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.

Drop to double
A player may say that if you drop an item in a certain place and leave it for a while, it will double, and you get 2 of them. They will often say that you can only do it once a week or once a month to create an incentive to do drop an expensive item, or say that it only works for an item over 1m. They may then spam you with Teleother menus so as to stop you from being able to pick the item up, then pick up your item, or get someone else to do it while they are spamming you with teleother menus.

Daemonheim drop party
Some people will announce a drop party and for everyone to follow them. The scammer will then take you to Al-Kharid and ask for you to go to Daemonheim with him. Once everyone's in Daemonheim, he will walk south to the wilderness gate. The scammer would bolster the scam by standing several squares away from the gate and dropping money. The money is usually actually just 10k, but since 10k and 10m look the same, one could not tell until they exited the safety of the gate and picked it up. The scammer will then proceed to equip a fast weapon, such as dragon claws, and kill the player on the spot after freezing them, or use a multicombat spell from Ancient Magicks to kill the whole group.

"I am quitting and giving away my account"
Usually when people are making this scam they go to a popular area like Varrock Town Square. They will then proceed to tell the victim that they are quitting and are now giving away their account. They will ask the victim to add as friend then they will actually give the player the username and a simple multiuse password.

The victim usually doesn't consider to change the password, recovery questions, and email address. The scammer then changes his password, transfers items and moves on to a different victim.

It is against the RuneScape rules to receive or purchase an account from another player.

Membership scams
Sometimes scammers will log into free to play worlds and start offering to buy membership for other players, in return for payment or expensive items. They will usually keep the items given to them and then log off or teleport without keeping their end of the deal. A variant of this scam involves asking for your password in order to upgrade your account to membership status only to have them hijack your account and steal all of your items.

There are also websites that claim they can make you a member for free or for a smaller fee than what Jagex charges. Do not trust these sites because they will also attempt to steal your items and/or your account.

Just press "w"
The scammer will ask the player to get full armour set and all his/hers money and trade. The scammer will ask you to accept once and keep pressing the "w" in wealth transfer in the trade window. And if you fall victim to this you will be pressing the "w' as fast as you can and he will press accept if you keep doing this you will press accept a second time thus the scammer presses accept and you lose everything.

Inventory showing
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
People will offer to round someone's cash stack up to the nearest million coins for someone else. This is one of the 'too good to be true' scams. When you show the scammer your money (let's say it's 850,000 coins) they will put 150,000 coins 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 850,000 coins up - if you proceed with the trade you will hand over 850,000 coins and receive 150,000 coins in return, the net effect being a transfer of 700,000 coins 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 that the player really does double money, in which they actually don't.

Some players take advantage of great difference of the street price and the Grand Exchange price. One might say for example: "Doubling 2m in one trade!" You give 2 million gp and one gives an item worth of 4 million gp. You think you made a great deal but then you notice nobody is buying the item worth 4 million gp and the price of it is steadily going down, resulting in a loss.

Some variants of this scam involve players claiming to add certain percentages to your cash instead of doubling it.

The trust game
Players who ask to let them hold on to a valuable item of yours in exchange for payment. This is often a scam where they will not return your item as promised. Even if it is not necessarily a scam, players who offer to play the trust game can be reported for encouraging rule breaking, as trust trades are specifically against the rules.

"Do you trust me?"
The scammer will tell the victim that they are going to quit RuneScape and will give off a huge amount of money. But for a condition, the scammer will give the victim the money in exchange for a valuable item the victim has. The scammer will ask "do you trust me or not?" If the victim says yes, the victim must give the scammer the item first before he or she could get the money, as a form of "payment." Once the item is in the scammer's hands, he or she immediately logs off.

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 ready to kill whoever gets teleported.

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 Games are scams, but its rare to find a legitimate host. On the other hand, the chances of you guessing the right colour is 1/9, while you only get your money doubled.

Armour trimming
No one can 'trim' your armour - it can't either be '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 armour using an ornamental kit. This is currently not possible with any other type of armour, 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.

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 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. This is essentially the same as the "trust game." Any player who offers to perform a trust trade can be reported for encouraging rule-breaking, even if a scam does not take place.

"Set your password to [x] 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. This is also known as Phishing Password Scams.

"Give me your item and I'll duplicate it!"
Item duplicating is not possible. They will just simply run away and you will lose your item.

Fake drop party
Similar to the above, the scammer will claim that he's dropping valuable items and encourage you to drop yours. He or she will not drop items, and simply just take yours. Use the Falador Party Room for safe drop parties.

Random emote game
This game may affect several emotes, that have a randomiser 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 an Axe. The player guesses what object will come. If he is right, the owner would probably not get paid and the host would take his money. This game is against the rules to play, even if no scam takes place; since it is considered a trust trade, a player who offers to host the random emote game can be reported for encouraging rule-breaking.

