[Q] How would I go about selling an unusual for actual money?
See title. Is it legal to sell hats for real money? Could I get my steam account banned? What are the sorts of things to look out for (eg. scams).
I have a Burning Flames Head Warmer, and from what I can tell its pretty rare, and i've had some interest just for the flavor of it (overheated pyro head has caught on fire). I am very inexperienced in trading, but I don't want to get into the whole buds/bills/refined game.
Posted Jul 4, 2012, 1:46 AM UTC
1015
That hat is worth a lot of billz. Basically cash trading is "against the rules" officially, but it's not something that valve will ban your account for. If you get scammed while attempting to do that though, you're on your own. They know cash trading exists and basically just look the other way, it's not really shady if you KNOW the person supplying the cash is trustworthy.
Basically, the only thing you need to worry about is chargebacks. That's when someone gives you money, takes your hat, then disputes the payment and gets their money back, keeping your hat. It's rampant in the trading world, and people with no reputation will add you and try to score your hat for free pretty much.
For cash, ALWAYS make sure the person you're dealing with has bought a lot of high profile items before. Go with your gut, if they haven't bought several HIGH value (as in, >$300) hats in the past, just walk away. Make sure the person you're talking to MATCHES the person who's rep you're looking at as well, people like to impersonate others and try to piggyback off their rep. Make sure who you're receiving cash from IS THE REAL PERSON WHOS REP YOU TRUST. I can't emphasize this enough, imposters are everywhere. If I'm imphasing, there's a dude named imphas1ing trying to steal my rep and scam a hat. Just look around and take it slow.
Use a TRUSTED middleman from steamrep.com. These dudes watch out for the community and mark people's profiles as scammers or legit. go to steamrep.com and put in the profile of the guy you're dealing with EVERY TIME just in case, no one wants to deal with a scammer no matter what. Just do it and be safe. If you see a bunch of green "THIS DUDE IS CHILL" shit on steamrep.com while you're looking for a middleman, they're 100% legit, no worries. See some red SCAMMER SHIT? RUN AWAY SCREAMING DUDE YOU DODGED A BULLET BRO. Always verify the profile name/numbers just to be safe.
Other than that, once you've verified the dude you're dealing with won't charge back and you're not just trusting some random to pay you after you get their hat, make the trade through a legit middleman and BOOM you just made real billz from a hat son. It's addicting, watch out. Might be making a little enterprise of this shit once you get a taste for it ;D
Add me sometime if you want some advice, I do a lot of high value trades and I'm not even going to make an offer on your hat. Don't have any cash ATM and blew all my budz on other shit, hit me up for advice if you even doubt someone the slightest, I know a lot of the trustworthy people in the tf2 trading world. Don't hesitate to ask OTHER PEOPLE for advice either, r/tf2trade is full of trustworthy dudes, mattie for example wouldn't hesitate to help you if you asked.
my profile: http://steamcommunity.com/id/imphasing
mattie, he's always down to help a noob: http://steamcommunity.com/id/mattie (TONS OF UNUSUAL TEAM CAPTAINS WORTH THOUSANDS, if he doesn't have them, it's not mattie)
EDIT: forgot to price check this mug. At the very least, it's worth ~12 buds, which is $360ish bucks, which is ~290 keys, which is ~710 refined metal or so. That's kind of a lowball price too, you could get more in unusuals/promos without a lot of work. GG YOU SCORED.
along with this, join us in rugc trade chat! there will usually be someone there that can help you!
WHAT THIS MAN SAID. Click the "join our steam chatroom" click on the right toolbar. Lots of people will help you out, the more heads you get advice from the better.
You are a really cool human being for spelling that out. I know it would have taken me another year to figure out what you spelled out with a few minutes of typing. Thank you.
Could you elaborate how this works? I'm pretty new to unusual trading. Thanks for the very informative cash trading post as well!
He was trying to say that 12 buds is selling the hat short a bit - it can very easily fetch more. As for unusuals and promos, usually when you state the price of a hat you're listing the promo (earbuds, etc) price. Many people ask for an overpay in unusuals (10 pure earbuds or 11 buds worth of unusuals, for example) because not everyone is interested in other hats, and would rather have an easy way to acquire cash (through earbuds/keys) rather than have another hat or two they'd have to sell. Because of this people often ask for an "overpay" in other unusuals in order to compensate for any hassle that may come along with re-selling another hat.
On the contrary, most people ask for more in other hats simply because it can net a bit of profit.
Wasn't sure exactly what you were asking, but hopefully that covers it for the most part.
Thanks so much, this is really helpful. I good community is a wonderful thing.