Curse

Homicidal Brainiac · Apr 06, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Well, there was this guy who wanted to buy my Rago's Flame staff for 60K, so when I went to trade with him, he offered 60K (no suprise there) then, when I went to accept, he modifyed his offer, making it 60 GOLD instead, and I fell for it.

This happened to me NOT once, but twice, so people beware, oh, and also, NEVER sell ur items at Warcamp, because that's where all the scammers hang out, IMO.

Elementalist Tara · Apr 06, 2006, 09:04 PM // 21:04

I've never been scammed before...I am normally 2 shy do deal with anyone else in tearms of Tradeing/Running..

We had a scammer in our guild once tho...He did the Trade window trick with Sigels....We listend to him talk about it on vent...Sold a Family Crest (Quest item) as a Guild Hall Sigel (for like 2k) to some one and laughed about it....We kicked him in the next 5 mins and had a vent/Fourms ban

I know my guiild is small...only been on the Obs mode once and no one probley has heard of us but it's Irritating to get some one in your guild runing the name and rep you build it....Grrrrr!

Karmaniac · Apr 08, 2006, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Sorry, I didn't bother to read all 25 pages and I don't know if this has been suggested before but a possible solution (or rather to make scammers more conspicuos). At the moment when you start trading the other player's trade window is blanked out and you get quite vague messages saying "1 item is being offered". Would it be utterly impossible programmingwise to keep the bar showing what exactly is removed and what is being added (preferably some graphic effect here ie. grayscale to show trade being modified) or more accurate desciptions on what is happening (with a short log added perhaps)? If these measures were taken you could only blame yourself if you got scammed and overall it would make game more enjoyable.

Francis Crawford · Apr 08, 2006, 08:59 AM // 08:59

I saw somebody spamming Ascalon a few days ago recruting people into a "Scammers Guild."

Unfortunately, I don't remember if it was exactly on April 1 or not, which would be a big factor in assessing the context ...

S0L0 · Apr 08, 2006, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Hi there, I need to admit I have never get scammed yet in this game (besides buy somethings more expensiver then they real should worth), the trick t do not get scammed is very simple.

In moment you go start a trade session you make your offer, other player make their offer, Guild Wars has already a anti-scam option the "Accept" button, so all you need so is: wait for other player make his offer, and if you see EVERYTHING is correct (make sure is 60 Plat and not 60g for exemple) ONLY then you press Accept

Now case he press Modify and change it?, no problem Guild Wars automaticly cancel your "Accept" button so you will need to Accept again

, so before you Accept you ALWAYS verify everything is correct, it might take you extra 5-10 seconds to verify you offering the right items and receiving the right stuff also, but this way you never get scammed.

I mean in TRADE scams, in Run or other Services types exist bigger risk of scam but always exist 1 solution for prevent them.

Just remember the: ALWAYS verify everything before press Accept, I know, when you selling some item and some one offer you an huge offer we have tendence to press Accept right way before he change his mind, but this cases most times are scams instead he offer 100k will offer 100g, so just make full sure everything is correct before press Accept, and you never get this scam types

And extra attention in ITEMS Scams, the biggest Scams I saw so far was a seller selling an item, but instead he show 2 items you say "I just want that one" so he press modify REMOVE both and add 1 crappy item with same design as the one you wanted so you don't notice and accept the scaming deal

For exemple: "WTS: Malinon Shield and Grognar Sword" you talk to him when go start trade session he show you both (but you jut wanted the shield) so he say "ahh ok then" he remove both and add a crap Shield of the Wing (same skin as Malinon) and as you see is the SAME skin and you press Accept, well congratulations you got scamemd and probably he added you to his ignore list.

I just hope, this small reply might help some people to not get scamemd so often anymore, I know that prevent scamming is nearly impossible, but if you take always close attention to what you buying/sell before press the Accept you can prevent lot of scams

Bye

Jessyi · Apr 08, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

I also haven't read all 25 pages, but my 2 cents is as follows:

Scamming succeeds because the scammer typically makes an offer that is too good to pass up (too good to be true in other words). For example, item scams like switching sapphires for the "Heart of Ice" and then advertising the Hearts of Ice as sapphires for a drastically lowered price. People see it and say "holy damn, I gotta get that sapphire before anyone else does". Three seconds later, you're mashing the Accept button, paranoid of those other players you know are just trying to beat you to the deal. Scammers prey on anxiousness, so don't fall for it.

