Known in game scams

magicianz

I know the majority of us here wont be fooled by scamming in-game but how about a sticky just to warn against various scams that people are trying, just for any new players around. Things like fake sites etc and scam message tactics.

One thats becoming increasingly popular on my realm is the 'you have been selected for cataclysm beta testing. Please go to the website to upgrade your account to cataclysm beta tester.' or something along those lines.

TheDoc

I got that whisper from a guy called

BlizzHard

and

BillArd

Funny ****

Friend of mine ( eniarah here) used to get the parcel packets from traders, where you can put something into a gift box and sent it. He used to put a mining axe into it and send it to random people through mail, saying how blizzard has chosen them for an epic, they can pay the 500g to open it and keep or send it back.

It was well worded and we had some laugh at the amount of people buying it, and getting a mining axe. The game was pretty fresh before there was the en mass gold sellers and botters etc, it was a good laugh.

Then he got caught haha If i remember correctly the GM was giving him kudos for the idea >:P

Gummy Panda

Doc,

I remember that scam. A lot of people got stung on ED for it. I remember a lot QQing on wow forums before bliz stepped in and ended it

jabberwock

tbh if you fall/fell for that mail scam you deserve to loss your gold....

Overheal

There was one guy i had cut a gem for me a while back. Never advertised a fee or anything. Just asked me what i want cut, cut it, and was ready to hand it back to me when i tipped him 10g - The Cheesebread was no Colonel Mustard at the time. "No you will need to pay me at least 30g for an epic cut" bla bla bla

little scam artist. Take my mats to ransom why dont ya.

TechnoPool

Overheal wrote: »

There was one guy i had cut a gem for me a while back. Never advertised a fee or anything. Just asked me what i want cut, cut it, and was ready to hand it back to me when i tipped him 10g - The Cheesebread was no Colonel Mustard at the time. "No you will need to pay me at least 30g for an epic cut" bla bla bla

little scam artist. Take my mats to ransom why dont ya.

well thats your fault for being so naive, ive done done that quite a few times and said to people 50g if they act like a **** over it , always agree the 10g fee before hand.

ravydavygravy

I dunno, I agree the website links are redundant - my mother-in-law knows not to follow dodgy links! However, there are other scams in-game that new players will be stupid enough to fall for:

1) As mentioned above - always agree fee/tip before exchanging mats for crafting/JC/enchanting services - and try to use the no-trade box. I have seen everything from people trying to hold mats to ransom, to people trying to rob mats. Don't be that guy. Try to build up a group of good contacts for your crafting needs, and use them instead of randoms.

2) Arrows/Bullets sell on AH in stacks of 1000, but in the default UI, the last 0 wraps offscreen, so asshats will try to sell 10/100 ammo for the price of 1000 on the chance that people using the default UI won't notice. Always check the quantities of stuff before you buy in AH, and use an addon like auctioneer that tracks market prices automatically - the scam stacks show up as having massivly over-inflated prices (500% normal price etc...)

3) Trade channel selling of Epics - buyer beware - only buy something if you *know* what it is worth. Example - seller X has some epic, but wants to sell it - he spams trade with messages like "WTS itemA 5000G - cheaper than AH!!" Unknown to buyer Y, the only similar epics on the AH have been listed by his alt, at stupid inflated prices (8K in this example). Buyer Y believes he is getting a bargin, and buys over trade. Suckah! To avoid this, try not to use the AH as a price guide for items you know nothing about, especially if there are only 1-2 up.

4) Trade buying of bulk mats - seller/buyer beware - buyer X spams trade with messages like "Buying all your Copper Ore 30g a stack - /w me". Prospective seller Y checks AH - sees loads of copper for sale at 10-15g, buys it, trys to sell to buyer X "sorry m8, got enough now". Unknown to seller Y, all the copper he bought off the AH belonged to alts of buyer X, and the prices were already overvalued. This works well on cheap markets, where you can afford to buy all the mats on the AH, even for a short time. To avoid this, use actioneer - it will alert you to the fact that all the AH copper is overpriced - alarm bells ringing....

Any others?

Dave

Kiith

I agree with RopeDrink on this. The vast majority of scams (and i mean vast) play on peoples stupidity. If it looks in any ways unbelieveable, it is.

Gummy Panda

Kiith wrote: »

I agree with RopeDrink on this. The vast majority of scams (and i mean vast) play on peoples stupidity. If it looks in any ways unbelieveable, it is.

Hello

I am GM Gummy. Your account has been suspended due to ingame spam. Please goto www.battlenet.cn/loggingurkeyz for more information.

Regards,

GM Gummy - lv58 Death Knight

Canis Lupus

I played Eve before WoW. I just don't trust a thing.

TheDoc

Dave your points 3 and 4 arnt scamming in the sense.

Of course people are going to try make max money from everything.

I put leggings of woven death on the AH starting at 10k, knowing they were only worth 8k, but knowing someone would want to haggle.

Eventually i got a pm asking me did I want 9k for them, happy days, he thinks he got a bargain, when in fact i made an extra 1k gold.

Made another pair sold them to a guildie for 6k. After he bought an icc10hm staff of me for 2k.

I made about 10k profit that day, was awesome

Overheal

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Hello

I am GM Gummy. Your account has been suspended due to ingame spam. Please goto www.battlenet.cn/loggingurkeyz for more information.

Regards,

GM Gummy - lv58 Death Knight

everytime you zone into icecrown these days theres always some gut surfing the who-list and whispering everyone crap like that. "dear yser account comprimised for illegal currency trade please visit www.istealyourgold.com"

Notorious

I had a guy /w me yesterday asking me would I sell him a timecard. I asked him what he was offering, since I can get them a bit cheaper than the normal selling price and he offered me 6,000g. I was to give him the code from the timecard and then he'd pay me. He said he wouldn't pay anything upfront because someone had run off with his money before...

Needless to say I didn't take up on his offer.

Magaa

Not in game but as soon as you sign up for a good few fan sites just as MMO champ and WoW.com. If you put your proper email in there you will be swamped by gold sellers and false blizzard emails saying your account has been hacked.

StinkyMunkey

Its all well and good saying if your scammed, it your own fault for being so stupid. But what if its a young player or someone new to online gaming, not everyone has experience dealing with these scumbags.

I always try and reply to the tells ingame with "eat **** and die" before they log off, its no great achievement, but it lets them know i think their scum.

I think a sticky for something like this is a great idea. And as people come across scams, they can share them with the userbase of Boards.ie. A sticky to help prevent people from being scammed is always gonna be a good thing.

When i came back to playing WoW after the a year or two off, i was doing a hc witha grp of randoms (early last year), this guy offered to sell me a weapon, it seemed like an ok deal at the time, so i said ok. He placed the weapon in the trade window and i put the money in and hit trade. He hit trade a split second after, but when i checked my bags, i had no weapon, he had withdraw the weapon a split second before he hit trade. Needless to say i wasnt aware you could do this once the "hit trade button" had been pressed. Anyway, i opened a ticket with and got my money back a couple days later. But i was totally unaware people could do this type of thing, now i dont trust anyway or any tells.

Gummy Panda

Tbh its stupid to scam as blizzard are taking a serious approach to them. I remember you could ninja loot and get away with it. Now you get banned for a few days

TechnoPool

you can get a 3-72 hour ban for it now.