To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

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Ibuix
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To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Ibuix »

Just as a bit of an extension to Minnesota's original guide (and Breezier's anti-scam guide), I thought it may be helpful to have a similar one for Unusual trading exclusively. If you disagree with any information provided, please let me know, and if you have anything to add, same applies. Here goes:

Hey all, regardless of if this is your first time with unusual trading, or if you're avid in the business, everyone is susceptible to scam. Hopefully, some quick tips here can help you avoid this. Granted, a lot of this will seem like basic knowledge for experienced traders, but I would have loved to have some of this information when I first started, so take that to heart.

My number one piece of advice for new traders is: everyone makes a bad deal in their first weeks of unusual trading. Somewhere down the road, you WILL screw up, but that doesn't count you out. Get back on your feet, and work your way back, smarter than you were before.

With that little bit of info out of the way, let's get started.

Rule Number 1: Always be familiar with your prices. Now, there are an assortment of ways to do this. Most newbies refer to Backpack.tf for all of their pricing concerns, and this is the first way sharkers will target you. While it is a great reference, http://backpack.tf/ often includes outdated prices, and is not a primarily reliable source for unusual hat pricing. Refer to the following sources/methods to find a more accurate price for your hat.
  • Tf2outpost ads- While these are not going to exclusively give you sales usually, it will give you a great ballpark of what others are selling at. When referencing others' sell price, keep note of how long they've had the ad up, what kind of offers they've had in that time, and how frequently they've been bumping.

    Previous sales- Do some digging around, figure out exactly what the hat(s) in question have sold for in the past, and keep track of bud prices at the time of the sales. This is very important, as a bud back in September of 2014 was worth considerable more in terms of keys than a bud is nowadays (2015 and on).

    Cleanliness and history- While it is important to be aware of duped and gifted traits, do not let someone convince you to sell for half price and such. This is a popular sharking tactic. While duped and or gifted does influence the ease of resell, a hat in the 1-3 bud range will not always require shaving off multiple keys for selling purposes. If you are concerned about being able to resell a duped/gifted hat, simply reject the offer.

    Unpriced- Have you unboxed a 1/1 or unvalued hat yourself? Have you by some means acquired one and are uncertain of its value? Odds are, you won't be able to price it all alone if you're new to unusual trading. In which case, ask someone you trust to help. Get multiple sources. We unusual admins can be a great resources for trading help and advice, so long as you are polite and courteous in doing so. That said, if you do need help with pricing a difficult hat, send me an add and I'll do my best to offer some help. Additionally, it can sometimes be helpful to consider what tier of effect the hat falls into, i.e. Terror-watt being right around the range of Kill-a-watt, or blizzardy storm's closeness to stormy storm, but this, like mentioned above, is not always accurate.

    If you abide by these laws, and still feel uncertain about your hat's or another hat's price, I'm always willing to lend a hand, so feel free to come talk to me at any time.
Rule Number 2: Typically, your first few hats are likely not going to be consider "high-tier" or "godly" hats. Often times, they will be somewhat difficult to sell, and they will make you feel desperate to sell at time. This feeling is my personal greatest cause for profit-loss. No matter what anyone may tell you, no hat is impossible to sell, and sharkers will often play on your desperateness to get a good deal off of you. Unless you are looking to quicksell for pure for whatever reason, never excuse a hat's possible shittyness for a reason to sell it for something significantly cheaper, because it will likely be harder to sell. Additionally, be patient. Hats don't always get "godly" offers on the first day, and usually not in the first week. Wait for your perfect offer, and stay true to your buyout.

Rule Number 3: Keep track of who you're trading with. In most cases, if a trader is deviating from standard trading customs, or is pressuring you for a trade, they're worth looking into. Find his/her Steam URL in your web browser, and plug it into the resource found here: https://steamrep.com/. Note any kind of outstanding reputation they have: reports, VAC bans, trade bans, or marked friends. Trading with a marked scammer can additionally be dangerous to your own reputation, so it is important to check on these things if you feel uncertain at all about the person you're trading. On all Fire Friendly Trade servers, you can type /sr "trader's name" to check their steam rep page quickly and privately.

Rule #4; TF2Outpost Trading: Oh, the wonderful world of Outpost. The hub of scammers, sharkers, phishers, low ballers, and the occasional kind trader. There are several things to be aware of when starting Outpost trading.
Utilize your tools- Outpost is a beautiful resource. It provides you with tools that are extremely helpful when trading such as:
  • Trade bumping: Enough said.
    Hiding/accepting offers: keep your trades clean looking. Hide an offer you don't like, and keep offers you're considering, and/or your C/O's.
    Trade offer URL: setting your own is important for receiving fast offers without he concern of dealing with phishers adding you.
    Safe link URL's: highlighted in green if the URL is approved by Steam.
    A piece of advice: Try and display some level of professionalism as well in your ads. This means using somewhat proper grammar, helpful information, and a little bit of personality without becoming overbearing.
Final Rule: Phishers and scammers. If you get into using Outpost or websites of the sort, I can guarantee you will be assaulted by phishing bots on more than one occasion. Usually, if someone adds you with a private profile, level 0 account, and a generic-ass name, they're a phishing bot programmed to link you to a variety of scamming sites intended to compromise your account. Simply ignore them, block them, and click report, simple as that. Additionally, scammers are evolving their methods to take your items. An extremely popular technique is to ask you to trade the item to a trusted friend, and they will quickly attempt to change their name and credentials to match that friend. It's difficult to explain fully, but if someone asks you to trade an item to a trusted friend, simply do the same as you would a phishing bot. Regardless of what you do, however, do NOT click a link that is not verified by Steam, comes from a source that you do not trust 100%, or you do not completely recognize. Be very cautious about this, as some sites will automatically download Malware mentioned in Breezier's guide automatically without you knowing.