On another note, the irony of how scamming succeeds hasn't escaped me. If you see someone (a scammer) selling ecto for like 4.5K and you think of him as a noob and try to scalp the ecto off of him for that price, only to find out that you've been sold a mursaat token...well, the fact is, you *were* trying to cheat him, weren't you? As such, I can't feel a lot of sympathy for people who get scammed this way.

Just remember: caveat emptor.

-Jessyi

Alleji · Apr 08, 2006, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jessyi

On another note, the irony of how scamming succeeds hasn't escaped me. If you see someone (a scammer) selling ecto for like 4.5K and you think of him as a noob and try to scalp the ecto off of him for that price, only to find out that you've been sold a mursaat token...well, the fact is, you *were* trying to cheat him, weren't you? As such, I can't feel a lot of sympathy for people who get scammed this way.

Just remember: caveat emptor.

-Jessyi

You gotta be seriously stoned to mistake an ecto for a mursaat token.

jackie · Apr 10, 2006, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Oh well it was time for me to be victim of scamming I guess

...
I was looking for Drago's (Sundering) Flatbow in Droknar's ED1 and then I was whispered by this poopie (I just really like to hang him right now)...

Well he said that he will sell Drago's Flatbow to me for 20k. I was little suspicious by then and thought that he thinks Vampiric one.

So I opened trade window with him and placed 20k to the slot and he really put Drago's Flatbow (Sundering) in his slot. He pushed accept and I looked about 30s that he wasn't scamming. Then I pushed accept as well. After that I thought "oh nice that some people sell things little bit lower prices than usual". I looked to my inventory and saw non-max WHITE req11. Composite Bow in the place where Drago's Flatbow should have been. There wasn't switch in-between or I really am woodeye.

So first thing that I did after that was scroll up and took as much screenies as possible and PMMED him to give me the real bow or my money back Or Else I would send the screenies to Support. Well he apologized to me and said that 'ok plese no send I give bow bak' (he wasn't that good of a english speaker or was having brain problems).

Well he asked me to give the crappy non-max comp bow first to him and AFTER that he will give me the Drago's. A_____A yeah... I was taking screenshots whole time and to make his scamming situation even better I actually agreed and gave the bow to him. After that he put me to ignore and went offline.

So I really hope something is done to the possibility that scammer can trade you crappy items instead of the actual ones and you can't notice the switch by normal eye. It must be some macro program that switches it or fools the gamecode or something. I'm not an expert on these but nor am I stupid.

I am sending the screenies right now and hope that the guy doesn't get a chance to scam anyone else anymore.

Call me a fool if you want.

Homicidal Brainiac · Apr 11, 2006, 05:59 AM // 05:59

lol, I was in an even worse situation:

In ascalon, I was looking for a non-vamp Drago as well, and I actually got one! upon closer inspection however... It was customized >.<

and that really hacked me off.

IGNORE: ******

I then noticed that the guy it was customized to was different from the guy that sold it to me...

Or so I thought.

Later, I PMed the guy, and said something along the lines of "I'm sorry to bother you, but it seems that I was scammed into buying a customized Drago's Flatbow that seems to belong to you [NB: I was fully aware that this person might've scammed the poor soul that scammed me, but I had no other choice in the matter] would you like it back for a fee?"

... no reply... apparently wasn't offline either.

So I tryed adding this guy to my friends list. Then...

"The person you are trying to add is already on your friends list as *****"

and I thought, wtf??

turns out it was the guy I blocked, so I miserably ran down to the Merchant, and sold it for 36g ='(

jackie · Apr 11, 2006, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Sometimes I wonder that what kind of satisfaction do scammers get from Playing a fun & exciting game like Guild Wars by trying to make other people feel stupid & sad.

Guess it's nature's law that there has to be lot of snakes in the paradise.

O Nuxtofulakas · Apr 11, 2006, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Yes I have to admit that yesterday i was scammed for the very first time

I assume it has to do with the fact that I was trading quite late (03:00am) but I should be more careful anyway...
So what happened:
I wanted to buy "Bortak's Claw" so i made an offer to a guy advertising that he sells. He opened trade window, he offered the claw (i checked it) and then i offered the money (30k + 4 ectos).
Then he requested more money (+6ectos) and i refused and closed the window. And heres starts the "acting"....
He started following me, he was begging for the money, he was saying he likes my armor..bla bla bla and opened again the trade window. I made the same initial offer but I forgot to check the Claw for a second time...the result?
I bought a nice Villnar's Claw that looks exactly the same....

