Scamming Methods Exposed

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by EarlVonKippler

Do you trust the people in your soc?
thread - Do you trust the people in your soc?


seems this thread and the thread i mention need to chat a bit. in this thread every one is like 'don't trust anyone, and if you do you are stupid' and in the other thread everyone is 'of course i trust everyone in my soc'

both can't be right

Ah, but they can. The context of that other thread is fairly specific.
And to clarifiy, I trust the people in my SOC, within the game. There is nothing I have in EU that I would not readily share with my soc mates and a select few outside the SOC.
On the other hand, were I to do anything stupid to test that trust? To test the friendships we have? Probably not. Would I ask them to do anything to test that trust, and friendship? Probably not.

i trust those that deserve trust and NEVER trade anything to someone i don't trust 100% without collatoral.

I go back to what I said in another post.
You should never loan anything to anybody that you would not be willing to simply give them. That, after all, is what a loan is. You give something away, but you retain an expectation that they will give/pay it back. If you do that often enough, you are bound to find those who will fail to meet your expectations. Fact of life.

[Pepper]

Originally Posted by dragonfred

Here's a couple small time hunting scams:
1. Person sets up a team and you join. You go off hunting and realize they are getting all the loot.
-Usually doesn't last long if you pay attention. Always check the Team setup when you join a team and make sure you are OK with the rules.
2. You go out hunting with someone and you are both carrying medium/big guns. All of a sudden you realize they are doing no damage and using an Opalo.

This is actually not a scam, especially since you're getting a head-up by MA to check the rules of distribution for a Team when you join. It may be an exploitation of peoples trust, or simple laziness, but there's a limit to pampering too.

[PeteHines]

Originally Posted by LarsMac

Let me guess. You all five are male (and I don't mean the Avi's), and this avi is a sexy looking female.

lol no actually my wife to be is also in my soceity and she was one of the members present

[BlackHawk]

Trust scam.... They are so bad. And the worst is when that person is someone you've meet in real life. It happened to me. But I will go to the police. I had some personal stuff that kept me from going sooner, but at most next week I will report it. I am not sure what charges should be made in such a case. Anyway, unfortunatley, as far as I know, are only minor charges. Not as bad as robbery, even if it is just as bad.

[Riddick]

Neverlie never left

[Riddick]

more than one person more than one place

[Battle]

this game is being ruined for me.i only play now because iv invested money into it.
my soc has been hit with 3 scammer atemps this week.
iv had someone on my fl who tried to scam me.
almost on a daily basis i experince some kind of scam attemt.
im gunna give this game 1 more month ("with no depos") if it dosnt improve im off to lotro for good.

this post belongs in noob coz thats who they target the most

[KP708]

Originally Posted by Battle

this game is being ruined for me.i only play now because iv invested money into it.
my soc has been hit with 3 scammer atemps this week.
iv had someone on my fl who tried to scam me.
almost on a daily basis i experince some kind of scam attemt.
im gunna give this game 1 more month ("with no depos") if it dosnt improve im off to lotro for good.

this post belongs in noob coz thats who they target the most

It's true scammers are a nuisance, because they waste your time.

And if they catch you, then it's worse, because you're down peds, although if it's a genuine scam, imo you should report them to MA support, with screenshots.

But this is just a reason to be on your guard.

However, you shouldn't let it spoil your game. If you find people are attempting to scam you a lot, don't frequent those areas. If someone on your FL tries to scam you, query it, and if it's not just ignorance remove them.

If you rush around PA accepting random requests for private trade, then you are likely to be an easier target, but that's not playing, that's rushing around PA accepting trade requests.

In all honesty, while it's deplorable that scammers exist, most of the scams they try are easy to spot, and easily avoided. Probably the only one you can't readily defend against is if the senior members of your soc or your mentor abuses your trust and scams you.

But still, building up knowledge of the game can help against this kind of thing. And frankly if a soc member, or worse, a mentor tried, say, the armour upgrade scam on a newbie they should be reported. The chat log at MA would clearly show what they had done.

I don't know what the 3 scam attempts you mention were...and given that this thread is about educating people about how not to be scammed, maybe you should say what they were, but they were attempts, not successes. You foiled them, they wasted their time on you and failed. Good for you.

See it as another defeat for the scammers, and carry on playing - don't let their petty behaviour ruin your enjoyment.

[Pepper]

Originally Posted by Superhal

LOTTERY
20 PED PER TICKET
WINNER TAKE ALL
-=THIS IS NOT A SCAM=-
LOTTERY
20 PED PER TICKET
WINNER TAKE ALL
-=THIS IS NOT A SCAM=-
LOTTERY
20 PED PER TICKET
WINNER TAKE ALL
-=THIS IS NOT A SCAM=-
*spam spam spam*

This is a surprisingly common scam. But it's actually more than that, it's a direct violation of the EULA simply because it's against Swedish law.

If you see people doing this

• take a screenie

• make a support case in Abuse

• send the screenie to: MA abuse@mindark.com and mark it with the same number as your support case.

• If you got the full name of the avatar, time and place it's even better.

[KeynesAlley]

I saw the funniest scams last night in PA.

Scam #1;

"ATTENTION NEWBS........ I have a MAGIC unDOUBLING SCRIPT..... This awesome magic script will unDOUBLE your money by at least 50%. THIS IS A LIMITED TIME OFFER TO NEWBS ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!"

Basically, you give him your money and he takes at least half and gives you what is left, if anything. He spammed it so fast that it was extremely hard to read the whole thing properly.

Scam #2;

I got a PM and the guy asked it I wanted to buy some pants. I told him NO, that I already had some. Then he asked if I wanted to trade my 7 ped pants for his 100 ped blue pants.

I was curious on what the scam was, so I said YES.

Anyway, so he brings up the trade window and tells me to put my pants in the trade window, so I do. Then he puts in OJ pants. When I questioned him about it, he claimed that it was a glitch in the game's trade window, but they were really worth 100 ped and would be blue once I got them in my inventory.

Of course when I refused the trade I got called several not so nice names.

Originally Posted by KP708

It's true scammers are a nuisance, because they waste your time.

And if they catch you, then it's worse, because you're down peds, although if it's a genuine scam, imo you should report them to MA support, with screenshots.

But this is just a reason to be on your guard.


In all honesty, while it's deplorable that scammers exist, most of the scams they try are easy to spot, and easily avoided. Probably the only one you can't readily defend against is if the senior members of your soc or your mentor abuses your trust and scams you.

But still, building up knowledge of the game can help against this kind of thing. And frankly if a soc member, or worse, a mentor tried, say, the armour upgrade scam on a newbie they should be reported. The chat log at MA would clearly show what they had done.

MA doesn't care about scams unless they break the EULA or some other official rule.

There are plenty of posts floating around here with responses from MA support on this issue saying "next time be more careful" and "all PvP transactions are final".