Information for cash
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 Barrelchest anchor, Ceremonial swords, Katanas or other newly released items. Genuine players will not charge you for knowledge.

Similar items
Some players will look for someone selling a valuable item, they will offer to trade the person offering a Barrows item, 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 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. This also implies to bones wealthy players will want for prayer training thus buying, for an example, 20,000 Dragon bones and the Scammer will put up 20,000 Big bones or Babydragon bones as they cost much less than Dragon bones. So therefore it will trick the player as the bones can look very similar in the noted form thus tricking the player to put up the original cost for 20,000 Dragon bones but for Big bones or Babydragon bones.

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. It is against the RuneScape rules to purchase or receive another player's account.

Player-owned house kicking
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 scammers see their desired item(s), they will kick the victim from the house and lock the portal so they can't come back.

Goody bag
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 200,000 coins 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.

Real world trading
Real world trading sites are a scam. What the site runners do is they will ask for the payment, the player pays them in real money, then they ask for your email to email you when the order is done, then after the order is done they email you, then they will use that email to attempt recovery questions to hijack the coins back. Even if this is not a scam, real world trading is against the Rules of RuneScape.

Fake dicing and horse games
A lot of people still do not know that dicing has been removed from the game, and toy horseys now only have one possible outcome, and there are hosts who take advantage of this fact. The hosts will ask for bets and simply log out upon receiving these bets.

Silent Scamming
This scam is some what slow at times and would rarely be seen but, this scam is fairly new to some players as to how they abuse the new reporting system to their own advantage.

Simply in this new report system, players can only report another player by finding them on any of the chats. As so, players may go to a highly populated world and try to find players who would want their money doubled. The scammer will trade them and take their money and log out without saying a single word, making the scammer unreportable.

Money or item doubling as a whole is another form of scamming and should, of course, be avoided.

Soul wars Zeal
This scam involves people spamming that you can earn extra Zeal, which you can't. Pay no attention to this. They all require you to go to a youtube page and then to another website which will involves going to a bogus webiste, which allows hackers to hijack your account. You can only get 3 zeal for victory, 2 for draw and 1 for loss. The only exception to this was the Bot-Busting celebrations when you could get extra Zeal in game.

Inventory lending scam
A scam usually involving someone saying that they want to trade you their item if you lend them yours until logout. Then they cancel the trade in the last window making it look exactly as if the trade was completed. If you didn't pay close attention, you wouldn't notice that the lend was canceled. As a result the item you were going to lend would go back to your inventory and when he asks for you to trade 'his' item back, you would in fact be trading YOUR item back to him. The trick to catching this scam is to watch for the "trade declined" warning. If you don't, you will fall for this scam. And this results in no evidence for reporting the player, and your item gone. Common with rares. In response to this, on 4 January 2012, Jagex has made the trade declined notification much easier to see, making this scam relatively easy to foil.

A way that some scammers avoid the new declined trade message that Jagex has implemented, is by having you join their free chat whilst among many other players and telling you to click friends chat (they say this is so that they can talk to you, but really it is because using this setting filters out all game messages) so that you cannot see when the trade is declined. A way to stop this, is to simply turn public chat on to the 'hide' setting which will allow game messages and the friend's chat to be visible in the chat box.

"Buy me items in the Grand Exchange"
This scam involves the scammer (or an accomplice) asking others to buy some items in the GE for a certain price; reasons for the request include lack of cash (but having items of comparable value) and having bought the max amount. The scammer usually promises to pay extra for the trouble, but typically tries to sell the items for which surrogate buyer requests are made, thereby selling the victim goods for at an exorbitant price. Of course, rather than paying the "surrogate" buyer, the scammer logs out or leaves.

However, given the anonymous and peculiar nature of grand exchange, the ruse, unless involving an extremely obscure item with a completely dead market, does not benefit the scammer.

"Are you a trustworthy person?"
This scam involves someone, the scammer, to ask if the victim if they are trustworthy. If they 'pass the test', then they will be rewarded. It usually starts out as the scammer asks the victim if they want like a free whip. So what happens is they take the victim to a rural area and make them 'take the test'. The test consists of the victim having the same item as the scammer. The scammer will supposedly give the person their item, and borrow the victim's until logout, then have the victim give theirs back for a reward. So during the first trade before the scammer is about to give the victim their item they decline. If the victim doesn't look at the text bar they're toast. Then the scammer asks for their item back, causing the victim to give them theirs and not return the scammer's.

Redemption scam
This scam involves the victim getting skulled in the wilderness or going into dangerous clan wars. The scammer commonly says they are making a video and will ask that you bring one valuble item (either a discontinued item, or sometimes just a whip) and put on the Protect Item prayer to make you feel safe. Then they will ask that you put on the Redemption prayer which will heal you, draining your prayer to 0 at the same time, thereby making you lose your now unprotected item.

