There are lots of scammers who play the game. To be honest, I never understood the reason behind scamming because it’s the hard work you put into finding rare items and getting fame from helping others that makes the game fun. Scamming in order to get items skips that fun process. In the end, maybe you get the item or the money but it also means running the risk of getting defamed, reported or worse.

Maybe you’re reading this out of curiosity and have no experience when it comes to scammers. Or maybe you’ve been scammed a few times. Regardless of your case, I hope this blog entry will help you to become less prone to scam. If you have any other ideas on how to prevent getting scammed or questions not addressed here, I’m all ears.

FAME LIES
According to the MapleSea website, “fame awarding is solely between players and we have limited interference on these activities. The original concept of Fame is voluntary award from player to player, as a form of respect or appreciation. It is not intended to be a trading ‘item’. Therefore exchange or trading of fame is based on the players mutual trust and done at your own risk.” Please keep that in mind. But should you choose to continue buying or selling fame, make sure that it’s the fame seller who starts the trade window, not the buyer. This way, the seller is able to immediately add the buyer’s fame after trading and no confusion would come out of being unable to find the buyer after paying. It’s not really a scam prevention method since there’s no way of truly preventing it. But it will be able to alert you more quickly if the person you traded with is scamming you.

WEBSITE KELOGGING
Regardless of what website is being advertised on the megaphones, don’t visit it. It doesn’t matter if it looks like a harmless music website. The only exception is when you know the website’s connections or that it has a good reputation. Even with your online buddies, it might be a good idea to be cautious when they recommend websites to you no matter how much you trust them. Maybe they went to a website they thought was really cool and didn’t even know there was a keylogger. If you get keylogged, don’t enter any website or programs that require a password. Scan your computer with an anti-virus program. Clear your cache and cookies from your internet browser. Run an anti-spyware/adware program. It may not necessarily get rid of a sticky keylogging program but doing these things are worth a try.

TAB TAB ENTER
This scam is usually done by asking the person whether or not they would like to double their items. They would ask a person to put an item in the trade window and press tab+tab+space+enter in order to do so. If you’re new to the game, it’s easy to fall for this one. Just keep in mind that gamers aren’t able to do godly things like duplicating items within the game. This section is more just FYI because if you the scam exists, you won’t ever fall for it.

DROP GAMES
The scammer might just scream “drop games”. If he/she wants to thinly hide it, he/she might express a desire to see your items out of curiosity. Again, this is more of an FYI than anything. Don’t succumb to others asking you to do weird things and things you regularly wouldn’t do. It’s not normal to have random strangers asking to see the contents of your wallet without intention of stealing from you.

GUILD FEES
I’m not quite sure why people are so desperate to join a guild, but it’s those who are that fall for this type of scam. The scammer guild would usually request a sort of membership fee in order to join the guild. While there are some guilds who do that and are perfectly honest, there are a few that would kick you out immediately after you pay the money. Keep in mind that most honest guilds usually need you to build up a sense of trust and reliability within the guild before they promote you to a higher ranking. So if you can merely pay your way to become Jr. Master, it should set off alarms within your head that something is going wrong. The more often you see a guild name appear under the names of gamers, the higher the likelihood that it is honest. This is because it ensures you that the guild leader is actually recruiting or has recruited a lot of members with the intention of expansion instead of merely raking in money. Trust your instincts when you encounter a recruiting guild that’s asking for membership fees. If possible, do some research on the guild before deciding to join it.

BUDDIES
Before you read this section, I suggest you take a look at this. The two groups you should be most worried about are your annoyances and strangers. Keep in mind that a core group friend would never ask strange things like the password of your account unless they got keylogged. Maybe you would offer it to them yourself when you have trouble during a jump quest, but expect them to say “are you sure?” or “it’s not a good idea because my bratty brother could do something bad.” The only reason they would want your password is to do a favour for you, and when YOU ask. Borrowing items is also fine within the core group, but don’t make it too tempting with really really rare equipment. Annoyances have the highest likelihood of being able to scam you because you may already have some trust in them. You can give them things that you can afford to lose, but don’t even bother thinking about offering your account to them. When in doubt, just say no. As for the strangers, you should pretty much treat them as real strangers but maybe with more friendliness. If there’s something you wouldn’t entrust to any random stranger, don’t entrust it to them.

MESOS FOR NX CASH OR VICE VERSA
This is illegal in the game and I wouldn’t suggest people do it. But if you must, remember that there’s no surefire way of preventing someone from keeping your account after you give them your password. It’s a good idea to ask the NX seller what country they’re from to check if that country sells prepaid cards. If you’re selling the NX cash yourself, don’t ever give away your bank or credit card information during the transaction. Again, this means the only option is prepaid cards. If possible, it’s best to trade the actual prepaid card key in the trade window instead of having the seller log on to your account. If you must have the trader log on to your account, make sure that the password for your account is different from that of your e-mail account. Again, remember that this doesn’t necessarily prevent scamming since the trader could give you a fake key, but it will slim down the chances a bit. And keep in mind that it’s illegal so you’re doing this at your own risk.