Common scams/Adventuring scams

<- This article is part of GuildWiki's List of popular scams.

Adventuring scams
These are scams in which players trick other players in certain explorable areas of the game either to gain more loot or off-load some cost onto them. It is most common that non-combat professions will be used for this. Monks are the most common, as they usually remain at the back of the group and can easily run back to grab items. Often players that do this will suddenly disregard their duties and go running for items.

Running / Getting Run
For those who agree upon a gold transaction for these services, be aware that both the runner and the person being run are highly vulnerable to getting scammed. If a runner demands payment up front, there is nothing to ensure the payer will actually be brought to the destination. Similarly, the runner has no way to compel riders to pay once the run has been completed, and has no way to boot non-paying players while outside of town. To avoid these problems, most runners accept payment some way through the run, usually a zone or two away from the destination, and require riders to open a trade window just after starting the run in order to verify that each rider has the required gold on their person. Few legitimate runners will require any gold before leaving. Beware if a runner demands payment up front. Also beware of payment requests at "cutscene" intervals of missions. These tactics can leave you with unfinished missions and short the money given.

Additionally, watch out for scams perpetrated by riders on other riders. At one of the waypoints indicated by the runner as a payment point, you'll expect a trade window to be opened by the runner in order to collect the fare owed to that point. A scamming rider will quickly open the trade window with you first. Expecting to receive a trade request only from the runner, you unwittingly proceed with the trade, transferring your money to the scamming rider, who then disappears. When the runner finally gets to you, you'll be at a loss for words, and more gold if you decide to pay the fare which the runner rightly deserves. Double check the trade window to verify who is trading with you.

With the new areas in the game, people might try to charge running fees for runs that are not at all difficult. For example, the "run" from The Marketplace to Kaineng Center is straight forward and does not even involve a single fight. Only pay for a run if you know the area you are run through does indeed pose any problems or if you have already tried and failed to get to your destination yourself. Remember: you don't have to pay anything if you can get yourself there.

Getting Used in Missions
An emerging scam is to use players wanting to do missions to farm certain areas of these missions. In high level areas, there are certain creatures that players can farm for certain loot or elite skill captures. Examples include Jade Armors for Mursaat Hammers or White Mantle for runes. Typically, the farmer cannot get to the desired area on his own. So, they join a party doing the mission and then all of a sudden, they just run off and leave the party once they get to their farming point, often jeopardizing the party's chances of successfully completing the mission. There is very little that can be done to predict or prevent such trickery from happening. If you are determined to weed out these scammers, you can keep an eye on the skills they use at the beginning, as many of them have a build that is designed specifically for farming. If you see them using skills that wouldn't help your group or that seem more appropriate for solo farming, they may try to ditch you later. Of course, you cannot be suspicious of everyone. It is best to simply use good judgment on who you group with. Keep in mind that not all missions have "farm" areas.

Drop Stealing
The items that killed monsters drop are automatically assigned to one player, no other player can pick them up. Therefore, you cannot steal drops in Guild Wars. However, the drop assignment will be removed after ten minutes.

Sometimes a player will wait until a valuable item drops, then he requests a short break. After the break, the assignment for this item will be gone, and he will try to pick it up. If a valuable item drops for you and you cannot pick it up until its assignment is cleared, inform the other group members to leave this item for you.

If high value item drops are assigned to you it is often best to pick them up as soon as possible. It has been known for a team to leave a party member deceased whilst the assignment is cleared, the living members are then free to pick up the item. This is a highly unfair practice but alas, nothing can be done about it, just be wary of your team.

In a UW dual run with an SS and a 55 monk, some pairs will agree to split the ectos they receive 50/50 perhaps being afraid of a bad luck streak. You may wish to reserve this kind of arrangement for people you trust, because your "partner" is likely to just keep his ectos if he receives more than his share.

The Realms of the Gods Entry Fee
In order to gain access to the Realms of the Gods (the Fissure of Woe and the Underworld), a member in the party must pay the avatar of the respective god 1000 gold. This is either done by one member who volunteers to pay for everyone, or the party leader will ask each member to pay up 125 gold to him which divides the cost on all members.

