Curse

Experiment_Jon · Aug 16, 2005, 01:11 AM // 01:11

"***names edited out*** are SCAMMERS! I'm 20k short now!"

NOTE TO MODS: Sorry, I'm not sure if we can mention names, but I think it is important in this case, especially since there is a chain of them working together.***Sorry...board policy. :/

Well, go around posting that around Lions Arch, where these guys operate enough, and you'll get sympathy from half, and called a noob who should raise your awareness by the other half. I guess both are right, and I guess I sort of had it comming. But come on, I should have known better, and this thread is here to hopefully stop YOU from getting scammed by these guys and their guild.

Everyone has seen those games in the major cities, Ascalon, LA, Amnoon Oasis, etc, where someone offers a prize for you to do something super simple, be it answering some random trivia for a Max bow, or getting into the water in LA for a gold Firey Dragon Sword. And in every case, I have ALWAYS recieved my reward if I have won. And I'm sure you have too. Kudos to the bored people who made those contests.

Anyway, last night, I happened to run across this newbie. (No, he isn't the one who scammed me). He wanted to be run from Beacons Perch to LA (which he didn't even know stood for Lions Arch), and was taking every percaution to make sure I wasn't being scammed out of my running services. (Pfft, everyone pays when I get there, don't have to spell out that you agree to pay so I can take a screen, but I appreciate the effort). Anyway, I ran this kid all over the place, eventually to Divinity Coast, and ToA. He was a Lv 12, and was throwing cash at me like crazy to give him farming info, weapons, etc. I got like 50k from him. And thats from someone who didn't even know what LA stood for. (He got the money from a friend who quit GW) So I came to believe that there were actual generous people out there.

SO HERES THE SCAM PART. While cruising in Lions Arch, ***name edited*** declares "Find me and win 100k and a max stormbow!" Easy enough, I find him hiding at the far off lighthouse. I open up his trade window. He closes it, and says I gotta do a little quest. "Find me a Dye Remover." Sure. A small 50g investment for a 100k, who could resist? I sprint to the Merchant, and eagerly buy 2 dye removers. I give him one Dye Remover, and say, do i get the prize now? He says there are more parts. He requests that I find an Orange Dye. I have 10 in storage. So sure...give him the dye. Now he wants a Sapphire. I'm like dooh... At this point, it seems like one of those cheezy junk mail trivia things, which enter you in a 1,000,000 dollar pot, but require you to send increasing amounts of money in their semi-final, super-semi-final, super-almost-final, etc rounds. So, I'm like, "You promise you'll pay if I win?" He says yes. So I buy him a Sapphire from the trader. Then he wants a Glob of Ecto. OMG...he promises theres only one more round after it. I already invested 10k in it so whats another 11? I give him the ecto, and he says the final quest is to give him another dye remover. BINGO, I have a spare in my inventory. Instantly, I open up his trade, and stick the Dye Remover in. He cancels trade, and announces that a guild mate, ***name edited*** is the winner. O...M...G...zqagiopnpobiuwenrtwohwrja...GAH!

I tell him that I won, and ask him why he canceled my trade. I tell him he's a scammer. I get a wonderful "***name edited*** has ignored you." (Wow. Thats the first time I've experienced being ignored.) So I'm now 20k short, and feeling extremely noobish. I just hope nobody else falls for this scam.

OK, I bet you want a screenshot. Well, these guys are crafty. They do it in LA, and the BIG heavily spammed districts. I wanted to take a screen, but by the time I scrolled up to find the evidence. It had been bumped off of the text history, by the wonderful "WTB your uber weapon" or "WTS my soul" spams.

Another player confirmed this scam. It would seem that ***name edited*** has been up to this before. He has various spinoffs. For example, finding him one of every color dye, then finally ending with a black. The prize was a Celestial Sigil. SCAM.

BUT, NO, I'm not the only idiot! At least 5 other people were playing his "Scavenger Hunt Quest Game" while I was. And you won't believe how many people played this game again when they rezoned and retried it in another LA district. I saw at least 10 people running back and forth doing their quest. Most of them stopped however, after I started posting my scam message.

So just be aware of these guys, and guild [WAR]'s scams. Ugg...now how to make back that money...I can't stand running Ascalon to Yaks Bend...so boring...

NoThanks · Aug 16, 2005, 01:25 AM // 01:25

And so the greed was punished...

tracy · Aug 16, 2005, 01:26 AM // 01:26

man don't feel bad. i'm sure at least almost everyone got scammed before whether it was on guild wars or somewhere else

"fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." you know?

