Scams

Scams occur when one player or a group of players deceives another player out of money, goods, or enjoyment in-game. The only way to fall victim to a scam is to be ignorant; knowledge and a little common sense will protect you from any scam another player tries.

Identifying a scam
In general, any offer that appears to be too good to be true probably is a scam. Scammers will often approach you directly, via whisper, with their offer, instead of announcing it on !All or $Trade. This allows them to avoid anybody else ratting them out. If in doubt to whether a deal is genuine, ask on a public channel. And, if you catch a scammer in the act, be sure to let everyone around you know what he's up to and report it to Anet as soon as possible.

Reporting a scam
While you may not be able to recover your "game resources" (like gold paid or items lost), you will at least be able to stop this person. The developers of the game have every bit as much interest as you in stopping scams.

To report a scam (the following only works if you have not logged off or it has not been a long while since the scam took place):
 * 1) Generate proof of the scam. This is best done using Screen Capture.
 * 2) Press the Chat button (bottom left corner) or the ` key (under Esc). This will bring up the chat log.
 * 3) Scroll to where the important exchanges between you and the scammer took place. Capture each exchange.
 * 4) If there was trading done, it will also show on your chat log, this is the most important evidence. It will show what you gave and what you got in return.
 * 5) Go to Guild Wars' "Ask a Question" section here and fill out the form. In the "Department" section choose "Violation Report" and in the attachment section attach the screen captures you took.
 * 6) Submit this question and it will go to ArenaNet and they will look into it.

Extra Note
In certain cases, ANET will not take any action for petty scams for example, say if someone took 500 gold from you but did't finish your run or the selling of a common quest item such as "Althea's Ashes". This is due to the large number of cases they have to deal with and the more serious violations which are their priority.

Item Scams
Item scams exploit traits of items to convince somebody he's getting something he isn't.

Selling Armor
All armor in Guild Wars is customized to the character that purchased it. This means that, while it can be traded to others, nobody else can actually wear it. The most anybody can do with a piece of armor is to salvage it. The game now offers a warning in the trade window when the item being sold is customized.

Selling Customized Weapons
Whenever you buy a weapon from another player, look at it closely. If you see a line stating that it is customized for that player, you will be unable to equip the weapon if you buy it. You may still wish to buy it to try and salvage weapon upgrades off of it. The game now offers a warning in the trade window when the item being sold is customized.

Decustomization
Often, a player attempting a scam with armor or weapons will tell you that a decustomization vendor will remove the old customization, allowing you to equip the armor or weapon. This is blatantly false; there is no decustomization vendor, and any customized equipment you buy will be useless.

The "I know a secret place" scam
The scammer will announce that he knows an excellent place where there is lots of gold/platinum or where there is excellent loot. Victims who pay him will find out that his secret is for them to do the same to others.

Unidentified Items
This is not necessarily a scam, but it is definitely worth mentioning. Using an Identification Kit on an unidentified item will show you what properties that item has. If the properties come from a rune or weapon upgrade, this will unlock that rune or upgrade for use on PvP characters. Merely purchasing an already-identified item does not unlock runes or upgrades, so a thriving market in unidentified items exists in Guild Wars.

However, there are some things that traders of unidentified items should know:
 * For weapons and focus items, the mods can be known to players (by equipping them and looking for the mod effects) even if the game still considers them unidentified. Thus, the more desired mods can be filtered out of the market.
 * For unidentified armors, it is generally more efficient to expert-salvage them (extracting an unidentified rune if successful) before trading, as the shape of rune will let players know its type and profession (see Rune).
 * The level of rarity of an item does not directly correspond to its power. A purple isn't necessarily stronger than a blue, and a gold isn't necessarily stronger than a purple.  Rarer items just have a chance of more mods.
 * Regarding the level of rarity for unidentified runes or armor, gold armor can either be identified to be a major or a superior rune, while a purple can be a major or minor rune, and a light blue can only become a minor rune.

Note: With the Faction system (which allows players to earn points to unlock skills and items for PvP) the market for unidentified runes has become significantly smaller.

Althea's Ashes
It is possible to buy Althea's Ashes in Piken Square, it has the same picture as a Pile of Glittering Dust but it is a quest item. Be sure to accept first the quest and then buy the urn; having the urn while accepting the quest may lead to a disappearance of the Urn without having the quest completed. You can, however, put the urn in storage until you have accepted the quest.

Be also aware that there are two quests concerning Althea; only after completing The Duke's Daughter can you accept Althea's Ashes.

