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RuneScape Item Scams Using the Trade Window Item Substitution and Look-alike Item Swapping

One of the simplest trade window scams involves a scammer who puts up gold or an item in a trade, and then at the last second withdraws the item. This seems like it would never work—because the victim should always notice the other item missing—but you'd be surprised at the mistakes people make when they aren't careful.

Here's the basics of how this typically works. For example, suppose you are buying an obsidian cape:

1. The scammer puts the cape up in the first trade window, usually quite quickly since it is just one item.
   
   
2. You put up the money.
   
   
3. As you are reaching to hit the “Accept” button, the scammer withdraws the cape. You hit “Accept” just after the cape disappears, and move on to the second trade window.
   
   
4. In the second trade window, your money will appear opposite “Absolutely nothing!”. The scammer quickly hits “Accept” again and hopes you'll do the same, without noticing that the cape is not there. If you do, you just got scammed.

This can only work if the scammer makes the trade go as fast as possible. If you are in a big hurry, you increase the chances of this scam working; if you slow things down and use the Five Second Rule, you'll never fall victim. Even better, the July 2007 changes to the trade interface have made it much more noticeable when someone attempts to pull this scam, because a flashing red exclamation point and the words “Trade modified” appear on the screen if your partner removes anything from the trade. Hopefully this means that we’ll see far less of this scam in the future, though I am not ready to deem it completely obsolete just yet.

Beware one particularly insidious version of this, when buying an abyssal whip. The words “abyssal whip” and “absolutely nothing” look a little similar, because the brain tends to judge words and phrases based on the first couple of letters, and in this case they are both “ab”. Some people get scammed this way when buying a whip, though again, the flashing exclamation point and warning should be enough to tip anyone off. See Figure 90 for an example of what happens if someone offers a whip for sale and then tries to remove it after the gold is offered.

Also see the discussion of multiple items for a variation where one item is removed in a larger trade.

RuneScape Item Scams Using the Trade Window Item Substitution and Look-alike Item Swapping