TruthScape.com  9  The Truth About Luring in RuneScape       9  Wilderness Bait Luring and Other “Legal Deceptions”

PKer “Backstabbing” and Clan Setups Wilderness Deceptions

Now I'll describe a couple of versions of one of the more infamous Wilderness lures. This scheme involves convincing someone who has an expensive item to come into the Wild to let the lurer kill them. The lurer gives them reassurances that they won't lose their item, then finds a way to trick them into losing it anyway. Here's how it works.

The first version of this scam typically involves the lurer finding someone who is wearing an expensive item like, say, a Santa hat. The lurer tells the victim that he wants to join a clan, but as an “initiation” he needs to show a video of himself killing someone wearing a rare. He will also usually offer to pay the person some money for this.

Of course, the person with the Santa hat is going to be skeptical, so the lurer will tell him just to bring and wear the hat. The lurer will tell him he's going to attack so the victim won't get skulled, and thus he can't lose the hat.

If the victim agrees and follows the lurer out to the Wild, what will happen is that the lurer will try various tricks to try to get the person with the hat skulled. While in theory this can only happen if the victim attack someone willingly, it is possible to accidentally get skulled, especially in a busy area—I've done it myself. The lurer may have a group of friends who could try tag-teaming the victim, for example, hoping he will retaliate back on the wrong person and get skulled. If so, the victim can quickly be killed and lose his valuable hat. (He could put on the Protect Item prayer, but anyone unwise enough to fall for this scam probably won't remember to do that.)

Here's another variation. This time, the lurer says he needs a make a “kill video” of himself killing someone with a valuable item, such as abyssal whip for example. He'll offer to pay the victim with some good items, and again, tell him he won't get skulled so he won't lose anything.

The victim follows the lurer out into the Wild, and the lurer attacks. Then, when the victim is close to dead, the lurer stops and makes some excuse for why he needs to pause for a minute. He then drops four noted items, like dragon battleaxes, on the ground. The victim sees them and picks them up; there are four of them. “Cool,” the victim thinks, “free battleaxes!” If the victim gets suspicious and asks why they were dropped, the scammer says they are his payment for helping with the video.

The lurer then attacks the victim again. The victim dies, and ends up in Lumbridge with either three or four dragon battleaxes—and no whip. The victim assumed that because the street price of an abyssal whip is much higher than that of a dragon battleaxe, that the whip would protect over one of the axes. Item protection is based on store price, however, so the abyssal is lost to the lurer.

Obviously it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to protect yourself from these gimmicks. If someone approaches you asking for help in making a video of any sort in the Wilderness, just say no!

Incidentally, there is one way you can turn the tables on the “four noted items” scam. Be sure you have the Protect Item prayer on, and bring runes with you to cast High Alchemy. Pick up the noted battleaxes (or whatever they are using) and alch one. You get three free items, keep your whip, and the scammer gets some coins. But beware: this is very dangerous, so try it only at your own risk! (An even more ingenious reversal would be to use imp boxes… J)

PKer “Backstabbing” and Clan Setups Wilderness Deceptions