WoW Scams to Avoid

After the string of account thievery that has gone around World of Warcraft over the last month I started to become interested in some of the other under handed techniques used to steal gold from players. Most work like real world scams where the con artist encourages the greed of a player by offering a really good deal. The really good scammers offer deals that are only a little bit of a bargain but they use items that are used often and have a high demand. This seems to fool people more effectively then offering a outrageously low price on something that is rare.

I am going to quickly go through some of the scams I've actually seen first hand or had a friend fall victim too. I am already in hot water since someone recognized themselves in the key logger article so I have to keep names out of this one.

The Quick Switch Scam
The scammer will offer to sell you an item for a very good price. He will come to you and open the trade window and actually put the item into it. Then as you are gathering the agreed upon low price he will switch the item out with another junk item that has the same icon. The scammer is hoping in your hurry to get the item for the low price that you will quickly hit trade and not notice the switch.

My experience:
I've only ever had this happen once to me back when I was a new to the game and I recognized the switch. The seller claimed he was just fooling around and had changed his mind on selling the item. I think this scam is widely recognized now and only those new to the game are being targeted. On most servers this scam is out of practice but may still be used by the occasional asshat trying to get an extra buck.

How to Avoid:
-Don't doing any trading when your tired. Scammers depend on either greed or lack of attention to make money
-Avoid responding to private tells trying to sell you an item. Most scammers are recognized in trade channel so they tend not to advertise there.
-Be careful of buying items from low level alts.

The Runaway Crafter Scam
Someone offers to make an item for you if you can provide the materials. After you give them the materials they either sell them or send them to their main character using the mailbox. In either case they probably put you on their ignore list as soon as the trade was done and plan on quickly logging off. This is the base scam in World of Warcraft and is comparably to grabbing the money from a cash register and running. But just like in the real world such obvious thievery has strict consequences. Usually people who engage in a crafter scam will gain a reputation so bad that whenever they log on people will make a comment in the general chat channel.

My Experience:
This one actually got me once when I was a playing a young hunter and wanted a pair of barbaric bracers made. The person faked a disconnect and when I caught back up to him claimed he would send it in the mail when he could be bothered to make it. Usually crafter scammers rely on a strategy like faking a disconnect so that their reputation decays more slowly. At least once every two weeks I hear about someone getting ripped off by people in this manner.

How to Avoid:
-Only have level 60 characters in real guilds make items for you. They have too much work in their character to risk being kicked out of a guild because of running scams.

The Auction House Price Hike Scam
These scammers have patience and rely on their victims making a simple mistake when purchasing items from the auction house. The scam usually involves putting a commonly used up item in the AH for a decent bid price but with a outrageous gold buyout price. The scammer usually makes sure the auction appears either at the top of the item list or in the middle of a group of properly priced items. Then they sit back and hope that someone buying a large amount of the commonly used items won't be paying attention and accidentally buy their outrageously priced item.

My Experience:
This scam is always in existence. Just look up the commonly used potions, cloth, and crafting materials in the auction house.

How to Avoid:
-Don't buy things from the Auction House late at night when you're tired.

The C.O.D Scam
The scammer will mail an item to a player and make sure its wrapped up so it can't be identified and request that the player pay for it. There are some variations of the scam which can be more tempting then others.

One method is when they pretend that they mistakenly sent an item to you instead of a fellow guildmember. Usually in the email they claimed the wrapped package is a crafted epic item and they are just requesting the COD as a tip. If the COD price is low enough like 5gp you be suprised how many people would take the item.

Another method I've heard of is including a small amount of gold in the mail message so one might accidentally accept the COD amount in the rush to get the gold.

My Experience:
Never actually had it happened to me but I've seen both screenshots and know of several friends who have received unexpected packages in the mail with COD attached to them.

How to Avoid:
-Don't accept items unless you know the person who sent them.
-If its too good to be true then it probably is. Don't be stupid

The WTB Scam
This scam is more involved then others but seems to trick a lot of people especially when the scammer is making disposable alt characters to do the advertising. Basically the scammer puts a rare but cheap to make item that might be used in a quest up in the auction for a high buyout. Then they log onto an alt and start advertising they want to buy the item for double the price listed in the auction house. The idea is that someone will get greedy and buy their item from the auction house and attempt to sell it to the disposable alt character. Of course the scammer has no attention of buying the item and will refuse to accept any real offers.

My Experience:
Seen it being done a couple of times. The last time was a blacksmith who had listed a moonsteel broadsword for 25gp in the auction house. He then had a series of alts advertise to buy a moonsteel broadsword for 50gp. Eventually one idiot bought the sword then spent the rest of the day trying to track the person down who wanted to buy it.

How to Avoid:
-Never pay more then something is worth in hopes you can sell it at a higher price.
-If its too good to be true then it probably is. Don't be stupid

These scams are sort of old and I believe the majority of them only happen rarely now. However, new ones are developed daily as a lot of people get off on the anonymous nature of the internet. Remember the main advice to avoid being scammed is to be cautious and avoid being tricked by greed. Most won't be sympathetic if you fall for a scam and there are very few punishments for scammers besides reputation loss. As far as I know most GMs will do nothing to retrieve lost property from scams which depend on human error. In fact the only time I've heard of them banning a scammer was when someone was mass mailing people with the COD scam. Apparently it was mainly because they use a bot to do it with and not that they were actually sending out the packages.