Be careful of the following scams in this situation:
 * If you pay and then ask for others to pay you after entry, there is nothing to force them to pay up. If you are keen about being paid up, then collect money before entry.
 * New players might not know about paying 125 gold each thus the scammer who is the person paying 1k to the npc might send a private message to them to collect more than 125 gold.
 * Some party members will try to trick new players by telling them that each member has to go pay 1000 gold to the avatar individually.
 * Some party leaders have been known to collect the 125 gold each from the team, only to log off without entering the realm as promised.
 * If you are going on a chest run ensure you have your skills and attributes set before paying the entry fee.
 * If you are the leader, ensure that your party members are done and ready with their skill sets, attributes and buying of keys before entering. Certain players are known to say that they were not ready inside the realm and they just leave, leaving your party with less.

The Bandits of the Underworld
Beware of small farming teams in the Underworld. These are teams made up of 2-3 members that go farming in this very difficult area based on certain builds (Invincible Monk and Spiteful Spirit necromancers for example). Some times these teams will resort to scams to increase their profit margin. Some of their scams include:
 * Since the "Invinci-monk" is the key to the success of the team, he will ask the new member to pay for the team. But as soon as the party goes in, the monk (usually with another cohort) will lure a group of the fearsome Bladed Aatxes to the new member and have him killed. Then they refuse to resurrect this dead member. The dead member is "used" to pay the entry fee and then discarded. Although this is possible to do, the 55 monk will require other team mates to deal the damage otherwise the 55 monk will be tanking for hours, which has smaller profit gain!
 * Sometimes these bandits will not discard a member right away, instead they will use his skills until a Glob of Ectoplasm is dropped for this member. Then the monk will again lure monsters toward the new member, get him killed, refuse to resurrect him, and take the Ecto after the player leaves angrily or several minutes have passed and the Ecto is available for all.
 * In a 2-man SS-55 build. Beware of monks who try to hijack the run after the Aatxe are killed. The easiest way to tell this is if the 55 monk has Zealot's Fire and Shield of Judgment (instead of Spell Breaker). These are offensive skills that enable the 55 monk to kill the Smite Crawlers, but are very slow in killing the Aatxe. Typically, the 55 monk will tank as usual until the last group of Aatxe before the Smite Crawlers and then rush in and leave the SS necromancer stuck behind the Aatxe. When going with one of them, an SS necro can tell right away by the fact that they will not use Spell Breaker when facing the Dying Nightmares. A safeguard against this scam is to only pay the 500 gold share of the entry fee once inside the UW and Spell Breaker is used. Unfortunately, honest 55 monks will find this request odd if not shady.
 * In a 2-man SS-55 build. Beware of monks or necromancers who say that they are going to share (50/50) the Ectos that dropped in the Underworld, while you agree to do the same. Honest players share all the Glob of Ectoplasm like they say, giving every second Glob of Ectoplasm dropped for them to the other player, and splitting the amount of gold, that Glob of Ectoplasm is worth (generally around 7 platinum or 3500 coins each player, on the open market) for odd numbers (such as a total of 1, 3, 5 dropped) Sometimes, however, they will wait until 2 Glob of Ectoplasm drop for them and then they will simply hop out, and leave you there with nothing. Many of the scammers who use this technique to cheat other players out of their fair share of Glob of Ectoplasm are players who use International Districts to form the group, as they end up in their home districts when they hop out on you, making it impossible to track them down.  for example, an American cannot access any European districts, an European cannot access a Korean district, etc.

Gold Chest Scams
An unopened chest can contain gold or purple items, but once opened, it will produce the same color for everyone. Scammers who don't want to risk wasting a key opening a "purple chest" will drop a gold item next to the chest and say, "Hey, a gold chest!" and wait for someone else to open it. Once that person opens it, if a gold item pops out, the scammer knows it's safe to use his own key. The easiest way to see this is to open your chat, and scroll through the last few entries. You can see "(Player's Name) drops a (Item Name)" so you can easily avoid being fooled into wasting your keys on chest runs. On a chest run, it is only fair that players take turns being first to open chests to test it to see if its a gold. That same player should continue being first to open the chest, until they receive a purple item, then the next player begins opening chests first, until they receive a purple item, and so on... In this manner, each player in turn will "waste" one key on a purple item, and get a gold item for every other key they use.