Dungeoneering cape game scam
This scam involves gambling on the Dungeoneering cape and the three different emotes it can yield when the skillcape emote is selected. The scammer will announce a "dungeoneering cape game", wherein the victim reportedly gets 3 times his/her bet if s/he guesses which emote the scammer ends up performing. However, the cape's emotes are performed depending on what attack bonuses a player has at the time of the emote as well as the armour worn, not at random. Rings are invisible, and some of them, namely the berserker ring, warrior ring, archers' ring and seers' ring, give bonuses that determine which emote will be performed, unbeknownst to the victim

"Free [item] show me inventory"
This scam involves someone giving free items to the victim. They first advertise the item they are giving and make you show your inventory. When the scammer puts the items and you put your inventory, he will accept the trade without you knowing you are giving your inventory away, losing money. (Example: you offer a Whip and the scammer offers 28 of the same items. He accepts and gets the whip, leaving you with the item he advertised.) The scammer will only accept if he/she earns profit.

"Pick up my drop"
This scam involves someone who drops items that a victim will likely pick up. This is only used in the Wilderness. They drop items that cost fair prices like 2h swords and a victim will pick it up. The victim will likely drop food for room and the scammer will keep doing this until the victim has no food left in their inventory. When the victim is just about to run to the bank, the player will quickly kill the victim and take their stuff and the victim's. The is rarely used and mostly used for skilled victims. This method is rarely used because of the lower leveled players picking up the dropped items before the victim can pick it up.

The Dice Game
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 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. The ability to roll dice was removed on 15 November 2011, making this scam defunct.

Dice Switching
In this scam, the host "switches dice" before rolling. For example, if a scammer dice host is saying "55x2", then it means if you get more than fifty five on the percentile dice, he will double your money. This is sometimes legit, but not always. Before rolling, the host/scammer would change their dice to any other dice from the bag, say 20-sided dice; thus making the maximum roll number 20, and resulting in the host always winning. Be alert for these scams, as they require attention to notice. They can be noticed by looking in the friends chat, as it says the type of dice they rolled along with the number they rolled. The ability to roll dice was removed on 15 November 2011, making this scam defunct.

Dice Bet Scamming
In this scam, the host tells some other scammers or other people to gather around him, and start saying things like, "He is legit!", or "He is a awesome dicer, I earned a lot of money from him!". Be wary of a scammer asking you to do this. On seeing these "legit" messages from others, people think the scammer is legit, and end up giving a large amount of money to him. The host never rolls the dice for the bet and usually logs out, stealing the money. The ability to roll dice was removed on 15 November 2011, making this scam defunct.

Fake Horse Games
Just like dicing, the host would advertise their "horsey game" with text such as "HNC game!!! X3!!!!".

HNC stands for the beginning of the letters of the possible outcomes while playing with the horsey. The victim would place a bet, then chose a letter deciding which phrase he/she would go for. Once the host has a bet place, he/she would play with the horsey, after it will showing the host playing with the horsey then saying one of three phrases:
 * "Come on Dobbin, we can win the race"
 * "Hi-ho Silver, and away!"
 * "Neaahhhyyy! Giddy-up horsey!"

Then if the first letter or any of the phrases matches the letter you picked, you get three times your cash, and if it doesn't match the host gets to keep the bet. Often host would log out after playing with the horsey since the stakes are very high for the host, thus scamming the better out of whatever he/she had bet.

"Just say neigh to gambling!" becomes the only outcome when playing with Toy horseys after 13 January, making this scam defunct.

Gnomeball scam/lure
Due to the item's kept on death update, this scam no longer works as you keep the highest valued item by the Grand Exchange guide price. The scammer would get a victim who has a rare discontinued item, a partyhat, halloween mask or santa hat.

The scammer would get the victim to be skulled (or simply just in the red portal in Clan Wars as you only keep one item if Protect item is activated).Then he/she would say put the Protect item prayer on, which made the victim feel safe because its the only item they have. Next they could ask them to either do an emote at low hp, or say he is making a video etc. Once they have a few lifepoints left, the player would throw them a gnomeball which works even when accept aid is OFF, and it would go into the weapons slot, as long as the player has nothing equipped, making it hard to drop before you are killed by the lurer/scammer.

Since almost every item protects over a discontinued rare item, the victim would usually just bring just that one item. The scammer would quickly use special attacks on them to finish them off, the gnomeball would protect over the rare item and the scammer getting what the victim had lost.

This scam was extremely rare to find in action, and only a very small amount of players knew about it. Most widely used before the Free Trade was removed in 2006, it made a comeback in February 2011 with the re-release of free trade. It was then negated by an update which made you keep the most valuable item(s) according to the Grand Exchange guide prices.