Scams

Scamming is the act of stealing items or accounts from another player through trickery. This is strictly against the RuneScape rules and doing so will typically result in banning of the violator's account. '''This page is not meant to promote scamming, but rather to prevent players from being scammed. Despite the title, none of these are considered cheats.'''

"Show me your inventory" scam!!
Players will ask you to show them your best items in the hope that you'll forget they're there, and press 'Accept'. Be wary of anyone asking you to show your inventory and make sure you’re concentrating.

Rushing you to trade (Lag Trading)
Some players may start closing the trade window and claiming there is lag – trying to rush you into trading quickly by repeatedly closing their trade window, so they can alter the trade without you noticing. Only trade when you have had PLENTY of time to check the trade screens and ensure all is well. Or else you could potentially lose lots of money.

Rounding Money
Show me your pile of cash and I'll round it up to the nearest million for you - this is one of the 'too good to be true' scams. When you show the scammer your money (let's say it's 850k) they will put 150k in the trade window - and the initial impression is that you are indeed getting the difference between your cash and one million - but don't forget you have put 850k up - if you proceed with the trade you will hand over 850k and receive 150k in return, the net effect being a transfer of 700k from you to the scammer. ALWAYS check what you are losing and what you are gaining - don't be tempted by what is being offered to you without considering what you are also giving away! Always check your trade window to verify what you are giving and in exchange for what. Oftentimes they will also round it down, so they will still make a small profit, and are more likely to fool common users.

Doubling Money
Similar to the 'rounding' scam. The scammer will say they can double your money and offer to 'prove' it. You give them a small amount of money - they give you double the amount back. They will then try to get you to give them a larger amount, but instead of doubling it they'll just keep it. They may even use a friend to help, who will stand next to them saying something like “''OMG! He doubled my 100k!" or "Wow! you really are legit!''”. It’s probably worth remembering that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is...People some times will stay still and continue to say "Doubling money" Or say "Np" so people think he doubled your money, if that does happen...Report them, demand for your money back to make sure no one else gets scammed.

The Trust Game
"Trade me your most expensive item and I will return it to you" - the person who trades the most expensive item wins a huge prize! This is a SCAM. These scammers will often be surrounded by friends who will tell you that they recently won a massive amount of money. Avoid this at all costs.

Meet me in the Wilderness / Come into the Wilderness with me

 * The only reason someone wants to meet you in the Wild is so they can kill you and steal your items. Only trade in SAFE places, and don't go into the Wilderness with anything you aren't willing to lose. Often times they will say that they are making a Pking Video for YouTube.

Accepting a teleport - safety
Make sure you know where the location is before you accept a teleport from another player. The Ice Plateau is in the Wilderness, and there are often a group of Player Killers lying in wait there.

Gem cutting

 * Don’t hand an inventory full of gems to anyone offering to cut them – use the assist system. Alternatively trade uncut for cut. That’s what it’s for. Because of its low profit margins, this scam is rarely used anymore.

The Flower Game


You will be asked to hand over some cash for the bet, then the player will plant a flower seed and ask you to guess which of the nine colors of flower the seed will produce. If you guess correctly, the player will claim to double your money. They may keep to their side of the bargain, but it’s more likely that they will log out and run off with your cash. Players use Mithril Seeds to grow these flowers. It should be noted that not all Flower Game's are scams, but its rare to find a legitimate host.

The Dice Game


Similar to the Flower Game, but you'll have no way of checking which number the dice fall on, as the player will claim to be throwing the die in real life. Even if you choose the correct number, the player is very unlikely to tell you this, in fact, they probably don't even have any dice in the first place!

In the Dice Game, a Dice Bag is used to roll dice (usually percentile dice), with the resulting number being broadcasted to the host's friends chat. If the number rolled is over a set number, the player wins; if it's below, the host wins. The player is generally rewarded with 2x or 3x their money for a winning roll. This game requires you to join a groups' friends chat in order to play. It may be advisable to only play this game with a high ranked member of the group's friends chat, as ranks are often earned through proof of large amounts of coins. Even when playing with a highly-ranked member of an established dicing chat, the odds will be skewed in the house's favour, giving you as little as a 2 in 5 chance to win, so over time it is expected to lose more often than win.

An alternative version of this game exists where the player must instead guess the result of a dice roll (usually using the two ten-sided dice).



