Growing online community = more scammers and hoodwinkers
This is one thing I hate about growing communities in massively multiplayer online role-playing games—the more players you have running around, the more chances for scam artists and hoodwinkers to rob your characters blind. There’s really nothing that can be done about it except to be vigilant.
Just this week, three online buddies in the game Perfect World complained to be about being scammed. Two of them were tricked by other players to sell expensive in-game items for a fraction of the appraised values. The last one fell to the clever marketing strategy of a website that served as a catchbasin of usernames and passwords.
Scamming
Scamming, in online gaming parlance, is described as “to fool a player into giving items or in-game currency for other items he does not intend to give.”
In the case of our two Perfect World “scamees,” they were selling molds of holy items worth millions. After shouting out several times using world or trade chat, they finally received private messages inquiring about the molds. A few minutes later, they met up with the buyers.
At the trade screen, everything seemed above-board. The molds were there and so were the payments, amounting to millions of yuan, Perfect World’s in-game currency. Just as our friends were about to click the “trade” button to confirm the transaction, the buyers removed one zero at the end of the payment amount (for example, 1,000,000 became 100,000). Unfortunately for our friends, the transactions were consummated, leaving them with no items to sell and only a tenth of the value in their pockets.
To avoid being scammed, we have here a list of common scams (adopted from the Philippine Ragnarok Online site):
The Switcheroo
a. Scammer advertises to trade/sell item.
b. Would-be victim (another player) engages in trade to settle on the price or items to be exchanged; usually, the offer appears advantageous to the victim.
c. The scammer will show the item to the victim via the trade window to prove he has the item being offered. But once the real trade occurs, instead of the item supposedly offered by the scammer, a much cheaper item that looks like the one being offered will be placed by the scammer into the trade window.
d. Preventive solution: Inspect goods to be traded before finalizing transactions.
Item/Cash Advance
a. The scammer either advertises to sell/trade item, or makes an offer for somebody else’s item.
b. Victim agrees to the terms of the trade, but scammer reasons out that the item is somewhere else (e.g. in the storage, with another character, with a friend’s character), so the scammer opts to take a part or the entire lot of items or in-game currency as advance pay.
c. Victim agrees, and scammer never pushes through with original deal, taking away the victim’s items.
d. Preventive solution: Never give items or in-game currency in advance; the trade window is designed to make these exchanges simultaneous.
Middleman or Triangle Trading
a. Scammer A advertises a certain valuable item (designated for clarity as “X”) for trade with a specific item (designated for clarity as “Y”), with Y being significantly less in value compared to X; nearby, Scammer B, an accomplice of Scammer A, is offering item Y for sale or trade with negotiable terms.
b. Victim sees Scammer A offering item X, and also notices that Scammer B is offering item Y, which Scammer A supposedly wants; he engages in negotiations with Scammer B, intent on trading or buying item Y and using it to trade for Scammer A’s item X.
c. Scammer B intentionally makes it difficult for the victim to trade or buy item Y from him, knowing that the victim wants it enough to trade at a disadvantage; victim trades or buys item Y for more than its actual worth, thinking he or she will get the more valuable item X in exchange for it.
d. Scammer B informs Scammer A that item Y has been traded or sold, and then they both evacuate the area, leaving the victim with an overpriced item Y and devoid of the coveted item X.
e. Preventive solution: Be vigilant when it comes to trading. If an offer is too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.
Game Master Impersonation
a. A “GM” sends a player a private message informing him that he has won in a promo and is required to surrender a valuable item or in-game currency for something “better.”
b. The “GM” opens a trade window with the victim, and takes the items. The scammer then ceases all contact with the victim and/or logs out of the game with the item, giving nothing in return.
c. Preventive solution: Make sure the player you are talking to is really who he or she claims to be. GMs have character sprites that look different from other characters, and have certain abilities, such as being able to warp your character to his or her location. Do not hesitate to ask a supposed GM to prove that he or she is one.
Friend or Familiar Person Impersonation
a. Another player with a familiar name sends you a private message asking to borrow some items. Since you think you know the person, you willingly trade the items to the scammer when he initiates the trade.
b. The pretender then ceases all contact and/or logs out, and possibly, when you meet the real friend of yours, he or she has no knowledge of the transaction.
c. Preventive solution: Make sure the person you are talking to is really who he or she claims to be. Check the surrounding area around your character and visually confirm your character’s friend there. It could just be another character with a similarly spelled name trying to scam an item out of you. Take great precautions in checking the spelling of the name of the character you are talking to.
Lending Items/In-Game Currency/Accounts
a. Lending your items to anyone is totally your responsibility. Game publishers won’t compensate items lost due to a breach of trust between you and somebody else. Lending accounts is worse since even if you have lent your account to somebody, you are still responsible for the actions of characters in that account.
b. Preventive solution: As much as possible, do not lend items unless you are absolutely sure you can trust the person you are lending them to.
Well, I hope this helps. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
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POSTED IN: Asian MMO, Asian MMO Players, MMO-Etiquette, MMORPG, Perfect World, Random Rants
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