TruthScape.com  9  The Truth About RuneScape Item Scams

Why Does Jagex Ignore Easy Ways That They Could Stop Common Item Scams? Removing Items from the Trade Window

The RuneScape trade window is an interface that comes up in the game when two players want to trade items or gold. It was designed by Jagex to make it easier for players to trade safely. The trade window contains two screens that appear like a ledger, with your items being traded away on the left, and the other person's items offered to you on the right. The first screen is used to offer items for trade, and the second to confirm the trade before it is completed.

The trade interface is definitely the safest way of trading items in RuneScape, and you should never trade any other way (such as dropping items). In the summer of 2007, Jagex also instituted several improvements to the trade interface that will reduce the likelihood that you are scammed. However, the interface still has many weaknesses that are exploited by scammers in various ways to try to trick players into unfair deals.

The most important rule of using the trade window is to always check the second trade screen carefully. Using the Five Second Rule is also a good idea: count to five between the first and second screens to give yourself enough time to verify that you want to do the trade. Most trade window scams can be avoided simply this way.

Read on to learn more about some of the specific ways that scammers will try to trick you out of your items using the RuneScape trade window. These include removing items, changing item quantities and swapping valuable items for cheaper look-alikes. More complex scams may involve multiple items and a sequence of trades. There is also a relatively new scam that makes use of RuneScape's new foreign language servers. And finally, I warn you about a nasty, spiteful trick with the trade interface, that a sadistic scammer may use to deprive you of certain valuable rare discontinued items.

Why Does Jagex Ignore Easy Ways That They Could Stop Common Item Scams? Removing Items from the Trade Window