Scam
From Guild Wars Wiki
Scams occur when one player or a group of players deceive other players out of money or goods in-game. The only way to fall victim to a scam is to be unaware of them until they have taken place - they are usually based around an unstable assertion.
[edit] Identifying a scam
In general, any offer that appears to be too good to be true is probably a scam. If you are in doubt as to whether a deal is genuine, ask on a public channel. And, if you catch a scammer in the act, be sure to let everyone around you know what he's up to and report it to Arenanet or PlayNC as soon as possible. To report to Arenanet, follow the instructions below.
[edit] Reporting a scam or policy violation
- Generate proof of the scam. The PlayNC support site recommends that you include the following information about the scam:
- Produce evidence of the scam. This is best done using a screen capture. Press the Chat button (bottom left corner) or the ` key (under Esc). This will bring up the chat log and you can scroll to where the scam took place.
- The name of the player that has committed the scam.
- The area in which the scam took place.
- The time of the scam, including your time zone.
- The character you were playing as at the time.
- Any other information you feel is relevant.
- Proceed to the PlayNC support page (http://www.plaync.com/us/support/)
- Choose your location/language and proceed to the Guild Wars page (http://www.plaync.com/us/support/prod_48.html)
- You need to create an account. Go to the login page and fill in the required information. After submitting you will receive a verification e-mail. After verifying your account you can log in through the same page.
- Fill in the question/report form using the Ask a Question page and submit it to ArenaNet.
[edit] Common scams
There are a few common ways that people can attempt, and often succeed in scamming other players. All of them have hidden, but tell-tale signs that you can, and should, watch out for at all times. The most common scam is the "quicky" scam, which can often go unnoticed for hours after the scam has taken place.
- "Quicky" scams. They rely on distracting your focus and switching the deal without you taking notice.
- Skill scams. Scammer will use skills such as Unyielding Aura or Shadow stepping to take your items.
[edit] Quicky scams
The scammer will make a perfectly fair, or even slightly generous offer in exchange for your item(s). You will most likely already have a trade open, and their trade is fair at this point. Then something will happen, be it a real life event, or an in-game excuse, such as "hang on, I need to clear inventory space", or some other distraction. They will modify their trade, including their "extra items", or replacing their items for similar looking fakes, and change the amount of gold or platinum they are paying.
How to prevent:
- Check what the other user is offering in trade to start with, and re-check all of the items, and money, every time the trade is modified.
Watch out for:
- People swapping Lilac Eyes for Rubies, and Ice for Sapphires.
- Changing the amount of money by a multiple of 10. EG: You are originally offered 10 platinum. After the quick change, you are instead being offered 10 gold, or 1 platinum. This change is subtle and easily overlooked.
[edit] Skill scams
In this technique, the scammer will offer you just about anything, and this could even pop up as a "trust test", things of this nature. He will take you to an explorable area, where you will be asked to let a mob kill you. After you die, he will ressurect you with Unyielding Aura, or a similar skill, where the scammer is then able to stop maintaining the skill, thus killing you. The last step is when you are asked to drop the item of value, and the scammer stops maintaining Unyielding Aura, allowing him to walk up to, and take, your item without you being able to ressurect, or otherwise prevent him, from reaching your item.
A different method is to shadow step to you and pick up the item, thus too quickly for you to realize what happened. This can be done using assassin skills, or Ebon Escape.
How to prevent:
- Look out for the signs listed below, and simply never get into a situation where this may occur. The majority of reasons you may be pulled into this scam involve unreasonably impressive offers. These are fakes, guaranteed, all the time! If a scammer really was able to run a program and duplicate, improve, or otherwise modify items, he would be doing it for himself to make money, not risking being caught by involving people who may report him.
Watch out for:
- Trust tests. This scam can easily be disguised as a trust test, where you must "trust" that you will be ressurected, and similarly "trust" that you can drop and pick up your rare items in a zone with the other user.
- People who offer ways to let you "cheat" the system. This includes offers to duplicate items, modify item stats, change the amount of items (or gold) dropped, or other things which are blatantly against the rules. If they are legitimate, you can get permanantly banned. If they are simply scammers, you will get cheated out of your items, and possibly marked in the future for attempted cheating. Often scammers will go into technical detail about their supposed "programs" that aid them, including details to make the offer seem legitimate.
- "Proof". The scammer may "prove" to you that you can safely drop your item while he is a large distance away from you. However, regardless of how far away he is from you, he is still able to remove Unyielding Aura and kill you.
- Assassin profession, even as a secondary. This is where most shadow stepping abilities are. However, Ebon Escape also provides shadow stepping.
