Yeah, i'm a bit poetic. xD
Well, i'm here, now, to talk about scamming. I'll put here the most common askings about scamming, scamming tactics and some examples of something that is not scamming. Oh, and i will also give a example of each one.
This is a REALLY long post, so... i'm sorry D:
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FAQ: about scamming
What is scamming? - Scamming is the same thing as CHEAT to STEAL. People fool another jammers to get rare items, instead of getting them of the ""hard"" way. By hard way i mean trading, buying them on mondays and geting rare slowly.
How do i know someone is scamming? - Read about the scamming types below and you will.
Why do people scam? - Because they want rares. They steal people's rares, for their own reasons. I think most of them think scamming is a good way to get free rares, so they do it. Some times, they got scammed by someone else. They can't find the person, so, to get their revenge, they go around scamming another people.
Is there a way to stop it? - You can try to comfort them and say that they don't need to to this, because this is wrong. Try to help them to get some rares by trading. If they won't listen to you, report and move on. Don't do anything else. Don't offend them, don't call them names or ANYTHING like this. Remember, they are people just like us AND, they can regret the things they did too.
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SCAMMING TACTICS (this is for you to know what is a scam and how does it works. i am not encouraging anyone to scam. consider yourself warned.)
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THE "I AM POOR" SCAM
Rarity
That scam is, probably, the most famous scam. You can see it alot around.
It's only made by members, since non members can not receive gifts by jam-a-gram, and neither send.
Definition
It happens in busy servers and places. It's when you see someone saying something like "Send me gifts i am poor". If you are a good person, you, of course, will think: "They're poor. I'd like to have gifts if i was poor too, so why not to send something to them?". Then you send something not really valuable to them. They don't say anything. "I think i sent something too un-valuable. I should send something better. I am sure they'll like it!". Then you send a good rare. They run.
They may not be lying, but just to make sure, look at their animals. They have only one? Okay. Recycling animals is really easy though. Look at the pets. No pets? Okay, next. Freeing your pets is also easy. Click on the most important thing and proof; Their achievements. You'll know it's a scam if they have something around 10,000+ gems achievement, and 10,000+ spent gems achievement. Most of them will have 100,000 gems achievement and 100,000 spent gems achievement, so by that you can know it is a scam.
Exceptions
But, in the case that they aren't lying, a really rare case (i mean, REALLY rare.), they will have only one or two animals (if they have two/+, that kind of shows they aren't scamming, because they don't fear showing they have more than one and that did not recycled it), they WILL have pets, and their achievements will be only a few like 10, and you won't see 10,000+ gems achievement or 10,000+ spent gems achievement.
You can say to them they could recycle one of their animals or stuff like this, if you still aren't really comfortable with the idea of sending them one of your items.
Look alikes
This scam is kinda like the "I GOT SCAMMED" scam. The only different thing is that the another scam will make you feel more bad for them, since they say they supposedly got scammed.
ATTENTION! Don't confuse it with the non scams SEND ME UNWANTED ITEMS and the SEND ME GIFTS. These are NOT scamming, because they aren't lying. They just want items, to keep or to recycle and get gems (in the SEND ME UNWANTED ITEMS). But, if you want, instead of sending items to the SEND ME UNWANTED ITEMS person, you could say them ways of how to win gems on AJ;
You can play games to win gems.
You can go on adventures!
You can buy gem cards.
You can recycle the items you already have.
You can use codes.
You can play the Daily Gem roulette.
(MORE AT THE CODE PAGE).
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THE "SEND ME A RARE AND I GIVE YOU MEMBERSHIP/ANIMAL/ CODE" (Or, in most of times, they don't say the kind of code they will give, IF THEY EVEN GIVE, so when they get the rares, they will just tell the person a gem code.) SCAM
Rarity
This is not a really common scam. You won't see it much around, but people still do it.
Definition
It happens in random places, no need to be really busy.
When someone gets dancing on somewhere, shouting out "SEND ME RARES AND I TELL YOU CODE". People say most times the scammer says it will give you a lion code, but i've never seen it before.