Armour trimming
No one can 'trim' your armour - it can be either 'trimmed' or 'untrimmed'. It is not possible to trim untrimmed armour. Trimmed armour can be gained by completing clue scrolls, or through buying it in the Grand Exchange. It is, however, possible to add a gold trim to dragon armor using an ornamental kit(or). This is currently not possible with any other type of armor, however.

"Rare" items
Many players will ask inflated prices for items claiming they are rare. If in doubt, please check the current price. This is stated at the bottom of the trade interface or you can use the Grand Exchange or look up the market price on the Grand Exchange Market Watch.

Team Item Scamming
Many players will band together to try to scam you – one will be selling an item for a high price, the other will claim to be buying the same item for a higher price. This will fool some players into thinking that they can make a quick sale and large profit if they buy and sell the items being offered. Don’t be fooled by this!

Alt-F4
Some players will claim that dropping your items and pressing Alt-F4 will double your items. All it will do is close the browser or client, which will log you out, so they can pick up your stuff. (F5 may do the same thing by refreshing your browser page or ctrl + w which will close your tab). This scam has recently lost some popularity as the game shows a message confirming whether the player would like to leave the page or not.

"Trade me your item for a minute, I'll give it back!"
Don't believe them, they'll probably run away with your stuff. Instead of trading it to them, use the Item Lending system instead. Often they will say they just want a screenshot with the items in their inventory.

"Set your password to [insert password here] and log out for free stuff!"
If you do this, they will hijack your account (because they now know what your password is) and steal anything valuable. Not possible with players with previous names, unless they were your friend or implanted a virus on you. However, free players are prone to it and there might be programs that detects players logging out nearby and try the passwords. This is also known as Phishing Password Scams.

"Give me your item and I'll duplicate it!" / Duplication scam
This is NOT possible. They just simply won't give it back.

"Whoever drops the most valuable item will win a prize!" / Item dropping scam
The scammer will just pick up your item and keep it. It would not be possible to determine who dropped what. A variation of this scam takes place by placing items on a table, sometimes in a player-owned house.

Fake drop party
Similar to the above, the scammer will claim that he's dropping valuable items and encourage you to drop yours. Use the Falador Party Room for safe drop parties. This is a Robinhood-type scam, where usually the items dropped by the party will be obtainable by everyone participating in the drop party.

Random Emote Game
This game may affect several emotes, that have a randomizer in it. Some emotes with this are the Seal of Approval emote, and the Classic cape emote, as well as the Easter Ring emote, where the player turns himself into one of several easter eggs. In the Seal Game, players bet on which number will appear on the back that appears when the host uses the Seal of Approval emote. An alternative version exists where the player's bet is multiplied by the number on the seal's backpack instead. At the Classic cape emote, there are three possible objects in the thinking cloud: a Bar, some Arrows, and a Axe. The player guesses what object will come. If he is right, he gets double his money.

Clan Wars Scam
A player will be advertising a clan outside of the Clan Wars portal, once joined he will get one of his low level friends to equip a noticably valuable item and enter the portal. The match will be a safe match at first, the scammer then states that he will re-challenge his friend and secretly set the rules to drop all items, and in excitement the victim will enter the match. The scammer will tell everyone to fall in so that they can pile, and 10 seconds before the match starts the scammer and his friends will switch teams and barrage you, and kill you for your items, which they then share between themselves.

Information for Cash Scam
A player sees a new item and wants to know more about it. The scammer states he will inform the victim on how to obtain the item for a fee, but when the scammer receives payment, they log off. The scam is most often performed with uncommon or unusual items like a Rune defender, Barrelchest anchor, Ceremonial swords, Katanas or other newly released items.

Similar Item Scam
Some players will look for someone selling a valuable item, they will offer to trade the person offering a Barrows item, e.g. a Barrows - dharok's set the trading player will see the profit he is about to make and press accept, the scammer will then decline say it was an accident and offer to re-trade. in the re-trade the scammer will then offer a similar looking item like a Bronze armour set (lg) and immediately press accept, the trader still excited from the barrows offer instantly accepts loses their valuable item and is left with bronze armour.

This is also the case with Saradomin Swords. Scammers will open a second trade and will ask you to put in money. In actual fact, it is a Steel 2h sword or a White 2h sword.

Password for Item
Some players will claim to give away the password to one of their accounts (including possibly the one they are scamming with) for a certain item they want. Due to an update, you can no-longer say your account's password, but there are many ways to evade this censor.