Family Sigil as Celestial Sigil
When trading for a Celestial Sigil, be sure to verify that what you are buying is indeed a Celestial Sigil and not a Family Sigil. Family Sigils are a valueless quest item.

Enslavement Stone
Some people claim you need Enslavement Stones to get Chains of Enslavement, an enchantment you get after accepting the Summit Slaves quest. This is false.

Selling Account
This scam involes a player "claiming" to be selling an account. They will often state that its their secondary account, and they want to transfere the money to a new one. The scammer will always insist on cash before you so much as know the e-mail or pass and will often block you from Pming them.

Dye Scams
Gold dye can sell for several platinum, especially in Lion's Arch; however, gold dye barely costs two platinum to mix. It's a simple mix of orange, yellow, and silver dyes. The most expensive component of gold dye is the silver dye (which generally does not exceed 1 platinum). Some mixes of 'gold dye' lack the silver component as well, earning the seller a profit of nearly 3 platinum. Gold dye does not drop, even though a scammer may try and convince you otherwise. Another way to generate "gold" dye is to mix certain trader-bought dyes with a single remover; which gives the bottle the same appearance as honestly-mixed gold dye. In short, if you want gold dye, brew your own.

Similarly, people will try to sell white dye, usually at around 5 or 10 platinum, or a supposed formula for white dye, which can go for 50 or even 100 platinum. The formula usually involves three silver dyes and a yellow, which generally looks pretty white. Some armors (especially ranger and monk) look better with this mix than others, however this is no guarantee that the dye will look white on other armors. The same rules apply to other custom dye mixes- gold, teal, etc.

IDS/FDS Scam
Though both completely different, the Icy Dragon Sword is more sought after than the Fiery Dragon Swords that may be used to impersonate one in a trade; all that is required is a simple blue dye to make the FDS icon look like that of an IDS. Always verify your purchase before accepting the trade.

Selling Quest Rewards
Beware of items with blue names and max or near max mods when buying. Although many will think the mod(s) or the item itself is rare, it may well be a quest reward item or collector's item. If this is the case, then the mod(s) cannot be salvaged off of the weapon as they are inherent. If you see a very good mod on a blue weapon, the item is almost certainly a quest reward, as blue items never have max mods (i.e. 3/-1 Vampiric or 10/10 Furious), and most people are loathe to put a rare mod on a blue weapon.

Trade Scams
Trade scams involve trading between two or more players. Trade scams all rely on the scammer confusing you into believing him over the game window. Remember this important rule: the game window is always right! Also, do not press Accept on the Trade Window until you have fully read the descriptions of all items in it.

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.

"I'm bugged!"
The buyer will submit nothing on his side of the trade, and when you ask him about it, he'll claim to be "bugged," and that he actually submitted the item you were trying to buy from him. While it is entirely possible to be bugged in trade, it is not possible to be bugged in this way. If the trader claims to be bugged, ask him to relog, and do the same yourself. If he resists or refuses, or if the problem doesn't go away, he is a scammer, and you should not trade with him.

Bait and Switch
Often, scammers will submit an item that is not what you agreed upon. However, this is likely to get the scammer caught, so they will make sure that you're in a hurry first. They will usually do this by repeatedly closing the trade window in the middle of the trade, and claiming he's "glitched", until eventually, you're hitting accept as fast as possible to outrace the "glitch." When he finally submits an item, it's junk that you don't want, and in your unthinking hurry, you hit accept anyway. To increase the chances of you not noticing, the scammer will if possible switch the bait for an item with an identical trade window skin. For example, Malinon's Shield, the most sought-after and expensive shield in the game, looks exactly like a Shield of the Wing in the trade window.

Another common version of this scam is to advertise an "uberitem" for a very low price as bait, then offer a junk item alongside it and ask you if you want to buy the junk as well - for about ten times what it's worth. When you say no, they will remove the extra item and switch out the bait at the same time. You can spot this form of the scam by watching the number of offered items; if it increases to three or falls to zero, you are almost assuredly being scammed.

The most dangerous forms of this latter scam occur when the total price goes over 100k. Often the scammer will offer a good item worth about 25k for only twice what it's worth. This tempts you to buy because even though you don't want to pay 25k over the odds for the second item you're still saving 10 or 15k on the one you do want. However, this gives the scammer a clear window to make the switch without any chance to observe the change in numbers. He will often offer to trade a piece of 15k armour or a full set of Drok's armour alongside the second item, then give you the other item in a second trade for 10k plus the armour. Even if you catch the trade scam, he's already up 75k or more on the second item - more than enough to replace his armour and still make a healthy profit.

