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| Protection Guide: |
Scams
Sadly, in the Kingdom of Loathing there
are some individuals who don’t find it enough to play the game and slowly progress. They try to advance themselves and
their meat-wealth at the cost and to the detriment of others. There are a couple of oft-deployed scams.
These sections
will describe how they are pulled off, and what you can do to avoid them. I realize some people will use them for inspiration,
but I hope that players being informed against them and not falling for them will more than make up for it.
*Account Hacking*
To prevent yourself from getting hacked, pick a good password that people wouldn't
think of. DON'T use any part of your name in your password. This will make it harder for hackers to hack in. But make sure
it is something you can remember.
*Broken trade system*
Sometimes you will see a player that is offering a deal that seems quite good,
even to good to be true. A Mr. Accessory offered for half the usual price, for example. You contact this player and agree
to the trade. One problem, though, his trade system is “broken”. So, he asks you to send the meat, and he’ll
then send the item. Once you’ve sent the meat though, of course he’ll not send the item. You’ve been scammed!
Defense:
Always use the trade system. Even if a deal is too good to be true. Nine times out of ten, it actually is, indeed, false.
*Mystery
Auction*
Sometimes someone will run a mystery auction. A quantity of items of unknown nature are offered. You
bid and bid and overbid, and finally win the auction. It turns out that you just bid 100,000 for 10 saucepans. You’ve
been scammed!
Defense: Don’t bid on mystery auctions, except if the player is well-known for his generosity,
or it is a “charity” bid for a charity you actually know and support (for example, Trade Foundation). Also, even
if you have bid, and you don’t like the eventual deal when the items are revealed: You’re under *NO* obligation
whatsoever to accept the deal. Hardly anyone that matters will think less of you because you chose not to agree to a crappy
deal. The easiest defense is not too bid on mystery auctions, period.
*Raffles*
Some people run
a “raffle” in their store. Usually the ticket is in the form of an overpriced piece of meat paste. You see that
a sweet, sweet price is guaranteed to the winner, so you buy several tickets. You don’t win anything, or just a consolation
price, far less valuable than the meat paste you spent. You’ve been scammed!
Defense: Even in the real world,
lotteries and raffles are dodgy situations, that are far more likely to lose than gain you any profit. In KoL, raffles are
also unsupervised. Often a raffler doesn’t give out any price at all. Or he claims that the price is won by someone,
who turns out to be a handpicked multi or accomplice. Simply don’t buy raffle tickets. The only legitimate KoL raffle,
is the Elf Farm Raffle. (Tickets can be found in the Spooky Forest).
*Price-switchers*
Most of
you will know the phenomenon of a 10-meat sale, where a player for fun or fame will put items in his store for well below
autosell (usually even 10 meat, the lowest possible price). Someone announces such a sale in /trade, you click to go to his
store, and start clicking away, fighting the lag and the fact that everybody else in trade is frantically clicking as well.
Suddenly you see that the item you see that instead of 10 meat, you just paid 1,000,000 meat for an item. You’ve been
scammed!
Defense: Price-switchers rely on the greed and speed of those that enjoy a 10-meat sale. One way is to be
careful at a 10-meat sale. Keep an eye on the price before you click “buy”. Another is to not have too much meat
on you. The most meat you can pay is the amount that you have on you. Put any excess meat in your Colossal Closet. Anything
less than 100,000 and the chances you’ll get scammed are slim. Also be aware of someone’s reputation. Well-known
players that run a 10-meat sale care too much about their reputation to ruin it by price-switching. Unknown players running
a sale are very likely to be scammers.
If you do fall victim to a price-switch, always ask your meat back. If it happened
for any other reason than malicious intent, the player should (and will) reimburse you.
*Collections*
There is a new scam out there with the TP and Oyster Egg collections. As you know there are more then 11 (the limit of
items per trade) items in each of these. These scammers know that and will try to make you pay in full on half the collection.
This is where they baleet you and then you are left with only half a collection.
Defense: Do not make a full payment on half the collection. Make sure that you split the payment
into two seperate payments. If they wont do that then its not worth it to you to buy it from this person.
*Spiked
sale*
Spiked sales are a variation on the price-switch scam. Between a lot of good deals or in a 10-meat sale,
there will be some overpriced items. The scammer hopes you accidentally click on them, in your haste to get a good deal. This
is a bit tricky because some well-intended people will have things in their store they didn’t wish to include in the
sale.
The same defences go for this as for price-switchers, don’t carry too much meat on you, keep an eye on
the reputation of the player and always ask your money back. If the person refuses, at least you’re certain he’s
a scammer and it was not accidental.
*Password Rentals*
Other scam that has been going around is password rentals. People say they are
renting out crimbo duds, radio gear, etc, but if you don't have collateral, they will do a password rental. This is where
you give them your password so they go in, and get you the tatoo, or trophy, themselves, so that way you can scam them. But
sometimes these people are scammers themselves. They will get into your account, and loot it. The best way to prevent this
is not to do it. But if you really want to, make sure the person is someone people can trust. Make sure the password you give
the person is a password that is only going to be good for that occasion, and ALSO, make sure you send your rares, and meat
to a multi.
Another GREAT scam prevention guide, can be found here.
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