Then you ask "What code?" then the scammer says "A free membership code!!".Then you think: "Oh, i want membership for free!"
So, you send them a rare. This story has two endings:
1 - They run with your rare; 40% chance
2 - They give you a gem code that everyone can have for free; 40% chance
3 - They give you a expired code; 19,9999% chance
4 - They give you a real working membership code; 00,0001% chance
So... xD I think you just got scammed.
Exceptions
They may be saying the truth, but there is almost NO chance that they will really give you a working membership/animal code. So, if you don't wanna lose your rares, don't do it!
Look alikes
There are no look-alikes.
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THE "BEST DECLINE" SCAM
Rarity
This is a fairly common scam. It's done on busy places and parties.
Definition
When someone's at a party or at Jamaa Township, yelling "THE BEST DECLINE WINS _________ (always rare item)."
Sometimes (like seen in Animal Jam Meian post about scamming tactics), people work in scamming teams, so they lie about the scam to make people believe it is not scamming: "OMG! IT DECLINED MY RARE _________(some thing really good and wanted, like rare headdress)!" Then, you decide to check out if it's true and then you trade them a rare. They accept and run.
Exceptions
There's no exceptions.
Look alikes
A look alike is the "I DECLINE ALL TRADES, TRY ME" scam. But they don't promise any rares.
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THE INFAMOUS TRUST TRADING
Rarity
This is the 2015 Most Applied Scam award-winning illicit tactic of all Animal Jam we're talking about here! Read carefully and at your own risk.........
...well, here we go.
Definition
This scamming practice was applied in such a level that recently AJ had to modify the gameplay in vairous ways in order to prevent it from happening. You'll know it's about trust trading when:
- "Trsut"
- "T1r2u3s45t"
- "Believe"
- "TT"
- any situation in which someone, most probably a friend, asks you to play a game/have fun/test out how trustworthy YOU claim them to be by making trades with good items for their necklace/crown/something (that is very probably not worth what you're trading) for the sole purpose of keeping your items at some point. The objective is to make you think it's going to be a thing that involves both sides, but they're probably going to ask you to "do them" first, so that they may have an idea of what you've got. From the second trade (you make) on, while they try to make you fall for it with some okay trades, they're going to analyze and determine what next offer (the best they can get) they're going to quickly accept and run, all for the sake of getting rarer!
Prime example:
Scammer: *has the idea of getting some easy rares, is a member*
Scammer: *Clicks jam-a-gram button*
Scammer: *types in a letter for Jammer, trying to sound as friendly and as little suspicious as possible* "HAI :3 COME TO MY DEN PLS FRIEND"
Scammer: *Goes into their own den while waiting for Jammer, getting ready and thirsty for the rares*
Jammer: *Spawns into den*
Jammer: Hi :D Wassup?
Scammer: Heyy :3 I'm good, you? (Do not rely in the way the scammer acts before scamming to determine whether or not they really mean to scam, for as you can see, they act as well as possible to fool you!)
Jammer: Me 2! I was just trolling around, y did u call meh?
Scammer: Oh I'd just like to ask if we could u know TT :3
Jammer: Um, that kind of trading close jammers do?
Scammer: yah, u don't mind it right? we could have some fun 2gether :D im board
Jammer: of course not, we're friends after all! It won't hurt to trade a little!
Jammer: *has good rares for which they traded fairly and spent time over* *waits eagerly to start trading while checking Scammer's trade, which has still some rare items that were previously added*
Scammer: *puts bamboo fence on trade and removes everything else* U first!
Jammer: Ok... I'm recording just to make sure :) *Clicks necklace and offers two random rares*
Scammer: *declines* I'm recording too. O good!
Jammer: Do me now!
Scammer: *clicks the least rare thing on Jammer's trade list and offers some random items*
Jammer: Ooo I like those XD
Jammer: *starts trading a little better*
Scammer: *makes same trade as before except for a new common item*
Jammer: *gets the hang of it and decides to offer one of their best items along with good rares*
Scammer: *thinks: now let's get this over with!* *opens up Jammer's player card* *accepts trade very quickly so that Jammer doesn't get a chance to think, then soon closes the "You got:" box and unbuddies Jammer.*
Jammer: what?? What happened!!
