Runescape Trust Scams

by: Latona

- swap items with others to gain trust:
Many people will attempt to falsely gain your trust. The most most common method is likely to ask you to give them an item to hold and that they will return it. Sometimes they do return your item but this is so that you start to trust them (later on you may lend them something more valuable and lose it as a result). However, a vast majority of people asking to hold an item to gain trust will simply logout when you give them the item. The items asked for are usually of reasonable value so never do this as no good will come from it. This runescape scam is generally referred to as a trust scam and it can vary in how long people will aim to try and gain your trust.

- building trust over time trading items gradually increasing in quantity until you get scammed:
This is similar to the previous method only it is aimed at gaining a high level of trust so the scam will no doubt be for a high amount of cash or items. Over the course of weeks or months a person will work at gaining your trust. They will help you with various aspects of runescape and speak regularly with you. Eventually they will ask for some very good equipment of expensive items. Take extra caution and insist on holding some collateral incase something goes wrong. The usual story is that your 'friend' will get hacked while they were wearing your valuable equipment. The truth of the matter is that they sold your equipment for cash and had only ever intended to scam you from the outset. This runescape scam is one of the worst due to the amount of time invested by the scammer posing as a friend, the safest way is never to trade anything with anyone unless you receive something of equal value in return for collateral purposes.

- be weary of boyfriend/girlfriends they may just try and get access to your account or get free items:
This is similar to building trust over time although whether it is a boyfriend or girlfriend they usually expect gifts over time. Gradually gifts will become more expensive over time and you run the risk of losing a very highly priced item once your boyfriend or girlfriend finds another potential target to scam. There are some genuine people who do seek friendship in this way athough the majority will be aimed at scamming people. Caution should always be taken as once you have given the items there will be no way for you to report to Jagex since the trade will likely have taken place a few days previously.

- Recovery questions:
It is important never to reveal these to anyone as it offers hackers and account stealers easy repetitive access to your account. One of Jagex rules is not to ask for personal information. The main reason for this is you never know how anyone would use this information against you. Many people will use personal information in recovery questions so people continually asking personal information may be trying to find out your information held for recovery questions. Take extra caution and report someone if they continually ask this from you after you have already said no.

- Training Account:
Never let anyone train your account for you as they will simply be trying to get access to your account to steal your items. The offer may seem genuine and very helpful, however, the usual case is that you logon and find items missing and nothing has been trained. You can only blame yourself if this happens because Jagex make it clear in their rules that only one person should have access to any account. The reason being the account owner is responsible for all actions on their account and if you gave your password to someone so they would help you train, you could find that not only have they taken your items, but they have made abusive posts on Jagex forums if you had a member account. You run the risk of being banned for this offense and cannot argue the case that it was someone else - simply becase only you should have had access to your account.

- Make you a runescape member:
Someone asks for your password to be able to make you a member. Do not listen as this is against Jagex rules state that only one person should have access to an account and that people cannot create accounts for friends or pay for other people to have accounts. Of course immediate family members are different as Jagex do allow parents etc to pay for their children to play Runescape although they do not allow random people to pay for your account. If someone requests access to your account to make you a member it will surely mean you will be scammed as they may just take your items and not action a membership subscription.

- Hiring bodyguards or protectors for unknown areas:
People may hire bodyguards or protectors and find that the person does what they are asked to do, however, many will try and take advantage when you go into a high level area that you are not able to deal with. They will say they would protect you but in actual fact will just laugh as you die and pick up your items. My advice, is go to the area unarmed and only with what is required ( a key maybe) or just some teleport runes and check the area out first. Then if you really need to go to the area you can ask some of your longer term friends to assist you rather than asking random strangers. You will have a much better chance of surviving if you are among friends than if you went with random strangers who you had to pay money or items to.

- Account sharing:
I advise never to share an account with anyone. Not only is it a direct violation of Jagex rules but there is the added chance that you would fall out sometime with the person you shared accounts with and this would lead to one or all of the accounts you shared being raided of all good items. In addition, you always run the risk of all the accounts being banned by Jagex for violating their rules. Overall, avoid account sharing and stick within Jagex rules and it will lead to less hassles. This applies to family members as well.

Overall, this list of trust scams in runescape is not complete and can only become useful when players pay attention to all the points that have been made. It is a players' responsibility to look after their own account, however, to prevent scams in runescape people must be educated about what to look out for from a typical scammer. It is through this education that people will become more aware of how they can protect their account and not become another statistic to the regular scammers on runescape.

About the Author

Latona is a veteran runescape player and webmaster of this runescape help site as well as submitting several guides and articles including this runescape scam information guide to make other players aware of the stuff scammers try and get away with.