(i hope its said like that..lol)

just learn from it and help others not to follow the same scam.

Experiment_Jon · Aug 16, 2005, 01:27 AM // 01:27

LOL, yup, shoulda pulled out before the Orange Dye. But Chinese man must protect his investment! (Pfft, so much for that)

Tuna · Aug 16, 2005, 01:30 AM // 01:30

You can try to report it, not sure if they'll do anything in this case though.

fog_of_redoubt · Aug 16, 2005, 01:32 AM // 01:32

You have absolutely GOT TO BE KIDDING....

You gave him all that stuff and thought you would get something? LOL

You didnt get scammed, you got the Stupid with Greed skill cast on ya

LOL, LOL, LOL

Zuggy · Aug 16, 2005, 01:34 AM // 01:34

If something sounds to good to be true it usually is. I would have quit after he wanted something and definitely when he asked for a ruby.

Experiment_Jon · Aug 16, 2005, 01:39 AM // 01:39

IDK, I guess he set it up well enough for myself and like a whole bunch of others to find it addicting and "challenging" enough. You see, if you know where the lighthouse is in Lions Arch, you'll know that its like a 1 min walk from there to the closest NPC (which would be storage/merchant/rare materials trader), which is what he has you access. So you would be doing this triathalon sort of thing, and in my mind, I was honestly going "Come on...sprint you damn monk...you're wearing Ascetics armor...run faster!" And that sort of cancels out the "OMG, I know this is a scam...OMG, hes going to scam me."

LOL, at the end, when I knew I had that dye remover, I was so excited...like "ZOMQFGBBQSAUCE! I've won the lottery" ....... Ugg...great...now I feel super stupid...lol.

aB- · Aug 16, 2005, 02:24 AM // 02:24

The thing is I can't believe you actually gave him a sapphire, then an ecto. I would've collected the dye, asked for what the next item was, collected that, and if he wouldn't give info about the next item, I would know it was a scam.

ExplosiveBadger · Aug 16, 2005, 02:49 AM // 02:49

YOU FELL FOR IT IT'S YOUR FAULT. When he asked for an orange dye I would have left. Serious, you should feel 'noobish'. I swear my jaw dropped in reading the whole post of yours. Good grammar and good spelling fell for such a scam.

Sereng Amaranth · Aug 16, 2005, 03:03 AM // 03:03

um....you gave him the items at every step???

i would have showed him the stuff and only accepted the trade when all the items were gathered

BiggDunc · Aug 16, 2005, 03:09 AM // 03:09

so, your actually still 30k up

stop whining.. go have some cheez

Serpreme · Aug 16, 2005, 03:29 AM // 03:29

you got whats coming.

Irongate · Aug 16, 2005, 03:48 AM // 03:48

That was just dumb.

MuKen · Aug 16, 2005, 03:59 AM // 03:59

I can't believe how unsympathetic people are being. Let me tell you, ANY scam you fall for, there will be somebody who is smart enough to think you were stupid for falling for it. Just because you think you're smarter than he is (and honestly I'm pretty sure some portion of you would have fallen for it too), does not mean that he 'deserves' what he got, and most certainly does not mean that it's 'his fault'. What a bunch of jerks...

ManadartheHealer · Aug 16, 2005, 04:02 AM // 04:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by MuKen

I can't believe how unsympathetic people are being. Let me tell you, ANY scam you fall for, there will be somebody who is smart enough to think you were stupid for falling for it. Just because you think you're smarter than he is (and honestly I'm pretty sure some portion of you would have fallen for it too), does not mean that he 'deserves' what he got, and most certainly does not mean that it's 'his fault'. What a bunch of jerks...

/signed

Lay off the guy...sheesh

Serpreme · Aug 16, 2005, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Uhh...he gave away stuff for a event completely up to the holders trust. His greed made him do it and his naivity lost him his money.

generik · Aug 16, 2005, 04:04 AM // 04:04

It is not deserving of any sympathy!

It is no different from a 419 scammer.

LordMoFo · Aug 16, 2005, 04:07 AM // 04:07

OMG why would u actually go on a quest that requires u to buy items for another person....Just plain stupid.

ExplosiveBadger · Aug 16, 2005, 04:09 AM // 04:09

I'd lay off of him but what he did was just ridiculous. THINK MAN, THINK! And this involves virtual money which has no real value i'm not sypathetic for that. He deserved it, but atleast you learned from this expierence. That's the only good that came of this, don't trust people unless there are guilde-lines in every offer or trade.