Scams

This is a list of cheats and scams commonly found in RuneScape. This is not meant to promote scamming, but to prevent players from being scammed. Using these scams and/or cheats can result in action taken against the players' account, if reported by another player. Remember Do not fall for these tricks. They are all fake. Also, now that there is a trade limit, some of these scams/cheats won't work.

Cheats
Since RuneScape is a massively multi-player game, it would be unfair to have "cheat codes" in the game. Therefore, none exist in RuneScape. Players who offer "cheats" such as free gold or memberships are usually either scammers or misinformed players.

There are still three main ways to "cheat"; bug abusing, character sharing, and macroing.

Bug abusing
Bug abusing is the act using programming errors to one's gain. This is rare, since bugs are usually quickly reported and patched. Jagex does Not offer rewards for reporting bugs.

Players who abuse bugs may be subject to action being taken against his/her account, up to a permanent ban.

Suggested action: Players who know about bugs should report them (and users who abuse them) to Jagex via the "Submit a Bug Report" option on the main page of Runescape.

Account sharing
Account sharing is the act of having two or more people controlling the same character.

Suggested action: It is difficult to tell if a player is character sharing, unless the player admits it. In this case, the player should be reported.

There are two methods Jagex uses to stop two or more people from using the same account:


 * Prohibiting the same computer from simultaneously having two or more RuneScape clients running. If you try to open a second RuneScape client (even with a different web browser), a simple message will appear that says you are simply violating the "terms of service" and will not let you connect.


 * Simultaneous account usage. This means that two people are not only sharing the account, but are trying to log in at the same time.  Since you can't be in two places at the same time, this will be logged and may be used by Jagex to identify people who are sharing accounts.

Jagex doesn't have a problem with you having multiple character accounts, but you shouldn't be trying to "share" an account with multiple users.

This also includes moving items between your own accounts. All accounts are to stand alone.

Scamming
There are many scams in RuneScape that a player may fall for. These scams may cause the player to lose their money, items, or even accounts.

All usernames used in the examples are hypothetical, and any resemblance to real usernames are coincidental.

Jagex staff impersonation scam
Players who do not have gold crowns in front of their names are not Jagex staff. Note that the crowns do not show up on RuneScape Classic. Instead, Jagex mods are named "Mod _____", except for Andrew and Paul, the founders of Jagex.

Examples:

Other Example

Other Example

Suggested actions: Report the player immediately under rule 3 or rule 5. Real Jagex staff will never ask for players' password.

Trust scam
Some players might attempt to trick other players into playing "trust games" and such. Examples:

Other Example

Suggested actions: Immediately after the host provides evidence that he is playing the trust game, the player may report him/her for item scamming rule 2.

Password censoring scam
Previously, RuneScape did not censor players' passwords (this would give away passwords like "rune axe" for example). Some players would trick others into thinking otherwise, and then look for any text that may resemble a password. As of April 24 2007, Jagex changed the system so that sentences which contain a player's exact password would not show up, although it only blocks the exact text of their password, and would still be visible to scammers if typed incorrectly, but this method is rarely used today. However, password scamming still occurs on RuneScape.

Examples:

Other Example

Suggested action: Players should report under password scamming (rule 3). Passwords are NOT blocked on RuneScape Classic, so people just asking for people to post their unchanged passwords can still be reported there.

Note that stating that Jagex does block your pass is not reportable as this is true.

Example

Suggested action: Since this is a completely true statement, it is not reportable. It is advised to not try this however and to place the player on your ignore list.

Password changing scam
Some players may try to convince another player to change their password. The scammer will then log into the account using the password they ask for.

Example:

Suggested action: Report the player for password scamming rule 3.

Drop scam
Some players will trick other players into dropping their items for them. Because of the Jagex update, this scam is outdated.

Example:

Other Example

Other Example

Suggested action: Ctrl-F4, Alt-F4, and Ctrl-W closes your window, and you may not have enough time to log back in before the scammer picks up your items. Report the scammer for item scamming (rule 2).

Prevention tips: Don't press strange key-combinations when asked. Also, remember that there are NO cheats or special codes in Runescape. In no circumstances, should you try any of these codes. If you are truly curious as to what they do, try using them with a different window when you are not logged on.

Since the December 10 game update, this scam is no longer possible for large items, as dropped items worth more than 3k (5k after the October 1 update) will not show to other people. However, you may still lose your gold or items if you drop them, especially if you log out.

