How are they doing it?

[LisaInNc]

Yesterday I was hanging out in the trading rooms on and off and I kept seeing people say that they had something ahd they were scammed out of it it or it was stolen from them.

How is this happening? I am not asking for tips on how to do it but rather to protect myself .

I have been careful that when I put something up for trade I don't click the accept box until they have their items and they click it first. Is that how it's happening?

I can't tell if people are just saying they were scammed to get sympathy to get something for free (there seems to be a lot of begging so I wouldn't put it past people) or they are all really being scammed.

There might be a few people that are really doing unscrupulous things but I have a hard time thinking that it is so widespread.

 

[Mom2RinJen]

I would assume that the victims are clicking accept before the thief clicks accept. Either that or the thieves are very quick to unclick. Just be sure never to accept a trade that you don't feel right about. I tell my daughter not to trade unless Im there or I will do it for her under her name. She is young and has no idea who mean some people can be.

 

[TinkerTracy]

i was scammed yesterday i made a thread about it...

 

[SorcMickey]

She is young and has no idea who mean some people can be.

besides you probably meaning how and not who. i think i have already taught her that there are some really nice people that can be very mean.

 

[Maleficent2]

Oh I think it is very widespread!

Especially with Teleporters of which I was scammed in a trade for a pirate magic pin. I had two because of the code mix up and this is before I knew if you combined them the power would last longer and they were still tradeable.

I was offer 3 things for it one of which was what I thought was a pair of teleporters( I have bought teleporter but had never traded them before)I ask this other player if it was a set of two? His reply was "yes". I said are you sure?
He said "of course they are if not you can just report me." SO I clicked accept and so did he and he quickley left the room.

I went to my room and placed one teleporter and went bck to my inventory to place the other...there was only one! So I used it and it took me to someone else's room. Not the room of the person whom I had traded with.

I have not seen this person in the game since and beleive me it has not been because I have not been looking for him.

I will never ever ever trade with anyone except a DISer that I know and not someone who has just joined the DIS. Especially Teleporters.

There is also a scam where people who have been scammed in teleporter trades are trading off un matched pairs of teleporters.

So yes "Virginia" scamming is very widespread in VMK. At least the teleporter scam.

We here at the DIS even have a room set up for lost teleporters. Although mine has not made it there as of yet.


Mal

 

[Adventuredaz]

Yes, I doubt there is very many accidental trade screw ups. It could happen, but still the right thing would be to correct it if it was accidental. I would say clicking accept before complete is the biggest scam. It has been suggested and I think it would be a great idea, Have a confirmation before the completion of the trade. ie. "Are you sure You want to complete this trade?"
if you say no - trade is off start over ... maybe an anoying delay should be put in place after a non-complete trade. I think any suggestion to VMK to stop the fraud would be good.

 

[Califgirl]

I admit it, I was also a victim of teleporter scam. I really wanted Jungle Cruise teleporters ( I forget now what I traded, it was a couple of weeks ago, I think) and I had a trade all set up. When we met, he only had tea cup teleporters, and he kept saying please plz, pleeeeeze, stuff like that. I'm thinking it's some poor kid, so I asked him if he had both, he said yes. I asked them if they both worked, he said yes. I asked them that if they were not the linking pair, would he make it right? He said yes. So I went ahead and made the trade. As soon as I placed them both (yes, I got two) in my room and tried them i realized they did not work. you would dematerialize and come back in the same teleporter. So I go to click on the 'friend' I had made the trade with and of course, he had immediately taken himself off my friend list. That is why I think it was a deliberate scam.

What did I do? Aliceblue runs a room for wayward tea cups and I donated them to her. I told her that if anyone ever materializes out of either of those tea cups, that whe should give them their matching tea cup. (After all chances are they were scammed too.) After about a week, Alice tells me that someone did, indeed materialize in one of those tea cups, so she gave her the matching cup.

I got ' scammed' again yesterday. I am not a very good VMK player, am I? That story is on the trading thread, but basically, someone wants what I have, I say no. They keep adding things until I finally say yes. When we gt together to meet they don't have a lot of the stuff they promised. They said they had to trade it back to someone else. So I feel sorry for them (I am such a sap!) and trade, andthey ask if they can be on my friends list. So I say ok. A few minutes go by and I'm feeling awful because I never would have traded for what I got, so I look her up and go to her room. lol if that room wasn't full of all the stuff she had promised me. To her credit she didn't boot me. And although she didn't have to, since our trade was completed, she did 'give' me a few of the items I specifically asked for.
But, if I hadn't caught her red handed ... she would have been scott free and laughing like crazy. She still got off easy, but I have finally learned my lesson!

 

[Jaina]

Someone tried to scam me today, and I got booted from the room (by someone else) before I could give him a good talking to... He wanted my teleport pin, (I said yes to a trade because I had just been advertising my peoplemover pin) and he said he'd give inferno for it. Right there I was pretty sure what was going to happen, but I was interested at that point. He proceeded to tell me there was an error with his account and that nothing on his side could show up until we both hit accept. I told him right away scamming was a cause for being reported, but he tried to bluff his way through it. I said, fine, let's do a simple furniture trade first. He agreed, and put up two teleporters (not even the same kind--possibly some of those missing ones?) and as I said "there you go, I can see your stuff" I was booted. (I was probably causing congestion cause I was in a line but not moving. I couldn't remember his name letter-for-letter, and he didn't actually go through with it, so I didn't report him to VMK... just be careful!

 

[Jackoman]

I Was Scammed But I Dont Know How!I Lost Half Of My Stuff!

 

[BriarRosie]

Mal:

I have an extra set of coffins I'd give to you. I bought extras by mistake.
LOL! I mentioned to "Bezoar" that I was concerned about this very issue,
and I'm going to write an email to VMK via "contact us" about the profligate
scams with the trading program.

My suggestion will be:

If it's possible to change the trading program, I'd like to see a "fail safe"
put in whenever someone clicks the "accept trade" box. I would hope they
could set the program to lock out any removal of items once either trader
clicks to accept. That way, the potential scammers can't steal with
quick clicks.

In addition, Bezoar suggested that a dialog box "Are you sure you want to
trade?" could also be helpful in theft prevention for both parties.

Either way, if enough of us wrote about changes to the trading program,
they might be able to do something about it.

Luckily, I've not had anything "stolen", and I had a great trade with someone
from the DIS.

VMK: BriarLori