Avoiding Scams
(Issue 5/6)
We're nearing the end of our scam series and how to avoid them. I was not sure if i should include this next topic in our series since it is illegal in the first place so if you are scammed, you can't blame anyone but yourself.
I'm talking about RMTs.
RMT is the acronym for Real Money Transfer, Real Money Trading or even Real Money Transactions. This game is already free-to-play and the fact that there is an in game non playing character Auctioneer who handles transactions akin to RMT, why would you even bother doing illegal RMTs?
The birth of MMORPG provided another avenue for earning money. Real money transactions followed MMORPG like a shadow. We can't deny that there are real advantages of doing business of RMT for both the players and the people or companies that earn from it. BUT like most businesses, there are also cases of cheating and scamming. Here are some of the known RMT scams going on.
RMT Website
Some scammers offer real money transactions thru websites. They sell in game items or even in game money for a lesser amount that what you would need to pay for if you take the top-up way of getting in game money. These websites normal way to get money from you is through depositing your payment to a bank account. They say that after they have confirmed that you paid, you will receive the in game item or money via mail.
The victims might get blinded by the fact that they will be getting more in game money for less that what they would normally pay if they use the ingot trading of the Auctioneer. But one should remember that once you deposit your money into a bank account (not yours), that will be the last time you will see your money. If you are scammed in this manner, say bye bye to your money and boo hoo to yourself for putting your trust in something illegal.
Account Selling/Exchange
Scammer would be saying he's selling his account to the victim. Once the victim buys the account, the scammer provides the username and password for the account and the corresponding myLU account. Even if the victim changes the passwords of the newly-acquired account, it would still be useless. Since the scammer knows the email of the myLU account, he would just use the forget password option and get back the myLU account and the in game account too. The victim would then lose the account and the money he used to buy the said account.
Although you can change the email of the myLU account. Some scammers might trick the victim into thinking that the email was just a dummy account which he can't remember anymore. If you are the victim, remember that there is more pride in leveling your own character which you started from scratch than buying someone else's character and exposing yourself to possible scam.
The other variation of this is the account exchange where the scammer would say he wanted to trade his account for yours. If you fall to this kind of scam, you might end up with no account at all. As you've already given your account to him and he was able to get back his account from you.
Server Trading
There is no option of server transfers in our game. If you started in the Dragon server and you want to start anew in the Serpent server, there will be no way of getting items from your account in Dragon to your account in Serpent. With this in mind, people resort to RMT to do server trades.
This normally involves using two PCs so the exchange would be simultaneous for both servers. The problem here is once the victim traded his items to the scammer, he would no way of knowing if the scammer would also trade his items to the victim. Since this is a scam, the scammer will definitely not trade the items and might actually log off as soon as he got the victim's things.
Once you started in a game, make sure to choose the server you will want to stay for a long time. Otherwise if you begin in another server, you should expect to start all over again. No shortcuts.
Meet ups
The scammer would be selling an item or in game money and as the buyer, the victim then meets up with the scammer. The bad thing here is the scammer knows the victim have real money with him while the victim might not know if the scammer really has the in game item/money. The victim basically puts himself in the spot where the scammer could rob him in real life.
Meet ups or eye-balling someone is nice if you are just there to socialize. But to meet up and do real money transactions, you are making yourself vulnerable to real life attacks such as hold-ups and robbery.
Like i said, I initially don't want to include RMT in this scam series. But RMTs do exist in the game. Some people abhor it while some earn from it. The overall lesson here, RMT is illegal so it will be totally your risk if you indulge in it. If you are scammed, the blame is on you. You will be putting your account in danger of getting banned and at the same time you could be putting yourself in danger in real life if you do real money transactions.
