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USEFUL SCAMMER FACTS

by IFO SHAMIEH

THE MAIN SCAM

The main scam consists of two users (person A: good user, person B: bad user) Person A and person B come to an arrangement on the forum for an item swap. Person B has a low post count and person A has a good post count. Person B asks person A to send their item first. Person A agrees, and send their item. Person B then does not send their item as promised and then removes Person A from their Facebook.

This scenario has to be the most common scam known. My suggestion to avoid this is to only trade with established traders, and NEVER send first unless their post count and reputation is at a decent rate.

THE PM SCAM

This way of scamming is basically the same as The Main Scam, however The Main Scam takes place on a thread where there are witnesses of the confirmation of the trade. The PM Scam takes place (as if you hadn't guessed) in private messages. When a random person has seen your sale or want-to-buy thread and tries to arrange a deal through the PM service with you.

This way of trading more than likely results in the other person not sending you the item arranged, and you are left with no evidence of this apparent trade ever taking place. My advice would be to NEVER trade through private messaging. Always arrange and finalize your trades on the forum for all to see. W.O.W. management cannot ban people you report as scammers unless the scam took place here.

TURN THE TABLES SCAM

The Turn The Tables scam (I couldn't think of a catchy name) again has the same basics as The Main Scam, but instead of the other person asking you to send first, they offer to send first. They say they have sent you the item but you have not yet received it. They then continue to harass you into sending them items, or in some cases they threaten to post your name on the scammers list.

A lot of people say there is no way you can prove weather the other person has sent the item or not. Well I would suggest that in every trade, you ask the person sending to take a screen shot of them sending you the item. That way, if they say they have sent it and they have, they will have proof of this. (to take a screen shot simply press the Print Screen button found at the top right of your keyboard, then open paint, click on edit, then click paste).

HIJACK SCAM

The Hijack Scam is pretty basic, so beware. It is when you and another trader come to a deal for your items, you receive a friend request on Facebook and accept, and then send your items across. Unknowing that the person who has sent you a friend request is not, in fact, the same person you have made the deal with in the first place. They then remove you from Facebook and you're none the wiser of who the scammer is on the forum.

My suggestions to prevent this from happening would be that once you come to an arrangement with a trader, you click the link to their Facebook profile on the forum just to double check that the friend request was from them. It takes literally 2 seconds and could prevent you from loosing your items.

Steps to take to avoid getting scammed:

CHECK OUT THEIR REPUTATION - the more the green bars, the more it indicates that they have had good tradings and kind deeds. The more the green, the more likely they are safe to trade with.

RED DOT MEANS THEY COULD BE A SCAMMER. I'd run away from them as fast as I can.

CHECK THE TRADER'S PROFILE - you can do this by clicking on their name and choosing View Profile. You can read their visitor messages and the posts and threads they have made (to do this, go to Statistics).

IF THE FACEBOOK LINK IS AVAILABLE, CLICK ON IT, CHECK THE NAME AND SEE IF THEY'RE ON OUR SCAMMERS LIST, AND THOSE AT OTHER SITES. - One site that offers this is the Scam Prevention Group.

DO NOT TRADE VIA PM - make the transaction visible to the public by using a trade thread to do all your deals. Scammers love using private messages to hide their identities from the public.

DO NOT TRADE OUTSIDE THE FORUM - Scammers now try to lure you into dealing with them via Facebook or email. Usually, the offers will be very hard to resist, but if you are smart, you will resist them anyway. There is no sense in being so greedy for a good deal that you get scammed, is there? If you do trade outside the forum, you are on your own should anything happen.

DO NOT TRADE IF THEY INSIST ON YOU SENDING FIRST AND THEIR REP AND POST COUNT IS VERY LOW - Usually, they say "I was scammed so I don't want to send first" as an excuse - we've heard this a million times. Sometimes they will even negotiate with you sending half of the deal first. If you are on our STL, you have the right to require them to send first.

If you are not comfortable with trading directly with the person, offer to use a safe trader referee (middleman,) or else you may pull out of the deal. Any person on our Safe Trader List (STL) can act as a middleman/referee for your trade if they are willing.

In addition, (PSITB) staff members have special middleman/trader accounts (listed below) to help you with these trades. If you are approached by any other account claiming to be a WOW middleman, beware, it is a scammer. Please check our URLs to be sure you are dealing with us - anyone can name an account anything they want, but the URL proves you have the right one.

(PSITB) Staff Middlemen Accounts (Check anyone claiming to be staff acting as your middleman against these URLs BEFORE TRADING)

IFO SHAMIEH : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000453756655
BEWARE OF TRUST LINKS FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW VERY WELL. We don't recommend trusting trust links, unless you know all the people who posted on them well, and you can verify their profile links to prove they are the right URLs of your friends. Otherwise, avoid them, because scammers get their friends to post false good reports for them there, and they also hijack innocent people's accounts to use in trust threads. Be careful with these.

LISTEN TO YOUR INSTINCTS - if you feel uncomfortable with the deal or the person, then listen to your gut and don't do the transaction.

To guarantee a safe trade, then buy or sell to someone with high posts and reps. Better yet, do your first several trades only with traders listed in the safe traders list until you feel confident enough to trade with everyone else.

BETTER BE SAFE THAN SORRY. It will only take you a couple of extra minutes to do your basic safety checks before trading with someone. If you are unsure or have any questions about trading, you can always ask someone in the forum. There are plenty who will help you here.

REMEMBER THESE SIMPLE RULES AND TRADING SHOULD BE SAFE.

ALWAYS check the Scammer and Safe Trader lists.

ALWAYS refer to a user's previous posts and threads.

ALWAYS arrange your trades in a public thread.

NEVER trade through Private Messaging.

Try only to trade with established traders and in time you yourself will become an established trader.

NEVER send your item first to someone who has a low post count and low reputation points.

ALWAYS ask the sender to take a screen shot of themselves sending the item(s).

NEVER give out information that is ''not need to know''.

How to take a screen shot 101

Upon your trade, look on your keyboard and press Ctrl + alt + the Prt Scrn/ keys together

Next Open any paint program your computer has. Usually every PC comes with a paint program. To find it, double-click any picture or image on your computer. It will open in your paint program. You may use Photoshop, or PaintShopPro, but any image editor will do.

Depending on the program, go into it and click file/new (and paste by pressing CTRL V,) or file/paste, or right-click/paste-new while on the program's work surface.

There, your image will show up and you can then click File/Save-as to save it as a JPG-JPEG, PNG, or GIF image. After saving, go to Facebook Photo Upload and browse to where you saved it on your computer. Don't forget to set the view permissions on it in Facebook, so we can see the proof of the scam, if needed.