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Deceptive Player Levels and Equipment Duel Arena Confidence Scams

I've described item swapping in the subsection on trade window scams, but how about player swapping? That's right: in the Duel Arena there's a nasty little scam that works by swapping players on a victim. The result, as with most dueling scams, transforms either a fair fight, or one that favors the victim, to one he will likely lose.

The setup for this, as usual, is someone who seems to be offering a duel that's “too good to be true”. Usually the scammer will be lower level than the victim, and offering a rich stake to tempt him. For example, suppose the victim is level 57 and the scammer, named “P00n4ge43v4”, is level 41. They agree to stake 1 million gold each, and start to set up options for the duel.

Suddenly, the scammer cancels the duel and say he needs to run to the bank for something he's forgotten. When the scammer returns he proceeds through the option setup with the victim. The victim, anticipating an easy score, excitedly awaits the start of the duel. Then the duel starts, and suddenly the victim is getting killed. Shocked, he looks over at his opponent and realizes he's not level 41, he's level 71!

I've seen people post about this on the forums convinced that somehow their opponent had “hacked RuneScape”, or “found a way to change their levels” or other nonsense. What really happened is that the scammer had another account named something like “P0on4ge43v4” or “P00n4ge43w4”, which is a level 71 killing machine with 99 ranged, and set up with the best dueling equipment. When he went to the bank with the level 41 character, he “returned” with the level 71 and the victim never noticed. This problem is exacerbated by the second dueling options screen, which stupidly doesn’t mention the name and level of your opponent (see Figure 102).

Another variation can be even more sneaky: a player who uses two characters that have similar names and different stats, but the same overall combat level. When I was researching this section, I actually caught someone in action at the Duel Arena trying this scam and was able to look up the two variations of name he was using; see Figure 104.

There's really not much that can be done about this, other than to check the identity of your opponent very carefully each and every time you accept a duel. Again, you have to do it on the first screen, because the second dueling screen doesn’t help.

Deceptive Player Levels and Equipment Duel Arena Confidence Scams