We using dogs as a trading currency again?

Might be able to buy a g pan at long last..

Who is going to make a price suggestion for the dog?

I'm worried about the stuffed animals

Sorry, I just seriously don't think this suggestion as is should be accepted and I'm flabbergasted that most people are ignoring what I think is an extremely concerning conceptual problem here. A lot of the conversation seems to ignore the logistical problem which to me is that we have no way to verify receipt of payment.

Let's put aside the fact that the screenshots of "proof" are extremely laden with jokes that make this seem like this isn't a legitimate thing that happened. Even assuming the dog was actually exchanged, we don't have any proof of that. This sets a bad precedent; we expect actual proof of exchange for every other item here, otherwise it's no better than the spreadsheets.

It just would set a terrible precedent of claiming you have exchanged any number of unverifiably transferred physical items. How is this much different from me claiming I included an additional 4000 dollars cash, or a Rembrandt painting, or gold bullion on top of other items of a trade? My particular concern here is that, obviously here it seems funny or trivial or whatever you want to characterize it as, but there's a serious price manipulation issue if someone with malicious intent were to, using this precedent: do a huge bulk trade with a lot of stuff and then throw in an unverifiable physical item (with an arbitrary valuation, too: this is not even to mention that this precedent would require price moderators to develop familiarity with any other market of physical items to provide "minis"/accurate pricing for those in relation to TF2 items) to boost the valuation.

Granted, that's obviously a small percentage of the overall value of the trade, so I would think that this should just be resuggested at 450 keys less than here just excluding the dog aspect entirely. I really hope a price mod reads this amid all of the comments just calling the seller a bad person, because this worries me perhaps more than any suggestion I've ever seen on this site as to the integrity of the pricing system itself.

How do you check previous sales for the dog

"We both agree that this painting's price is 1 zillion keys so let's make a suggestion for this item for 1 zillion keys!!!"

Ez downvote

I wish we could react to suggestions with images, this is one of those “what the fuck am I reading” moments.

everybody need to start bullying orange for this.

Think its time to log off the internet for now...

I can't believe this is real. IF for some reason it is real, I feel like it should not be used to suggest a price here out of respect for the poor dog. Giving away your "life long best friend" for the equivalent of less than $1,000 in PIXELS is completely despicable. OZest has plenty of funds in his tf2 backpack to make up that price and frankly is just irresponsible by basically throwing away his best friend. Good riddance.

I think everyone is overlooking the value on the dog. It has recurring costs for food/vet bills. I think that should raise the price of the pullover.

Hey all! So for some context, yes, I do have Ozest's dog and will be providing some evidence for the delivery

Due to ozest situation he's unable to take care of the dog rn, and I've known him for awhile, so I've decided to help him take care of it

His dog is pretty lively and I've played with him a couple of times at his house, so that was the reason he decided to "sell" the dog to me

Out of principles we should not put a price tag on any living being, which obviously includes the dog. Either exclude the dog from the sale or exclude the whole sale. I would be in favor of the latter.

Let me begin by stating that I am - under no circumstances - going to allow the exchange of a living being as part of a price suggestion. At the time I called this during the initial discussion with mods, it was still unclear whether this was a meme or an incredibly questionable trading practice. Evidence provided seems to hint at the latter, though I feel the real situation might not fit in either of these definitions.

Based on the comments, it seems - much to my dismay - that it was not a meme; I had really hoped it was (and still believe it could be), but damn. They also seem to imply that the "450 keys" both parties "agreed on" is evidently not justifiable in any way, as the seller of the dog apparently valued him/her at 0 keys. Even if this exchange was somehow in the best interest of the dog, the way his/her function in the trade is described here takes away any credibility of any agreed upon value.

Regardless of the ethical issue at play here, there's another problem with the sale as proposed here: it is simply impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the dog was part of the trade. What proof would you provide? Pictures of the dog at different places with different people? You could be neighbors for all I know, or the dog could just be staying at your place temporarily, or maybe it was your dog all along. Even aside from the fact that it's gonna be very hard to verify if it's the same dog in both pictures (maybe you just have dogs that are alike), and you can't have him/her come forward saying "woof Im the same dog as in that other picture". There's just no way for us to verify. This is an issue shared across all tangible goods exchanged (including physical cash), which is why I believe no such goods should be considered for the value of a sale here.

Additionally, it would be impossible for us to appraise the dog; I have had several purebred cats myself; we got one of them for free due to circumstances - does that mean she would've been worth 0 keys while cats we paid money for would've counted as more? Even with the 'pet stores do the same' argument to mitigate the cruelty of the situation, there's never going to be a viable way to put a price on a living creature that we're going to accept here.

