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Removing Items from the Trade Window Changing Item Quantities

Removing an item from a trade is a rather crude scam. A more subtle—and more successful—trick with the trade window is to substitute a cheap or worthless item for a valuable one. This is usually done with common pairs of items that look similar upon casual inspection.

Items that are noted are especially susceptible to this trick. Why? Because the pictures of items on notes are smaller than the depictions when the items themselves are traded. Noting items for trade is routinely done, though, and items sold in bulk (ores, food, logs and so forth) are always sold noted. So you can't really avoid notes in most cases.

There are two basic ways that item substitution or swapping are done:

• Offering the Look-alike: A scammer may advertise a valuable item for sale, then just put the look-alike up in the first trade window after the money is shown, and hit “Accept”. He just hopes you won't notice.
  
  
• Swapping the Look-alike: Here the scammer actually puts up the valuable item, waits for you to put up the money, then quickly removes the good item and swaps in the look-alike. The July 2007 changes to the trade window have all but eliminated this option, because the interface now clearly warns you when someone removes an item from a trade offer.

Here are some of the most common “look-alike” items used in item substitution and swap scams (a few of which are illustrated in Figure 91):

• Dragon Bones, Big Bones and Normal Bones: These are noticeably different in size when unnoted, but when noted they can be confused as they have similar shapes. Usually, a scammer will substitute big bones for dragon bones, or regular bones for big bones. (I've never seen anyone try normal bones for dragon bones as the difference in size is more noticeable.)
  
  
• Coal and Iron Ore: Coal is black and iron ore is dark brown, so these are easily confused when noted. Many smiths also buy both at the same time, often many trades in succession, which adds to the confusion. (This is one I personally have fallen for.)
  
  
• Mystic Robe Pieces: There are three different sets of mystic robes: the regular blue ones, and the rarer white/gold and black/red sets. The regular ones can be bought in the store, while the others are rare monster drops, and are worth much more. Jagex, in its infinite wisdom, decided to name all of these the same, so a blue mystic hat and a red/black mystic hat appear the same on the second trade screen. Watch out for swapping if you are buying the more expensive versions.
  
  
• Weapons and Armor of Different Metals: Weapons and armor of the same type but made of different metals differ only in color, and so can be easily confused, especially when noted. It is fortunate that the most expensive metals—rune and adamant—have distinctive teal blue and green colors that are harder to confuse with each other or anything else. However, swapping of mithril for iron sometimes work, and iron for steel is used to scam low level players.
  
  
• Obsidian Cape and Black Cape: An obsidian cape is a valuable item that is mostly black; a regular black cape is basically worthless.
  
  
• Red Dragonhide Legs and Dragon Legs: Both are red leg armor and on casual glance appear similar, especially when noted. Both also have “dragon” in the description. Of course, one is worth about 200 times as much as the other.
  
  
• Mage's Book and Arena Book: The Mage's Book is a powerful shield-slot item that gives big mage bonuses; it is obtained from the Mage Training Arena. The arena book is worthless—okay, it costs 200 gold—but is often confused for the Mage’s Book because it appears similar and is also associated with the Mage Training Arena (it only gives instructions on how to use the arena). Be sure to check the name of the item carefully; also, the mage's book is red with three small markings, while the arena book is a dull brownish color with a lightning bolt on it.
  
  
• Trimmed Treasure Trail Armor and Regular Armor: Trimmed armor from treasure trails can sometimes look like regular, untrimmed armor. This depends on the color of the metal and also the trim; some people find this more confusing than others.
  
  
• Granite Maul and Rock Hammer: These look superficially alike, but the rock hammer is worth only about 500 gold pieces. (Ironically, the rock hammer is a piece of Slayer equipment that is used to kill gargoyles, which are the only monster that drops the granite maul!)
  
  
• Abyssal Whip and “Absolutely Nothing”: This is really an item removal scam, but I include it here for completeness.

Note that one combination now missing from this list is magic logs and willow logs. I was pleased to be able to remove them in July 2007, after Jagex (finally!) changed magic logs to look very different from other types of wood.

In all of these cases, and others—with the notable exception of mystic robes—the scam can be easily defused by using the second trade screen, which lists out the names of the items being traded. For example, coal and iron ore might look similar graphically, but the words “coal” and “iron” do not look alike.

The second trade window is your friend, so use it! But beware of the foreign-language scam that can make the second trade screen far less useful, though—and also remember that with mystic robes the second screen doesn’t help.

Also, while it is true that buying and selling notes is common when trading items in bulk, this should not be necessary when doing small trades of valuable items. You have every right to refuse to buy expensive items in noted form; just ask the seller to unnote the item. If you do buy something like dragon legs or Barrows equipment noted, be extra careful!

Removing Items from the Trade Window Changing Item Quantities