The conclusion is that since Bortak's items are very popular, every1 should be careful with this kind of scam...
Finally, i have to admit that what irritates me is not the money I lost ( i have 2mil+) but the feeling I was cheated... i wanna --- this guy

Da Mamba111 · Apr 12, 2006, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by S0L0

Hi there, I need to admit I have never get scammed yet in this game (besides buy somethings more expensiver then they real should worth), the trick t do not get scammed is very simple.

In moment you go start a trade session you make your offer, other player make their offer, Guild Wars has already a anti-scam option the "Accept" button, so all you need so is: wait for other player make his offer, and if you see EVERYTHING is correct (make sure is 60 Plat and not 60g for exemple) ONLY then you press Accept

Now case he press Modify and change it?, no problem Guild Wars automaticly cancel your "Accept" button so you will need to Accept again

, so before you Accept you ALWAYS verify everything is correct, it might take you extra 5-10 seconds to verify you offering the right items and receiving the right stuff also, but this way you never get scammed.

I used to think like that until I fell for a scam earlier this week. It seems that there is a trade exploit that scammers are using now that lets the number of items display correctly in the trade window but when you hit accept, you get the wrong amount. I was buying shards in ToA for 4k, a guy said he had two so i opened the trade window. He submitted his 2 shards and i submitted my 8k, but then he hit the modify/submit button repeatedly a couple times. i made sure to check, and yes it still displayed as 2 shards but when i accepted it said i traded him 8 platinum for an obsidian shard.
I only have a screenshot of the message after the trade and not the trade window because i was not expecting a scam. Because i don't have sufficient evidence in the form of a screenshot, I don't think Anet will take action but at least I can let other be aware of how they are doing it now.
Scammers are targeting items like ectos, shards and runes now. That same night, someone was buying ectos for 7.5k. Naturally lots of people jumped to sell, and then came the chat complaints that xxxxx xxxx xxx is a scammer, don't buy.

All i can advise is that if you're trading with someone and they hit Modify repeatedly, hit Cancel and tell them to make the trade clean.

malignant-heretic · Apr 29, 2006, 02:23 PM // 14:23

a guy earlier today attempted to scam me during a run to droknars forge

heres what happened:

We started the run to droks as runs do, we were all chatting and having a laff while he was running,
He died a few times, but id been with worse runners that have made it so i stayed on,( there were only 2 of us left at this point )
pretty soon he had made it to snake dance, we payed him the 1.5k he asked for with no trouble, he said ok lets go!
about 5+ minutes into the snake dance area, he ran into a group of trolls in a cave, and stopped dead. and surley enough died, then left.
now some people would think that, OK hes obviously had connection/pc problems, however i added him to my friends list so i could either get a repeat run or get my omney back and to my surprise he had not had problems but switched characters.
so all i can say is if you are getting a run to places like droks make sure the person is trustworthy, have alook around at people, ask to see if there are any repitable runners/ running guilds.
as a few are scammers
i asked for my 1.5k back and he then added me to his ignore list. which immediatly gave him away

luckily my brother playes GW also and he was online too, so i got my brother to PM him, and this is the conversation that came:
HIM: what 1.5k? ive got no idea what you are on about
ME: you know damn well what 1.5k, the 1.5k i just gave you for a run to droks
HIM: but i havent been online for almost a week, my account got hacked and ive only just got it back
-----lol this is where i cought him out:-----
ME: But then why did u add my character to your ignore list rather than telling me?
HIM: Im serious ive only just come online my account was hacked
ME: yeah likley story! well i either get my money back or ill report u for scamming
HIM: im serious ive only got 1.7k in total.
ME: well either i get payed back or ill report you,
HIM: OK FINE ILL PAY YOU YOUR MONEY BACK
-----"he made another mistake here too so i know he was lying"-----
HIM: ok ill meet you at beacons perch dit1 in a sec
-----he then opened a trade windo with my brothers character ( i was in the middle of being run to droks at the time ) and offered only 1.2k-----
ME: i payed you 1.5k not 1.2k
HIM: but this is all i have...
ME: a second ago you said u had 1.7k
-----there was a pause of about half a minute-----
ME: well???
HIM:...........ok ill get it.
HIM: ok im sorry can we still be friends?