That leaves us 3 options here:

- Decline the suggestion as a whole

- Include the sale at its real value (so minus the 450)

- Disregard the sale entirely and just use the other sale

I do not believe it's fair to decline the whole suggestion here. Which of the other two options we're going to go with is still being discussed amongst price mods.

BRUH MOMENTO.

is this real 💀

can we get pics of the dog?

I'm just commenting to prove I was here when this happened.

gobsmacked

Living, breathing dogs are the new buds.

Dawg mini'ed a suggestion on a live dog for a tf2 misc. Tf2 trader moment

Alright, so we have received some explanatory messages across the moderator team from the users involved. I have looked at everything and discussed with the other price moderators what to do with this suggestion. Several factors are described in detail, and for everyone that does not want to read a wall of text, I will provide a summary at the end.

The first factor that brought controversy is the inclusion of a living creature in the trade. This is something that - as said - I am not going to consider for a price suggestion, regardless of the circumstances. A forum post provided a detailed explanation on the exact situation, which makes the dog exchange a lot less heinous, but it still does not warrant its inclusion here. So the question is: do we want to take the sale without the 450 in value, or do we remove the sale as a whole? There is not a particular rule we can go by in such a situation, so something like this will be treated on a case-by-case basis.

That same forum post brought forth the second factor - it showed that the two traders involved in this situation are IRL friends. This is not always an issue for suggestions, but brings a problem here. Not only does the post indicate that Gummy taking care of the dog is something that - by itself - is beneficial for both parties involved (and thus goes against considering it a financial exhcange), it also shows that exchanging the dog predates the pullover deal, as it is stated in the post that Gummy had already taken care of the dog in previous circumstances. This makes it comparable to a trading scenario where a hat was shared between users prior to a "final" exchange, in which case we reject sales, even if they only include in-game items. It should be noted that this goes for the dog, not for the pullover.

Another explanation was provided to the moderator team, bringing forth a couple of key details that were not properly described previously. It descibes how medical bills were a point of discussion, where both parties involved would stand up to pay them. It then describes how they decided on 50/50 and that 450 was paid as cash to cover those bills. If this was in fact real cash, then it would have gone alongside the pullover, and should have been subtracted from the trade value rather than added to it. I assume what they mean is that the "450" extra value was to cover the medical expenses, and thus that the pullover constituted 450 keys extra. This makes no sense as that pullover remains an in-game item, and you cannot pay medical bills with 1/10th of a virtual item. It might have been meant as a compensation (which takes away the argument that the dog was transferred due to financial necessity, because if you can keep an 8000 dollar item and still be able to pay those bills, money is not your issue), but even then, the 450 value depicted is related to the exchange of the dog and not to the pullover, and should be treated separately. This is strengthened by the fact that it is stated that the two friends brought the two (separate) situations together in the suggestion "...as it would be funnier if he traded his family dog for a tf2 item".

This ties in with the first point, as there seem to be a lot of personal favors involved in both the dog exchange and the pullover exchange. These favors may have aligned in time, and may even be related, but exactly thát is the reason this exchange cannot be properly evaluated for a price suggestion. All value definitions here are arbitrary, and cannot be verified. Based on some descriptions of the dog I have seen, it was considered a liablity for Zest, so having someone take care of the dog could also be considered rendering of services to Zest. This too is something one could argue is worth financial compensation or a personal favor. With the numbers mentioned, this brings forth an uncertainty of at least +/- 450 keys (compared to the in-game value of the sale around 4700), making the sale incredibly unreliable.

A final point that was considered here - which might seem very obvious - is that we have another sale to go by here. One in full pure/pure equivalents too. This means that there is no reason for us to rely on a sale that brings forth so much uncertainty, especially not one where the in-game value (of around 4700 without the dog, there is a slight miscalculation in the suggestion) supports a suggested value based on sale 1 alone here. As a result, we have decided it is best in this case to disregard the controversial sale, and make this 4825 flat.

To summarize:

- The dog exchange should be treated separately from this suggestion here

- Personal favors exchanged between the two users result in high uncertainty that make verifiable portion of the sale in question extremely unreliable

- Another clear-cut sale is available, not deviating too much from the verifiable portion of sale 2, meaning we need not take any desparate measures.

=> for this suggestion, it is best to disregard sale 2.

Based on this, you can resuggest this at 4825 flat, based on sale 1.