Valve have shifted their position on item recovery for victims of Steam scams, and will no longer reimburse those who fall prey to it, with the chief reason being that scams are too easily identifiable.
“We provide enough information on our website and within our trading system to help users make good trading decisions.” said Valve. “All trade scams can be avoided.”
Valve updated their scamming FAQ with their new stance.
“Our community assigns an item a value that is at least partially determined by that item’s scarcity. If more copies of the item are added to the economy through inventory rollbacks, the value of every other instance of that item would be reduced.
“We sympathize with people who fall victim to scams, but we provide enough information on our website and within our trading system to help users make good trading decisions. All trade scams can be avoided.”
Aside from the concerns over item values, I’ve got to say that I’ve not seen many convincing Steam scams. Most require you to manually click links, which are easily foiled if you look at the full URL.
Have you ever been the victim of a scam on Steam?