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.

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. Often times 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 GE 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. This is currently popular with the Polypore Staff, so don't think you will make lots of money from this.

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.

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 Game's are scams, but its rare to find a legitimate host.

Armour Trimming
No one can 'trim' your armour - it can't 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 armour using an ornamental kit(or). 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. 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 hack 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!"
This is NOT possible. They just simply won't give it back.

Fake Drop Party
Similar to the above, the scammer will claim that he's dropping valuable items and encourage you to drop yours. He 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 a 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.

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.

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. This also implies to the bones, wealthy players will want bones 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 majority 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. 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 and lock the portal so they can't come back.

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 trade accept button and clicks accept. The victim wont have control of mouse for atleast 5-6 seconds.

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.

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.

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 gp back this is a scam. Even if this is not a scam it is against the Rules of RuneScape and you should not trade real life wealth for RuneScape items.

Fake dicing
A lot of people still do not know that dicing has been removed from the game, and there are hosts who take advantage of this fact. The hosts will ask for bets and simply log out upon receiving these bets.

Fake Horsey Game
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!", or "Neaahhhyyy! Giddy-up horsey!"

Then if the first letter or any of the phrases matches the letter you picked, you get x3 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 (x3), thus scamming the better out of whatever he/she had bet.

After dicing had been removed there have been many players using the Horsey Game as an alternitive to dicing, or in this case scamming.

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 thier own adavantage.

Simply in this new report system, players can only report another play 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 player, unreportable.

A good way to avoid this style of scamming, when you are asking for anything to be doubled, simply ask for it in one trade, this will make it so you can see out a scam from real doublers (which honestly, is a very rare occasion.

The Quitting Scam
This is a very tricky scam to catch. A player comes up to someone and claims to be quitting for whatever reason. They offer to give away a very rare item (ie. Santa hat, Party Hats) if you prove yourself worthy. They offer to trade you something you already have, and all you have to do it LEND your copy of the item to them. Then they don't accept, saying lag. They then do the same thing to the second trade screen. They ask you to retrade them, saying that they have your lended item, and to get the rare item, you just have to trade their item back to them. However, you never really traded. Because the item is the exact same as your own, normally you wouldn't be able to know if it's yours or not.

The only way to know if the item is yours or not is to check your chat box. If it doesn't say "Accepted Trade" then the item is yours. The scammer counts on you not checking the box, and assuming that the item is theirs. So you trade them YOUR item, thinking it's the scammer's, and they log off with your item.

The only way to avoid this kind of scam is to ALWAYS check your chat box when trading. If you don't you could lose your item.

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.