Scammer: *looks at the recently scammed items and soon locks den, doesn't worry about recordings as there were none in the first place*
Jammer: *Reads: "The den you were in has been locked." and starts to realize what their ex-friend has just done*
As you can see, it's a long process. It's NOT always going to roll exactly like the example showed above, but if you pay little attention it may happen to you! Don't trust trade and don't get scammed by it!
It may, yes, sound unlikely. "Why would my BFFFFFFFF try to scam me??", you could ask. Well, jammers, sometimes what you see isn't what you get. Beware and never put rares over friends!
Exceptions
Of course, it is possible that, let's see, your friend or some user you're talking to and just met, or even a famous jammer does not actually mean to scam you and, for some foreign and mysteriously unknown reason, wants to trust trade you. It really is possible, as jammers can surely be unpredictable, but NOT worth trying! After all, there are other ways to potentiallly prove the presence, or not, of trust issues. You'll surely figure out some other way to have fun or make a good, fair trade! Better be safe than sorry.
Look alikes
Trust trading can come in several ways. You could even say it's a master of disguise method! It can be compared to lots of other scams, like flash trading, gifting wars, and even one other way to scam items that was frequently used some time ago in AJ, which is: setting an offer for a rare which contains over 4 items and """therefore""" needs to be sent through Jam-A-Grams, instead of being traded for! AJHQ managed to include more trading slots (over 50!!) so that you may offer it all at once and not get scammed. So, make sure not to fall for those, either!
For a bunch of other examples, look trust trading up on a search database tool!
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MORE TO COME!
THIS IS NOT SCAMMING:
- When someone does you a undertrade and you accept it. You accepted it by yourself, because YOU wanted. So, there is no excuse.
- When someone asks people to send them gifts, and then you send one, and then the person runs. Again, it was your choice to do it. The person was just asking for gifts. If you think it's a scam, so just don't send them anything.
- When someone asks for the best offer for their item. BEST TRADE and BEST OFFER has a big difference. BEST TRADE is a scam, because it's when someone asks for you to flash or just trade them a really good item for a trashy one, then they say you'll get the item you want for free, in most of times. It works like this:
Scammer: IF YOU WANT MY __________ (always a rare item, because if otherwise no one will want it.), MY DEN!
*10 people are at their den*
Scammer: OK WAIT!
Jammer 1: *sits*
Jammer 2: *sits*
Jammer 3: I bet this is a scam.
Jammer 4: We can only wait.
Scammer: SO!
Scammer: BEST
Scammer: TRADE
Scammer: WINS
Scammer: RARE ITEM
(You can't say that whole phrase together on AJ without getting a scamming warning)
*the item on trade is a cheapie necklace or a nm tiara*
Jammer 3: I said you. *leaves*
Jammer 4: You are right *leaves*
Jammer 1: *trades them best rare item*
Scammer: *accepts quickly*
Scammer: *runs*
Scammer: *locks den*
Jammer 1: :(
THIS is a scam.
If you think someone's scamming, the best thing to do is first save their name before they leave and go scam in another server, so you can report them, send a ticket to AJHQ about them, and ask for people to report them too.
BEST OFFER is when someone says that you have to say the items you wanna trade for their item. Example:
Jammer 1: IF YOU WANT MY ___________(insert a item here, most probably rare, but not always), GO TO MY DEN!
*3 people are at their den*
Jammer 1: So, you all want it?
Jammer 2: Yes please!
Jammer 3: Sure.
Jammer 4: I do.
Jammer 1: So, the best offer wins!
Jammer 2: I offer my Rare Necklace.
Jammer 4: I offer a rare bow and arrows.
Jammer 3: I offer anything of my list!
So, that's what BEST OFFER means. You don't trade the items to the person, you just SAY what you'd like to trade for it.
Jammer Scamming: A Comprehensive Guide, Surprisingly Not That Badly Written
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