Item Switch
This is a general area of scamming which involves advertising an item, and, when the seller actually puts the item in the trade window, trading something else. This could be offering Silver Dye as Black Dye, offering an item with +2 Energy with health above 50% as being +2 Energy always, or simply advertising a weapon as being max damage when it is a few points under maximum damage.

Many scammers will actually have the advertised item, will show it to you in the Trade Window but then quickly close it (with the excuse of "oops" or showing it to another customer). When the trade window is reopened, the fake item is now in place.

Money Switch
In offering to buy an item, the scammer quickly switches from an offer of platinum to gold, hoping to fool the seller. For example, a scammer may agree to pay 7 platinum for black dye. When the trade window opens he 'mistakenly' offers 8 platinum. Seeing the chance to make an extra piece of platinum, the seller eagerly clicks "accept". The scammer then says something like "Oops, sorry" and changes his offer to 7 gold, hoping that the seller won't notice the change from platinum to gold. Make sure you carefully check the final offer before you accept the trade.

Platinum vs Gold
A possible scam is where an amount for an item is agreed upon and that amount is a decimal in platinum (refered to as "k") is faked. This is done by using the decimal as just gold not the full amount. Such as offering 1.5k for an item but offering 1 platinum and 5 gold which is NOT the same as the agreed 1 platinum and 500 gold. The scammer hopes that the other person is in a hurry and will not catch this. The hope is that the victim will be thinking "1.5k" and won't notice the difference of 495 gold. Remember, 1 platinum = 1000 gold.

Deferred Trades
This is a broad category of scams, but they all have the same scam element: the scammer will have you trade him an item or money, in return for an item or money he (or some other scammer) will supposedly trade you right back. This often takes the form of the three-way trade. The scammer says "I have Item A, which this guy here wants. I want Item B, which you have.  And you want Item C, which this guy here has.  So, you give me Item B, I'll give him Item A, and he'll give you Item C." Of course, as soon as you part with your Item B, they both leave or log off.

Guild / Guild Hall Scams
Some people try to "sell" their Guilds and Guild Halls. There may be legitimate sellers, but if it can't be put in the trade window, there's no guarantee of receiving it.

100k+ Transactions
If you agree to buy an item from another player for over 100k, several trade sessions are required. Each character can only hold 100k on their person, so between sessions each trader must move money through storage. Some scammers open the first window, take your 100k and vanish. To prevent them from stealing your gold, try asking for their armor or a customized weapon from them. Customized items are only useful as salvage to you (a couple platinum at best) but are worth a lot more to their owner! Give back the armor or weapons when you receive your item. Alternatively, Globs of Ectoplasm are a good trade medium if you intend to buy something for more than 100k.

Trading Untradeables
You will sometimes see advertisements for goods that are not obtainable in Guild Wars. Examples include: accounts in other MMORPGs such as Runescape, entire Guild Wars accounts, real world money. Recently there have been some instances of people offering to ascend your character for you at Augury Rock. Almost every single one of these trades are against the EULA or the Code of Conduct that players agree to before playing Guild Wars, not to mention that most of these trades are vectors for abuse. Never "lend" your Guild Wars account to anyone.

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.

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. Examples include Jade Armors for Mursaat Hammers or White Mantle for runes. Typically, the farmer cannot get to the desired area on his own, and going with henchmen only lessens his/her chances of getting good loot. 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 than can be done to predict/prevent such trickery from happening. The only safeguard is to perhaps make sure the party remains level headed and try to succeed.

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 two 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.

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.
 * Some party leaders will ask party members they deem as newbies to pay an extra bit in private chat.
 * 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.

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.
 * 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.

Impersonation Scams
Impersonation scams are scams in which the scammers act as ArenaNet staff. NOTE: ArenaNet staff will never ask you for your username/password or demand free items. So if you do get asked for one of these and they claim to be a staff member, just ignore them. You should also report anyone impersonating ArenaNet staff to ArenaNet.

Username/Password Requests
ArenaNet will never ask for your username and password - not through e-mail, not through a whisper, never. Therefore, do not respond to any requests for your password or username and try to report them if possible.

Sigil Status
This is targeted at EverQuest players, who needed to have GMs approve their guild creation in a chat room. In this game, all guild management is taken care of in-game, so the scam has no basis in fact. Essentially, a scammer will say that, to get a Celestial Sigil, you must pay a GM gold, and he will transfer the status onto you, allowing you to buy a Guild Hall. This is untrue: Sigils can only be purchased from other players or the Sigil Trader, or earned in the Hall of Heroes.