lmao i just left at that point, i know its stupid to make a big deal over 1.5k but if he has been doing that to alot of people he could be getting alot of money. and i dont know if the 2nd person on this run was as fortunate as me to have gotten his money back.
so always check a runner out b4 joing him/her. ask around, and try to get to know some repitable runners that way u can always play it safe

AND ALSO::::

this happened to my bor yesterday, luckily he didnt fall for it,
he was trying to sell a Green item he had gotten from the Tombs not sure which, and a guy chirped up, ill let you be an officer in my guild if u give me that green item....................................
this is obviously a scam/trick, as soon as hed given the item hed be kicked out of the guild simple as. so again the onyl thign players can do is watch out for lil things ,like this and be careful

Zephro · Apr 29, 2006, 03:10 PM // 15:10

These people are scum. If they can resort so such cheap tricks online, I'll hate to meet them in real life.

WeepingRanger · May 14, 2006, 12:26 PM // 12:26

where do I report?

Suxipo · May 18, 2006, 10:58 AM // 10:58

My brother was scammed in LA when I was standing next to him.
A guy agreed to sell his Zodiac Hammer Req9 15^50 for 100K after few negotiations. That guy then said he would give some extra stuff to my brother and it's when my brother got tricked. The guy added some stuff and replaced the hammer with another crappy Zodiac hammer. My brother had been always careful when trading but it was late and tiring for him. Hit accept and got a 400g hammer.

We now added him to friend list so that everytime we see him in town, we can warn others.That's the only thing we think we can do.

Is there anyway to find out which guild he belongs to and report him to his guild leader? As with Arnet I dont think they will do anything as my brother could not get the screenshot of the trade window. The chat log did display a gold Zodiac Hammer was traded but wihout detailed stats.

speed light · May 18, 2006, 11:07 AM // 11:07

SS ur trade & chat log is basic anti-scam measure

[FnG] Lazz · May 18, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

I got scammed once cause of a run - but it ended up being quite funny. I was at Beacons Perch with my 3rd (I think) character and was having difficulty doing one of the missions (I attempted it many times but always died at the end) so I decided I wanted to be ran to Droks to get the better armour and then continue with the game.

Weirdly (well, usually) there was no runners for a while. Then after a while some people started advertising. I think I remember two were advertising at once. One of which was along the lines of 'will run 2 snakes dance 2k' etc, another one was a guy who typed in well punctuated english and seemed to mean business.

All but 1 person paid money, stating that he wasn't gonna pay until he got there. Next thing we know, after 10 seconds of the guy running, he left. Needless to say, people were pretty angry.

We all went back to Beacons Perch and the guy who had just scammed us was advertising again!. This is where the funny bit came in. He must have scammed several others because after each call he made, there was always 4+ responses from people like "insertnamehere is a scammer" "insertnamehere, when do you plan giving me my 1.5k back?" "insertnamehere get out of beacons perch" and after several minutes of people calling him a scammer etc, he left.

Swampgirl Inez · May 18, 2006, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by WeepingRanger

where do I report?

http://www.guildwars.com/support/

Fractal Star · May 18, 2006, 01:48 PM // 13:48

May already have been mentioned, but upon skimming through the many pages of dirty deeds i didnt spot it so i'll mention it.

Its a really crap scam, but you'd be suprised at the amount of people who were close to falling for it.

A month or so ago in Droks one kid was trying to sell 'Tasca's Backpack' a 'rare item' which upon opening rewards the player with a random selection of 5 golds. He also had a little shite cronie of his spamming to buy such an item for a crazy amount of money.
It didnt take long for many new players to start asking 'wow, whats the tasca'a backpack', 'how much' etc. Of course it was my duty as an honest GW player to spill the beans on this crappy scheme in public chat. But the amount of pm's i received from ppl asking if the item was genuine is testament to how gullible some ppl are. (Also the amount of ppl who must have known what was going on but chose to keep quiet dosent bode well for the general public's moral fibre)

Just watch out for groups of idiots ganging together to convince you a piece of crap worthless quest item is worth alot