other user). It wasnt a 1:1 . Also last time i checked the key shop market the total was equal to what i asked. I could understand and agree to a small or a decent -if im desperate for the game - overprice offer but my point are no such trades but trades like that : https://prnt.sc/wmxwcy , But you already know that...

[gorthic]

Originally posted by Tecfan:

You can ignore people you deem to be sharks and your experience will gradually become better.

Yes, this has made barter much easier for me to use.

Just to be clear, "ignore" is a barter feature. Click on the username, and there's an ignore button.

Stefanos13, I don't think people who make bad offers are always sharks, or that making bad offers makes someone a bad person.

I ignore people not because I'm angry, but simply to get fewer offers that waste my time. I also hope that people aren't upset when I ignore them. It doesn't mean I hate you, just your offers! :)

If I refuse an offer from someone and they have made over 100 offers to people but have less than 10 or 15 percent of their sent offers completed, I might ignore them for 1 year or permanently, depending how old the account is and their other statistics.

[Milouze]

Barter.vg is rather full of resellers + collectors now, and not enough people trading for games they actually want to play.

Originally posted by Stefanos13:

Counter offering or simply asking for good and rare titles in exchange for a 1-2$ game, which is found easily in keyshops .Is that common when many of you encounter new users in here?

You lost me there. Good and rare attributes reside in the eye of the trader; also, the price you mention is not defined (I encounter 50/50 users on that, some with Steam store in mind, some with "keyshops").

I believe the site is still relevant thanks to the various tools it offers, the counter option in particular. Be sure to use comments and the ignore feature as well, that should help you narrow down your "to do business with" list.

[r6d2]

Originally posted by Tecfan:

You can ignore people you deem to be sharks and your experience will gradually become better.

This is a trading site so ideally, IMHO, you'd want to reach an agreement over time with people that have similar trading parameters as you do. Therefore, ignoring others on the first strike seems to be a bit overkill.

Instead of plainly and immediately ignoring anyone, I've developed over the years some form of an algorithm that has given me good results.

First, I always try to counter, no matter how bad the offer is. And I generally manage to make a successful counter, unless there are no reasonable matches at all.

I expect others to do the same, but I understand that not everyone will always be in the mood, so I proceed like this:

1. If I send an offer that gets declined and not countered, I use the skip function on the other party for 2 weeks, and tag them as Group "E".
   
2. If I send a 2nd offer in a row and also get declined with no counter, I use again the skip function but for 1 month, and tag them as "D".
   
3. If the 3rd offer in a row gets declined with no counter, I skip for 3 months and tag them as "C".
   
4. If a 4th offer gets declined with no counter, then I begin to use the same categorization, but ignore the other party for the corresponding time instead of skipping.

Any accepted and successfully completed trade over time resets the status of the other party to group "A". Barter personal user category is quite useful for all this.

Also, statistics have improved a lot on Barter, so you can use this indicator to spot a lowballer o "hard to deal with" traders.

Hope this helps!

[bugc]

Yep, full of Sharks in my experience too.
SteamTrades is better imo

[Tecfan]

Originally posted by Bug:

Yep, full of Sharks in my experience too.
SteamTrades is better imo

Trust me, the same "sharks" will be on SteamTrades as well, now also with anonymous alts in an increasing fashion. The worst place to get sharked is Reddit, then Steamtrades, simply due to the fact that on Barter, you can actually see the trading stats of your games, and thus avoid getting sharked.

[Tiger Freak]

idk about all that, I think it's preference with most people on barter. However, I have offered multiple wishlisted games i have marked by them as mid - high tier for a non bundled game (which they were more than likely given or traded for themselves...) just to be declined. What's in it for those people? I get that they may be previously bundled for non bundled, but I have them, you don't. You want them, I don't. You missed out on the bundle price which then makes those games more valuable again. Is it nuts to think that?

[Tecfan]

Sharks/resellers need at least 2x or 3x the grey value if it's going to be worth it to them. Several of them buy games on-demand depending on the game (many people use fake sources on barter). They'll likely need to pay taxes off their grey profits, pay fees to the grey site, set off time to do the trade and take all risks with the other party's key. You're better off just ignoring all known resellers and dealing with epic gamers instead.

Just because something is on their wishlist doesn't mean that they'll accept any trade for it

[luckz]

Originally posted by Matty Ice:

However, I have offered ... just to be declined. What's in it for those people?

You can always ask in the #general channel on the Discord if the users there have an opinion why a particular trade didn't go anywhere or how to improve it.
There's at least a dozen different value systems traders might use when deciding about your offer, plus things like how urgently they want to trade something, or they might be considering alternative offers / cheaper prices.

(Pretty far from the original topic of this thread though.)

[Joe]

yep wish there was a feature that labelled all resellers so i know whether im wasting my time or not by sending an offer, the majority of people have wishlisted games they have no interest in anyway lol

[Hallak65]

Originally posted by Joe:

yep wish there was a feature that labelled all resellers so i know whether im wasting my time or not by sending an offer

If they have more than one highly wanted unbundled games, they are resellers

Originally posted by Joe:

the majority of people have wishlisted games they have no interest in anyway lol

That's life. I put a bunch of ppl on skip matches after too much decline but not countered offers. They can still send me offers, but I don't see them in matches. At "ignore" they can't send you an offer too, but I use that for true morons, I like to leave open the possibility of future trade.