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ashecitism · Nov 22, 2015

update:

This will go live on Dec 9

http://store.steampowered.com/mobile

Starting Dec 9, anyone losing items in a trade will need to have a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator enabled on their account for at least 7 days. Otherwise, to protect against unauthorized trades, items will be held by Steam for up to 3 days before delivery.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8078-TPHC-6195

What is a trade hold?

A trade hold is a period of time where the items traded are held by Steam before they are delivered.

Why are trade holds necessary?

Trade holds protect your items. Because Steam account are valuable, especially if they have items worth stealing. If you haven't protected your account with a physical device (using the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator), a trade hold will give you time to discover your account has been compromised and to prevent items from leaving your account.

How does it work?

If a user trading away items hasn't had their account protected by a Mobile Authenticator for the past 7 days, items delivery will be delayed by Steam for up to 3 days. This provides the user time to cancel the trade and any other that are pending.
Cancelling trades that are pending or in a trade hold will begin a trading cooldown on your account to prevent any further unauthorized attempts to trade away items.

How can I remove the need for a trade hold?

Using a Mobile Authenticator ensures that you and only you can trade away your items quickly and securely, so trade holds are no longer necessary. Increase your account security by getting the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator for iOS and Android devices.

--

And Steam Guard phone authentication will be needed for instant trades.

This has been making waves the last days with the trading and betting communities panicking and organizing a petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/steam-escrow-petition. Over 10k people singed it.

People found this in the javascript

http://steamcommunity-a.akamaihd.net/public/javascript/economy.js?v=YixMKYnktrpd&l=english

'What is Escrow?', After a trade has been accepted by both parties, if either party's account has not been secured by the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator, then to protect against unauthorized trades, the traded items will be placed in escrow. During the escrow period, the items will not be available to either user. This allows users who have not secured their accounts to cancel any unauthorized trades and recover their items. Canceling all pending and in-escrow trades will place a trading hold on your account for a few days to prevent any further unauthorized attempts to trade away items.

Get_craycray · Nov 22, 2015

It's funny because "escrow" sounds like a word in french ("escroc") which means "crook".

BlackBuzzard · Nov 22, 2015

This is fucking stupid. Mobile authentication should be an option not forced on people.

kurahador · Nov 22, 2015

Sigh Valve. Please fix your Mobile Authenticator first if you going to force people to use it.
Getting blocked for 2 weeks from trading just for activating them is fucking stupid.

Hamster Plugin · Nov 22, 2015

I already have 2-step on my email, which Steam Guard requires me to access. Forcing mobile auth will probably kill the Steam market.

JoseLopez · Nov 22, 2015

Ah the good ole where done dealing with this shit do just use our shitty alternative? My guess is their never gonna spend a cent on customer support which should be illegal.

KainXVIII · Nov 22, 2015

Maybe Valve should make Steam Guard app for my Nokia E52 first..

Visualante2 · Nov 22, 2015

I tell you guys valve is going to want your blood to play your games one of these days. I'm done with steam trading. The e.mail auth is annoying enough.

Randdalf · Nov 22, 2015

BlackBuzzard said:
This is fucking stupid. Mobile authentication should be an option not forced on people.

It's not? If your account isn't secured using it, then you have to wait for a while before making trades. This doesn't stop people who don't have the mobile authenticator from trading.

Stevey · Nov 22, 2015

There isnt the option for me to use this on my Windows phone.

Roussow · Nov 22, 2015

I don't have a mobile phone, will there be an alternative if this goes through?

Renekton · Nov 22, 2015

Get_craycray said:
It's funny because "escrow" sounds like a word in french ("escroc") which means "crook".

French people don't use escrows?

Nzyme32 · Nov 22, 2015

If I wasn't using the mobile authenticator, this still wouldn't bother me since it's only for a few days. Obviously this fucks with the gambling folk that don't want to use the authenticator.

What Valve should do is make it optional, but make it clear that the accountability for any loss through fraud is something they may not be able to help with if they opt out, which is pretty much how things are now. Anyone else can then use this escrow system

Visualante2 · Nov 22, 2015

Valve already set a precedent that we will help you if you have e.mail auth on. Now they're back tracking. They're going to make this apply to everyone to save them having to say uh yeah we're not going to do that now.

This going to just make people use steam marketplace more so valve can make more money and spend even less on customer service.

dity · Nov 22, 2015

Hm, I think I'll enable two factor authentication anyway. Is it any faster than having a code emailled to you and then copy/pasting it in? I hope it is otherwise damn.

spindoctor · Nov 22, 2015

I can't imagine Valve is particularly happy about this either. Trading, the community market and even offsite gambling are almost pillars on which their communities are built and restricting them will negatively impact monetization. And yet for the past year that's exactly what they've been slowly doing.

I reckon this is meant to counter two problems. The first is the customer support issue. Instead of increasing bandwidth to deal with support requests, they are trying to reduce the number of requests they get in the first place. I imagine a lot of them must be due to scammed items and things like that. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they are trying to restrict opportunities for credit card fraud. It is currently rather easy to use the trading system to get away with this kind of fraud. That leaves a huge headache for Valve to deal with and opens them up to potentially getting blacklisted by credit card companies which would be catastrophic.

fhqwhgads · Nov 22, 2015

Visualante2 said:
I tell you guys valve is going to want your blood to play your games one of these days. I'm done with steam trading. The e.mail auth is annoying enough.

Pretty much
Step 1. Enter this code from your email
Step 2. Enter this code from your phone
Step 3. Inject blood sample into USB port
Step 4. Provide fingerprint scan
Step 5. Eye scan test

Congratulations, you can now trade that shitty emote you don't want anymore. You have also been banned from trading for one year just in case your account is hacked.

rainking187 · Nov 22, 2015

Seems like this could potentially kill trading coupons if you don't use the mobile authenticator, depending on how long they're held in escrow they could expire before you get them.

Nzyme32 · Nov 22, 2015

dity said:
Hm, I think I'll enable two factor authentication anyway. Is it any faster than having a code emailled to you and then copy/pasting it in? I hope it is otherwise damn.

Personally I find it way faster. When I enter the Steam password, even when my phone is locked, it will have a notification of the authorisation code on the screen, so I can just type it out. With email, I'd have to unlock the phone and click the notification to get to it

dity · Nov 22, 2015

Nzyme32 said:
Personally I find it way faster. When I enter the Steam password, even when my phone is locked, it will have a notification of the authorisation code on the screen, so I can just type it out. With email, I'd have to unlock the phone and click the notification to get to it

Seems worth enabling then. The current Steam app is pretty alright so I'm gonna go for it when I get get off my ass and enable it.

ashecitism · Nov 25, 2015

https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/669313626751246336

Steam will introduce a hold on trades for up to 3 days if either of parties do not use the mobile authenticator.

Do ShowEscrowExplanationDialog() on https://steamcommunity.com/market/ if you want to see it for yourself.

ashecitism · Nov 25, 2015

This will go live on Dec 9

Starting Dec 9, anyone losing items in a trade will need to have a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator enabled on their account for at least 7 days. Otherwise, to protect against unauthorized trades, items will be held by Steam for up to 3 days before delivery.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8078-TPHC-6195

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