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In Depth Trading Scams
Written by Chocobo
Hi there! This article is more in depth about the item switch scam and other
trading related scams which I've come across to. I use the trading post for
hours daily so I've met almost every trick available.
Item switch scam
I am sure almost everyone knows how this trick works. The scammer will put in a
trade and then remove the trade after a few seconds so you can have a good view
of how good the offer is. There are two ways the scammer can do this:
1. Puts up a good trade and cancel it after a few seconds. Then recreate the
trade with different look-a-like item
2. Puts up the bad look-a-like trade first and then the good look-a-like trade.
In his good trade, he will tells you to trade through his user lookup for
whatever lame reason and then cancels the trade after a few seconds. The trade
always contains a lot of cheap items to confuse you.
These are the items that are normally used to confuse you:
a) Shadow paint brush & Stone paint brush
b) Staff of nova & Wand of nova
c) Magical plushies & Non-magical plushies
d) Enhanced KIKO squeeze Toy & Non-Magical Blue Kiko Squeeze
Toy
e) Battle duck & Rubber Duck (pretty obvious)
f) Jade Scorchstone & Green Scorchstone (Rare)
g) Faerie paint brush & Faerie paint brush plushie
I’ve met with a scammer who uses this trick. I’ve reported him 3 times but his
account is not frozen yet. His username is anti_frozen77 and you can view his
trade for an example of how these lame scammers work to get easy nps. He always
has that bad trade up and keeps the good item in his inventory. Notice he use
the bottle of sands to confuse others.
Promised item scam
The scammer tells you that they will give you something AFTER you’ve offered
rare goods for his trade. Of course you should’ve figured out that they have the
choice of not giving it to you after the trade.
These are the lame stories they will tell you:
a) I am not playing neopets anymore so whoever that bids the
highest gets my account with 354612nps in it as well. (Yeah right, they need
more nps so they can give it to you)
b) Whoever that bids the highest gets my baby paint brush. I
am feeling generous today. (Tell them to include into the trade before you
offer)
Liar Liar pants on fire scam
These include giving out false info on the item they are trading. Before you
trade an Item, make sure you know what the item is worth. Check through the shop
wizard, trading post and even the auction before offering. Tell them to wait if
you are afraid that you’ll miss the item. Some scammer will even compare the
price for you. Some even say that they are being “generous”. Whenever someone
compares the price in the trade, there’s 60% that he/she is lying and when they
say they are being “generous”, there’s 80%.
Some examples I’ve seen:
a) Golden Ivy Leaves & Earth Faerie Leaves
b) Super U-bend & U-bend great of justice
c) Dino Sapper as a retired petpet
d) 7k = auto! The (item name) alone sells for more than that!
(90% scam)
I’ve just encountered this scam today. I just put up a trade worth 180k nps and
there comes a message within a few seconds telling me that she is going to offer
me a “mud mixture” which is worth 190k into my trade (And she offered after I
read the message). Of course, I know the price of the mud mixture by heart
because I stock them up in my shop so I just play along and tells her that I
will accept the offer after she visited my shop =D . She replies with a “Sure”
followed with a big happy smile thinking I am falling for it. She withdraws her
offer after a minute. When someone informs you of the price, there’s 50% that
it’s a scam.
Hard to sell items
This is not a scam but I’ll include it anyway. Some of us use the trading post
to look for good offers (like me) to earn some good nps but do you know that
trading with something which are hard to sell not only makes you loses nps but
time? Only trade for easy-to-sell items.
Easy-to-sell items:
a) Good famous battle dome items which scores above 5 points
in the battlepedia
such as Battle duck, Dark battle duck, Hypno Helmet, jade scorchstone etc.
b) Codestones, Faeries, paintbrushes etc.
Hard-to-sell items
a) Battledome items which scores below 5 points in the
battlepedia
such as sinsis grail, Darigan Skeith Tail Guard etc.
b) T-shirts (some even cost up to millions), rare food, rare
plushies, rare petpets etc.
The Chain Scam
This trick just surfaced recently and has a bit to do with the trading post. It
is normal to see someone posting a scam in the trading post and I usually
explore how the scam works. Recently, I saw a message that tells you to have a
view in their user lookup to earn millions of nps and as usual I’ll go and have
a look around. I am expecting a website address but instead, there is a message
that goes like this:
“This is a really cool secret. You can earn thousands neopoints in a very
short time! This really works and it is not a scam. It does not cheat Neopets or
Neopia in any way. I have been scammed before and believe me, it is not fun; a
scammer once took my whole account. That is why I am doing this, I'm trying to
make Neopia prosperous enough that people will stop running scams. If you would
like to know the secret, make me one of your Neofriends and send me any one of
the following: a Job Coupon, a Codestone, a map piece, a Faerie , a Paint Brush,
a Petpet, a Nerkmid, a Dubloon, Negg or a Scratchcard. Once I receive one of
these items from you I will send you the secret. =*My 100% Guarantee*= I
guarantee the following: This is NOT a scam. I will send you the secret once I
receive your item. I bet you're asking why I won't just tell you the secret.
Well, I want to help people but, obviously, I'd also like to help myself. And if
you find that this is a scam, you could always report me. Why would I risk my
account for a couple of items?? Think of it this way; if you send me an item,
you will soon be able to get as many of those items as you like by using the
secret!”
Of course, the first trick that comes into my mind if that when you give him/her
the item that they requested, they’ll tell you to put this message into your
user lookup so others will do the same thing that you just did. The number of
people tricked is amazingly increasing. So if you’re one of them, please don’t
wreck your user lookup with that horrible long message. Besides, by posting that
message into your user lookup, you are telling everybody that you’re dumb enough
to be one of the victims to this cheap trick.
The Spam
“Put this message in five different lots then go to the faerie book store and
she will give you a baby paint brush”
What would you do when you see this message in trade? Do what it says and get
the baby paint brush? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s obviously no such thing. The
only thing you can get is making the neopets server slow by wasting their system
resource.
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That is all the scams that I usually encounter in the trading post. You can read
more about the common trading scam
here. If there is anything you want to ask or
encounter any new scam, e-mail me at
Jasonneo@hotmail.com
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