Sad but true: unfortunately scamming is a common chapter in our every day life on Calypso. Eventhough popular ways of scamming and known scammers have been made public in different ways, many Entropians (including EU veterans) become a victim of scams due to greedy and greasy strategies and new dupery methods. Still people fall for one of the most wide-spread scams, the Armour Upgrade Scam, and yet: some of the scam reports even teach us that by no means you can be sure about the people you meet on your journey as Trust Scams are well known among the different types of scamming as well. Not to mention the vast number of attempted scams.
In order to class main scam actions with known scammers and to reveal scamming activity in EU, EUForces made out a list related to existing classifications with subcategories, explaining common, odd and most recent scamming types.
Be aware that the interrelation between some types is almost too close to be differentiated as two single types in some cases. Trust and Lending Scams e.g. correlate as well as Trade and GSI Scams are performed by Item Thefts. The following classification is ideal typical. Any correction or suggestion to improve will be gratefully accepted.
Semi-Ingame Scam
Naturally Semi-Ingame Scams refer to EU itself but are committed on a RL related basis.
These types of scamming include
Login Info Scam: i.e. hacking or requiring logins for whatever reason; needless to say that login data must not be revealed to third parties; dont use your ingame nick as a login as well and change your password once in a while; alternate the login names and passwords you use in different contexts; to get hold of your login data the scammer might also contact you by email (easy to find on EU related websites), pretending to be from MA MA wont by no reason ask for your login info, so ignore
Software Scam: i.e. the scammers offers software of any kind or a participation to a secret server trial
RL-Trade Scam: instead of ingame trading the scammer chooses the immediate way
to grab money by using i.e. paypal etc. stay away!
Trust Scam
Basically all scams are trust related as any kind of negotiation within EU is built on trust. Some scammers however have learnt that trust is also a useful weapon for dupery.
The Trust Scam is a rather protracted scam type as it takes a while to gain trust. The scammer may appear as a friend or a friend of a friend, as a disciple or maybe even as a mentor. Not to trust anyone is a nice slogan, but by the end of the day no solution as meeting ppl and making friends is one of the basics of EU. Just keep an eye on the ppl around you and their probable intentions. Be aware of ppl who expect lots of you but wont give anything in return: a present is a present because you make it one, not because you have been asked for it.
Pretending to be a players relative/friend: snowball system works well in EU, whether you make new friends within the game itself or you have been pulled into it by friends or relatives; some might abuse an existing relation to scam you, so be aware of that strategy
Establishing friendship: when and whom to trust is a question you can only answer for yourself, friendship is a give and take; there are reports about scammers making friends first just to rip you off minutes later, in some cases even after a long period; this is not about accounting, but take a brief moment reflecting on that relationship before lending or whatever
Soc Intruder: trust and friendship related exploitation and scamming can also occur within a whole society; the name soc intruder has been made up by those who experienced that type of activity already; dupery proceeding and avoiding advice are the same as mentioned above, so before adopting a person 100% in a soc this someone has to become an active part of it first
Begging: this kind of activity of course is not a scam in general; nevertheless some ppl feel dedicated to take advantage of other ppls trust to get hold of items and Peds. Its up to you whether you play that game or not and how to deal with those guys. Generosity is honourable, but should not transform into exploitation.
