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RuneScape Con Games - How Scammers Earn Your Trust and Then Betray You The “Free Account” Scam

Some of the simplest but most prevalent con games in RuneScape are ones where the scammer just tells you a false promise about something related to the game, in the hope that you'll believe it and do something foolish. The result is that the scammer gets your items.

Usually the scammer will “bait the hook” by appealing to your sense of greed: the promises are usually that you'll get an item or gold for free if you listen to the scammer. Remember that greed is one of those emotions that can easily make you a victim. Even worse, most of these are cons that, even if they were possible, would clearly be cheating. And as sympathetic as I am to the victims of scams, if you fall for one while trying to cheat, I'd have to call that poetic justice!

Here are some of the more common variations:

• Item Duplicating and Gold Doubling: The scammer will tell you that if you give him your items he can duplicate them, or if you give him gold he can double it. Alternately, he may try to sell you a bogus “item duplicator”. There is no way to do these things in RuneScape.
  
  
• Armor Trimming: This is a “classic” scam that has been around for years. Trimmed armor is much more expensive than regular armor, so scammers will claim that they can “trim it for you”. This is always a scam—trimmed armor is a reward from treasure trails and there is no way to make it from regular armor. As soon as you give them the armor “to be trimmed”, it's gone and you won't get it back.
  
  
• Armor Upgrading: A variation on armor trimming, these scammers claim to be able to change mithril or addy armor into rune armor. Transmuting metals is not possible in RuneScape—again, it's always a scam.
  
  
• Stat Editors: The scammer says he can edit your character to increase your levels or add items. Always a scam.
  
  
• Cheats and Glitches: Scammers will say they know of “cheats” or “glitches” that can be used to give you valuable items—as long as you pay them or give them an item to use for the “glitch”. There are no cheats of this sort in the game. Even when a glitch (bug) does appear, Jagex will quickly fix it. Exploiting a glitch would be bug abuse, which is against Rule #4 and would likely result in your account being banned.
  
  
• Secret Code / Drop Scam: This is a sneaky variation on an item duplication, gold doubling or cheat scam. The scammer will tell you to drop an item or gold and then press a “secret code” that will double the item: <Alt>+<F4>. This is actually the standard key combination in Microsoft Windows to close the active window. By the time you log back in, the scammer will have grabbed your items or gold off the ground. (Fortunately, that key combination now sometimes doesn't work on RuneScape windows.)

There are probably more, but you get the idea.

You can avoid these scams easily, by being honest and using common sense. Consider, for example, the item duplication scams: if this were possible, why would the scammer need you? He could just get rich duplicating his own stuff, no? And if it were really possible, it would ruin the game—don't you think Jagex would fix it?

Watch out for shills, who are friends of the scammer and will pretend that the scam actually works to try to get victims to go for the trick.

Note that the bogus offers described above should not be confused with legitimate offers from players who are trying to help others and gain experience, by making items like jewelry, armor, weapons or potions. These are called trust trades but usually are not scams.

RuneScape Con Games - How Scammers Earn Your Trust and Then Betray You The “Free Account” Scam