Valve seems set to incorporate escrow into Steam trading.
Fans found this text in Steam’s website code:
'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.
To explain this in another way, escrow is a special arrangement two parties can enter when there are conditions to the sale of a product. Partial payment is deposited for said service or product, and when all the conditions are met, the escrow transfers payment over and the transaction goes through.
In this specific case, the condition is that both traders use Steam Mobile Guard authenticator. In case either party does not have the authenticator, the items are placed in escrow, where neither party will be able to touch them for some time.
This change is intended to protect users from fraud. Within the escrow period, a user can cancel unauthorized trades and get their items back. If you do this, your account is also put on hold from doing any further trading.
While fans are up in arms, even creating this petition, Valve has yet to confirm this. Is this change welcome to you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