Special Addition: the big bud disaster. So, now that backpack is pricing unusuals in keys, I strongly advise you do the same until buds are stabilized. Loss/gain of value in conversions is causing lots of confusion, and until I can get a grip on how the market is shifting in accordance with the new changes, I wouldn't advise using buds as pure.

Hopefully, if you follow these general rules and stay up to date on the events of the economy, you should make it safely out there, at least for a little bit that is.

Stay safe, and thanks for reading,
Ibuix
Last edited by Ibuix on Thu Mar 26, 2015 2:45 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Drewski
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Drewski »

Nice guide!

I'd like to add, Stay away form the Steam Market! It's full of duped Unusuals. And there is no way to check to see if one is duped or not.
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Banshee »

For duped unusuals I would check the backpack.tf's history on that item. If backpack thinks it's duplicated, I would check tf2items.com to check for sure, as it tends to be much more accurate.
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Ibuix
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Ibuix »

Forgot to add a duped item section. As these guys said above, duped is generally considered "not good" in terms of most. To measure cleanliness, check the item's history via http://backpack.tf/, hover over the item in question, click the history button, and it will say in big, red letters in a red box at the top that the item is duped. If it does, consider what I said, duped hats are generally harder to get rid of, but not impossible. I personally only accept dupes if it is overpay, or I know that I can somehow turn profit. That should be all, thanks guys.
Last edited by Ibuix on Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:04 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Dubstab »

Complements about your guide. I like it.
Ibuix wrote:Rule Number 1: Always be familiar with your prices. Now, there are an assortment of ways to do this. Most newbies refer to Backpack.tf for all of their pricing concerns, and this is the first way sharkers will target you. While it is a great reference, http://backpack.tf/ often includes outdated prices, and is not a primarily reliable source for unusual hat pricing. Refer to the following sources/methods to find a more accurate price for your hat.
Just making sure: Is it outdated for everything or just the unusual prices?
Last edited by Dubstab on Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ibuix
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Ibuix »

Dubstab wrote:Complements about your guide. I like it.
Ibuix wrote:Rule Number 1: Always be familiar with your prices. Now, there are an assortment of ways to do this. Most newbies refer to Backpack.tf for all of their pricing concerns, and this is the first way sharkers will target you. While it is a great reference, http://backpack.tf/ often includes outdated prices, and is not a primarily reliable source for unusual hat pricing. Refer to the following sources/methods to find a more accurate price for your hat.
Just making sure: Is it outdated for everything or just the unusual prices?
Backpack is not a normative go-to for most because there is such a variety of unusuals, not all of them are able to be priced, say, every month. Most can go 8 months at a time without being updated. However, if a hat appears to be relatively up-to-date, as in, updated in te past 2-ish months, I will include that factor in pricing. Otherwise, for normal items, backpack is a great tool; I recommend it highly for lower value items (usually stuff under a bud).
Last edited by Ibuix on Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by MoneyKidKing »

Ibuix wrote:
Dubstab wrote:Complements about your guide. I like it.
Ibuix wrote:Rule Number 1: Always be familiar with your prices. Now, there are an assortment of ways to do this. Most newbies refer to Backpack.tf for all of their pricing concerns, and this is the first way sharkers will target you. While it is a great reference, http://backpack.tf/ often includes outdated prices, and is not a primarily reliable source for unusual hat pricing. Refer to the following sources/methods to find a more accurate price for your hat.
Just making sure: Is it outdated for everything or just the unusual prices?
Backpack is not a normative go-to for most because there is such a variety of unusuals, not all of them are able to be priced, say, every month. Most can go 8 months at a time without being updated. However, if a hat appears to be relatively up-to-date, as in, updated in te past 2-ish months, I will include that factor in pricing. Otherwise, for normal items, backpack is a great tool; I recommend it highly for lower value items (usually stuff under a bud).
Only other thing I'd be cautious with on backpack is painted or killstreak items, as backpack does not calculate those into its pricing.
Last edited by MoneyKidKing on Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ibuix
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Re: To New Unusual Traders: The Ways of the Trade

Post by Ibuix »

A bit in regards to Money's additions: backpack does in fact account for half of a paints price, but not killstreaks. For somewhat accurate killstreak price help, you can reference someone you trust as an accurate resource, and I would additionally be willing to help. However, a "decent" place to look is what a certain killstreak has sold for on the Steam Community Market in the past, not just what people are selling for.
Last edited by Ibuix on Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:49 am, edited 3 times in total.
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