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Telling Legitimate Trust Traders from Scammers How to Buy Unfinished Potions Safely

As mentioned in the preceding topic, trust trades are so named because you trust someone else with raw materials, hoping they will make an item for you and give it back. Most of the time, as long as the offer is legitimate and the player seems trustworthy, this is safe to do, as long as the value of the items is not very high. It is a risk, though, and definitely should not be done for higher-value services.

Consider, for example, someone who volunteers to make you a full blue dragonhide set. You give them 6 tanned blue dragonhides and they make you the set. This sort of trust trade is usually safe: it's not easy to get to the level 71 crafting needed to make full blue dragonhide armor, so I can't see anyone risking that account over 12k worth of dragon hides. The same is also true for asking someone to clean one or two high-level herbs, make you a potion or two, fletch a bow or smith addy armor or lower.

On the other hand, the advent of the new Assist System has made most trust trades no longer necessary, so there’s usually no need to even consider such exchanges. Someone with the requisite skills can just allow you to “borrow” them temporarily; you can make bows or smith armor or whatever, without any trading of items, while they get the XP. I strongly recommend using the Assist System whenever you can for these sorts of exchanges.

There may be cases where using the Assist System is not possible, though. For example, the person helping may have exceeded that system’s daily XP cap, or you might want to request something that the Assist System doesn’t support. Another issue comes up when someone wants to be paid to help you; the Assist System doesn’t support payment, and I don’t recommend paying someone you don’t know in advance for help that they may or may not provide.

If you are in a position where you can’t use the Assist System, consider instead asking the player to make a like-value swap. For example, the amulet of fury can only be made by very high level crafters from an onyx stone, gold bar, ball of wool and runes. Since the onyx stone itself is worth about 4 million gold, it would be foolish to just trust trade it to someone and hope they give back an amulet. Suppose you find a high-level crafter who can make the amulet but wants to be paid 25k. Instead of a trust trade, one of the following like-value swaps makes more sense:

• Trading for the Finished Product: You trade the raw materials and money for the finished product: for example, you give the crafter a dragonstone, gold bar, ball of wool, 1 cosmic rune, 15 water runes and 15 earth runes and 25k, and he trades you an amulet of glory at the same time. This is the best approach as there is no possibility of confusion or anyone being scammed.
  
  
• Requesting Collateral: Collateral is something of value that a person who is loaning an item gives in exchange for the item being loaned. Here if the other person doesn’t have the finished item “in stock”—such as the example of the amulet of fury—then perform two trades. In the first, sell the onyx stone, gold bar, wool and runes to the crafter for say, 4 million gold, or whatever the going rate is. Then after the crafter makes the amulet, buy it from him for the same price plus 25k.

As always, trust your instincts and watch for warning signs. If someone claims to be making amulets of fury but refuses to trade for the finished amulet or use collateral, this should set off alarm bells.

Finally, a word to high-levels who perform services: even if the person you are doing something for is willing to trust you, it is in your best interest to always use the Assist System, trade the finished product, or pay collateral—don't do a true trust trade. Why? Consider this scenario. Someone decides to give you a dragonstone and other items to make an amulet of glory. As you are going to the furnace to make it, the doorbell rings, or your mother/father/wife/husband/son/daughter calls you urgently, or your dog gets into your lunch, or your PC crashes, or your cable modem dies. You effectively “disappear” from the game while holding the other person's raw materials. He will now think you have tried to scam him, and may even report you.

Telling Legitimate Trust Traders from Scammers How to Buy Unfinished Potions Safely