TruthScape.com  9  The Truth About RuneScape Account and Password Scamming and “Hacking”       9  Typical Causes of RuneScape In-Game Password and Account Scamming

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In your travels through RuneScape, you may occasionally find people who are trying to buy or sell RuneScape accounts. There is an active (though small) market in RuneScape accounts—it is actually a black market, though, because this activity is strictly against the rules of the game. (Which also means that no, I will not tell you where to find it.) Before you consider buying an account from someone in RuneScape, consider all of the following reasons why it is a bad idea.

First, as I said, it's illegal—specifically, it violates RuneScape Rule #6. It's cheating to buy someone else's account, because you are supposed to work for your levels, not buy them from others. You are cheating the game by buying an account, but also cheating yourself, because you lose the sense of accomplishment you get from leveling a character honestly.

Second, a large number of accounts that are sold are ones that have been stolen from other players. By buying these accounts, you are enabling and rewarding account scammers, which makes you just as bad as the ones who steal them. By selling accounts, even if they aren't stolen, you are helping keep the black market alive and contributing to scamming indirectly.

Finally, if the ethical reasons don't convince you not to trade accounts, consider these practical reasons:

• Risk of Banning: If you get caught trading accounts you risk not only having the traded account banned, but other accounts you used in the transaction (for example, a “main” used to pay RuneScape gold for the account.)
  
  
• Account Recovery: You could buy an account from someone, use it for a while, and then the original owner could report it stolen and take the account back. If the account actually was stolen, of course, there's a very high chance of this happening, and many sold accounts were stolen. You will also lose any items you put on the account; this is like the “free account” scam, only worse.
  
  
• Flat Out Scamming: Suppose you agree to buy an account from a seller for 2 million gold. How are you going to broker this transaction? There's no “trade window” for accounts. The seller isn't going to give you the password to the account without first being paid, but once you give him the gold, he could simply log off and you'll never see him again.

Again, buying and selling accounts is against the rules. If you choose to engage in this activity, you run a high risk of being scammed, and you will have nobody to blame but yourself for trying to cheat.

Note that account buying and selling is also often done outside the game, where it still illegal and dangerous, but carries a slightly different set of scam risks.

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