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Scams with Unidentified Herbs (“Unids”) and Unfinished Potions (OBSOLETE) The Truth About RuneScape Account and Password Scamming and “Hacking”

NOTE: This page contains information about avoiding scams that is now obsolete. It is retained on the site for historical information purposes.

Before Jagex made a change to eliminate unidentified herbs (unids), trading them was quite common. The problem with unids is that they all looked exactly the same and were all just called “Herb”. This caused great confusion when trading them, making unids a popular item for scammers.

Fortunately, smart players devised safe ways of trading unidentified herbs. They are no longer needed, but the information is interesting so I have retained it for historical reasons.

If you were willing to buy any type of unid for a flat price, then you had things somewhat easier. You didn't need to do any preparation ahead of time, because it didn’t really matter what type of unidentified herbs someone tried to sell you.

The only real concern you had here was unbalanced trades, where someone tried to pawn off a big stack of low-level herbs on you. For example, a typical buyer of all unids may have paid a flat 1k for all herbs. Of the various herb types in the game, there are only three right now that are worth less than 1k each: guam leaves, marrentils and tarromins. If you were buying a bunch of unidentified herbs, you would get some of these, but you’d want to offset them with a reasonable number of better herbs as well.

Consider these two offers of sets of 500 unids:

• Seller #1: 11 stacks of 105, 90, 70, 55, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15 and 15 herbs.
  
  
• Seller #2: 9 stacks of 150, 125, 110, 30, 25, 20, 15, 15 and 10 herbs.

As a buyer, you’d be much more interested in the first offer. About half of the herbs are in the first three stacks, which are probably the cheap three herbs, but there is a good selection of other, better herbs to compensate.

The second seller has over 75% of the unids in three big stacks, which are likely guams, marrentils and tarromins. Also, there are two “missing stacks”, which are probably the ranarrs and kwuarms—the most valuable regular unids—which the seller took out to sell separately. You could still buy from this seller, but you'd want to offer less money.

This was a very common unid transaction, because many RuneScape players only raise herblore high enough to use ranarrs. This leaves them with higher-level herbs that they don't need, but higher-level herblorists want.

Unidentified herbs over ranarr usually sold for 2k each of more, so the problem for the buyer was making sure he really does get these herbs and the seller doesn't substitute lower herbs instead. Preventing it was accomplished using what was commonly called the anti-scam method.

Before you started buying unids over ranarr, you’d get yourself at least three unidentified herbs of each type. The six “normal” herbs over ranarr are irit leaf, avantoe, kwuarm, cadantine, lantadyme and dwarf weed; these are the unids over ranarr dropped by monsters. You can also get them from other players, or the Throne of Miscellania minigame is good too. You’d also get three unids of ranarr itself, in case someone tried to sell you unid ranarrs (not often, but when it did happen it was a good deal for you, as they are worth more than the six high-level herbs mentioned above.)

Once you had three of each unid, you’d start with the first, and withdraw one of it. Identify it; say it is avantoe. Then you’d take the remaining two of that unid and put it next to the identified avantoes in your bank—now you'd know what those unids are in the future. You’d then repeat for all the other herbs.

Okay, now you’d be ready to buy, as follows:

1. You’d withdraw one of each unid you were trying to buy, in noted form.
   
   
2. You’d take out money for the purchase, being sure to take more than you needed for the transaction (even if it's one gold piece). That's important.
   
   
3. Finally, you’d withdraw enough unnoted items to fill the rest of your inventory, filling the remaining spaces with ropes or chisels or whatever. Your inventory would look something like Figure 106
   
   
4. You’d meet the seller and trade, buying only noted unids.
   

   Figure 106: Inventory for Safely Buying Unids Over Ranarr (Now Obsolete)

   This method was needed before unids were eliminated. To buy unids over ranarr without fear of the seller passing off lesser herbs, I’d withdraw the money I need for the trade (plus 1 gold piece), and one each of noted ranarr, irit leaf, avantoe, kwuarm, cadantine, lantadyme, dwarf weed, toadflax and snapdragon. The remainder of my inventory would be filled with ropes. If the seller tried to pass off any other unids as being over ranarr, they wouldn’t fit in my inventory, and the trade would automatically fail.

   To buy just one type of unid, I’d do the same thing but with fewer noted unids and more ropes.

   
   

If the seller really was offering only unids above ranarr, those unids would stack with the noted unids you took out of the bank. If the seller tried to sneak in a stack of unid guams, for example, the trade would automatically cancel, because your inventory is full, and a trade can't go through if there isn't a space for everything you are buying.

Pretty cool, huh? Yes, though really an imperfect solution.

Some people also liked to get unidentified toadflax, snapdragon and torstol, so that if someone tried to trade you those, the trade wouldn’t fail. You can get unid toadflax and snapdragon from other players, random events, or at the Brimhaven agility arena. Torstol in unid form can only be obtained from the “sinister chest” in the Yanille agility dungeon. Having these in unid form lets you buy them from others; again, this is usually worth doing, especially snapdragon, which is the most valuable herb in the game. (Unidentified torstol is rare, so you might not want to bother with it.)

As with buying all unids, you’d have to watch out for uneven or missing stacks. For example, if someone wanted to sell you only two huge stacks of unids over ranarr, they are probably irits and avantoes, the least valuable ones. You would have to watch out for the kwuarms being removed by sellers (they are worth a lot). Also, if you accept unid snapdragon and toadflax, it paid to watch out for stacks like this: 20, 18, 17, 15, 12, 4. This appears to be the “standard six” herbs over ranarr, but that “4” could be toadflax with the kwuarms culled out completely.

One more thing: sometimes sellers of herbs wouldn’t realize they were selling herbs that are below ranarr, so don't be too quick in accusing the other guy of being a scammer. Mistakes do happen.

Sometimes people would buy only one type of unid. This was quite easily done by modifying the method described just above for buying unids over ranarr. You would wthdraw one noted unid of the type you want, some gold, and fill the rest of your inventory with junk. If the seller tried to sell you the wrong unid, the trade will not go through.

You can do this with more than one unid type at a time, but even here you’d have to be careful, when buying uneven amounts of different-valued unids. Suppose the seller wanted to sell you 500 kwuarms and 200 irit leaves. If you did both trades at the same time with one unid kwuarm and one unid irit in your inventory, you could have been sold 200 kwuarms and 500 irits instead.

NOTE: This page contains information about avoiding scams that is now obsolete. It is retained on the site for historical information purposes.

Scams with Unidentified Herbs (“Unids”) and Unfinished Potions (OBSOLETE) The Truth About RuneScape Account and Password Scamming and “Hacking”