Trade Scam
Scams committed throughout trade activities are most common and may appear in different forms:
TT Scam: this Trade Scam type is usually used on newbies as they are most likely not familiar with the trade terminal value of items; the scammer tries to sell items you can buy at TT or low amout anywhere else, but purchases highly inflated prices
Drop Item Scam: a scam that is committed in crowed areas like PA or Twins most of the time; the scammer pretends that his trade window is broke or bugged and lures you to a less crowed area to drop the goods/Peds instead of using the trade window; naturally he wont drop the payment, but pick up your item (or even has a friend to do it) right away
Middleman/Trader Scam: a middleman or hired trader offers you to sell your items; this trade activity is not neccessarily a scam right away as there exist many reputable trade middlemen; the scammer appearing as a middleman may give only a part of the profit he made to the trader who hired him or wont pay at all; so before hiring a middleman make sure he is reputable or ask for a pledge of a similar value
Remove Item Scam: a scam that depends on speed; as soon as item(s) and payment are placed in the trade window, you confirm the deal while the scammer removes item or payment, so dont confirm and accept to fast but take your time
Crafting Scam: nice the service: a person offers you to craft something (most likely armour, but also clothes etc.) for you; all you need to do is to supply him with ressources, sometimes additionally pay little; by the end of the crafting process you might get what you wanted, but a) you never know if the amout of ressource you gave really has been used and
b) in most cases you even have to pay or pay more than originally been agreed upon
(L)Item Scam: be aware of the fact that (L)items can only be used a limited number of times and cannot be repaired; before buying a (L)item take a close look at its state advanced decay means that it has likewise representative functions so dont pay inflated prices
Lending Scam
Goes without words and most likely committed in combination with a Trust Scam: the scammer borrows an item that hell return as soon as possible, repairs included, but you wont see it again; so unless you know the person very well, ask for a pledge before lending
Item Theft
Goes without words as well and appears in combination with various scams such as Trade Scams, Lending Scams and Trust Scams; this category is used to specify a scam type
Repair Scam
If someone offers you to repair your items for free, he either made an ATH recently and is a very nice person or a scammer; as the first option is not probable he more likely belongs to the second category; someone doing repairs for free means he will spend Peds for you as repairing free of charge is not possible
Armour Scam
Next to the Trade Scam Armour Scams are most common scams on Calypso. Two types of Armour Scam are very popular:
Armour Painting Scam: would be cool, but if someone offers you to colour your armour youll only lose your armour, painting and maybe even colouring tools, so just laugh at the scammer and run away (but note his ingame name first and take some screenies of that offer to announce him)
Armour Upgrade Scam: scammer offers to upgrade your armour to a high level one like ghost, bear, boar or nemesis etc.; he will do so by using e.g. a crafting machine and ask for your armour and maybe even some ressources he needs for the upgrade; you even may get a nice show for free to highlight the seriousness of the upgrade like chip implanting or something flashy; but you wont see your armour again as problems occur and/or the scammer just vanishes
Armour cant be upgraded or painted!
If someone talks about upgrading his armour or weapons he refers to himself i.e.he is going to buy something new, but wont upgrade the items he already has!
GSI/Skill Chip Scam
Compared to many other scams that can be avoided due to being experienced enough the GSI/Skill Chip Scam affects well experienced EU veterans as they have money and want to spend it on skills; the scammer will make one of those too good to be true offers, selling skills at low prices or offering free service; he will ask for a GSI, you trade him and off he goes with your GSI still empty but a good catch for him.
This is a scam often performed by relatively new avatars, so one way to avoid being scammed that way is to scan the scammer and check his Attributes; its not very likely that someone with 24 Agility will (can) sell you a full Rifle Skill Chip; try to talk to him about his skills first if it takes too long and the person becomes uneasy dont make that deal!
Hangar/Pilot Scam
Committing a Hangar/Pilot Scam the scammer pretends to be a pilot, selling tickets; he takes you (and others) to the hangar and you have to purchase your ticket before you go onto the ship; you pay, they leave, and yet another scam incidence; so dont pay until you are on board as only a permitted pilot has access to the ship (access to the hangar is something else); choose your pilot wisely i.e. pilots with a reputation and of known cooperation with hangar owners; in order to avoid confusion ask trustable pilots selling tickets to CND/CP where they actually fly to, as there occurred some trouble in the past
Event Scam
There are reports about Event Scams as well i.e. people selling tickets for events that dont exist and wontexist; avoid unless the event has been officially confirmed (Event Zone ingame)