Player-Owned House
Some players will try to give you a rare or expensive item for something you might have. In the case of the Player-Owned House Scam, the scammer may ask that the player drop his or her items or put them on a table, claiming that they will also put something valuable on the table as well. As soon as the scammer sees their desired item(s), they will kick the victim from the house.

Staked Duel Skyping
In this scam, the scammer will add the victim on Skype and will then fight them in a staked duel. While fighting the victim will receive a pop-up from Skype which will make it impossible to react to the scammers attack.

Popup/auto center clicking
The victim will be told to put in valuables in trade menu and to click accept till final menu. Then the scammer sends the victim a auto virus program via (skype, email) and tells them to open it and that the items will double in front of them in final menu. The reailty is that when they open the program the mouse auto centers to the final trde accept button and clicks accept. The victim wont have control of mouse for atleast 5-6 seconds.

Goody Bag Scam
In this scam, the scammer will offer a chance at getting a rare/high value, supposedly drawn out of a goody bag, in exchange for a lower value stake. For example a victim gives 200k to the scammer. They then are told either to pick a number (e.g. 1-5) and the goody bag item is chosen this way. The scammer will likely offer and show several high-value items to a victim, along with several low value ones in order to seem legitimate. Once a victim has paid and chosen a number, they will offer up the lowest value item, earning in the process, giving a good reward to lure you to continue or simply log-out without giving anything. A variation is a player simply claiming they have a real "goody bag" tool in their inventory and as such, they cannot guess what item will emerge from it once loading it with 'prizes'. This is false, no such item exists.

One-Trade Money Doubling
In this scam, the scammer is saying "Doubling in one trade", and then people trade him because one-trade doublers are most of the time legit. He'll say to put your money in the trade, and clicking accept once. He will not accept, but will say to click the text which says "number of coins being transfererd. He'll ask you to say when you're doing it. Then, when you're doing it, he'll click on accept twice, and you're still clicking, and then you realise you've clicked accept twice, too, losing your money. This scam is not very known, because it's very recent.

False Begging
A player may claim that he or she was hacked and wants free items. There is no way of knowing for sure if the player in question actually did get hacked, or is actually poor, so it is not advised to give anything, as that will only encourage other beggars. Even if the player was not hacked, this is not reportable as it is not considered scamming. Occasionally, a player may change their name to be similar to that of the friend of another and private message them. This is very ineffective and only inattentive people would fall for this one. In addition to this, you would also have to know the name of a player on that person's friend list, and know whether or not that player had chat filters on.

Free Kills
Ever since the 25 May 2011 Death Hats update, many higher levels have been offering lower levels free kills to those wanting Tier 2 hats mainly in the Duel Arena, but also the occasional person in the Wilderness. The person would most likely be lying and instead of letting the lower level kill them, the higher level retaliates and kills the player, adding another kill to the high level's score. This isn't reportable, as the losing player usually doesn't lose any items, but it may ruin his/her kill streak.

Account Hacking
This action is applicable to basically any online game. Account hacking is when a player steals another player's account. This can happen in several ways, so to make sure this does not happen to you the following should be done: Always have a bank pin on your account, one that you can relate to and memorize easily, but not one that is easy to guess, or one that can be revealed by a simple question (such as a logical sequence of numbers like 1234, 0000, 7777, or your birth year). Never download anything related to Runescape that is not from Jagex. The most common type of program that hijacks your password is macros and bots. Of course, programs like SwiftKit are actually not used to hack you, though Jagex has stated they do not recommend using any 3rd party software for Runescape. NEVER give away your password to ANYONE, Jagex moderators or Jagex themselves will never ask for your password other than to log into Runescape ....this goes with Phishing. Change your password frequently, suggested once every two months. Make your recovery questions hard for others, but something you know. Never use the same password for any other account or service like YouTube, Facebook , etc. Another less commonly known way that is used to gain access to an account is to use email phishing. this is done by asking the player to email them, taking their email address and using it to attempt an account recovery.

Paypal Scam
The victim has a high value item (eg Santa Hat or Partyhat) and the scammer then asks if they have a PayPal account. If the victim says yes, the scammer will then continue with the scam, saying that he will send money to the victim's account if he/she gives them the rare item. Usually the scammer will just log out or run off with the high-valued item.

This scam breaks RWT rules. If someone offers you real-life currency for an item, or if they offer you an item for real-life currency, they are breaking the rules and must be reported!