Armour trimming and "upgrading"
Trimmed armour is obtained from treasure trails and normal armour cannot be trimmed by anyone. No player or NPC can trim armour. Although this scam has fallen out of popularity, it is still a method employed by various scammers, this scam is seen regularly on f2p servers. This scam is outdated.

Example:

Suggested action: Report the user for item scamming (rule 2).

Similarly, some players will offer to "upgrade" armour. Likewise, this is not possible.

Example:

Suggested actions: Again, report the player for item scamming (rule 2).

As of 02 January 2008, the trade limit does not allow all armour to be given away, the amount depending on the quest points of the players.

Trust trades
Some players will offer to turn raw products into finished products for those who cannot do so, such as smithing rune, cutting dragonstones, and enchanting amulets. These are not always scams.

Examples:

Other Example

With the Assist System, scams such as this are largely obsolete. Simply ask to be assisted rather than trading the player any items. However, on RuneScape Classic, there is no assist system and no hiscores, so players should be careful when participating in trust trades. Try to trade raw materials directly for finished products instead, if possible.

However, players will still lie about their skills. One common example of this is at the world 16 air crafting spot, where a player will lie about their runecrafting level, saying that they can make more air runes per essence than they really can. Use the Hi-scores to make sure they actually have the level that they say they do. Note that this is not reportable as Jagex has stated that you cannot be scammed out of something that you do not have yet (the extra runes that you would get with a higher level assist).

Account trades and transfers
Not only is transferring accounts against Jagex's rules, it is extremely risky. The player may take the other player's money and never give him/her the password. Even if the player receives the account and change the password, the original owner can take it back using the recovery questions.

Examples:

Additionally, some players may give you a high-level account, in hopes that you'll transfer your items to it. The scammer can then recover the account, and take any items that you may have placed on it.

Suggested actions: Report the player for account trading (rule 6). If you see accounts being sold on other web sites, send Jagex a link to that site via a Customer Support query. Accounts being sold on E-Bay no longer need to be reported, as Jagex is now checking that regularly themselves.

Fake RuneScape websites
Some players will make sites that look similar to the real RuneScape site, and offer moderator applications or entry into contests. In reality, these sites would collect your password and may present you with a fake error message when you enter your information.

Suggested actions: You should NEVER enter your RuneScape password into any site other than the official site, whose domain is runescape.com or funorb.com, which is a online gaming site of Jagex Ltd. Familiarize yourself with the ways domain names can be faked. You should avoid even visiting fake sites, as some may exploit vulnerabilities and may make your computer run a worm or Trojan when you visit the site. Finally, you should report the site to Jagex via customer support.

E-mail scam
This usually happens on other websites, such as forums or blogs. The player will make an e-mail address and claim that it is an e-mail address that will send you another members password, make you a free member, give you 99 billion coins, etc. Other times they scammer uses a different code than the one shown below. But the one shown below is just a example.

Aside from membership receipts, Jagex no longer sends e-mail to players. In addition, such e-mails will never have any clickable links.

Suggested actions: Report the e-mail to Jagex via customer support and delete it. When reporting the e-mail to Jagex, try to include the header information. If possible, block the user from sending you any more e-mails. To prevent scammers from harvesting your e-mail address, try to set it to "hidden" on Internet forums.

Cheat program scam
Some scammers will offer programs that claim to make RuneScape easier, but they will actually either steal your password or result in your account getting banned. This is one reason that Jagex discourages use of toolkits.

Suggested action: Do not use toolkits. Sometimes, your computer can get a keylogger just from visiting these sites, so make sure that your computer has an anti-virus program, and that it is up-to-date. Do not report other players for using these unless they openly admit it during chat.

Item-switching scam
Another common trick that scammers use is to switch items at the last minute in a trade, and hope that the other player doesn't notice. Scammers may also remove items before accepting. However, Jagex changed the way trading works, allowing any change in the trade to be marked with a flashing exclamation point, so this type of scam is virtually impossible to pull off now. Since the update on the trade limit by Jagex, this scam is outdated.

Examples of such scams include:

The following scams no longer work in any circumstance:
 * Herb notes (example: avantoe to guam)
 * Rune to mithril items
 * Steel to iron items
 * Dragon (and big) bones to normal bones
 * Noted items in general (example: noted dragon medium helm to noted ruby)
 * Easter egg to normal egg
 * Pure essence to normal essence
 * Yew logs to normal logs
 * 1000k gp to 10004 gp ×
 * 100k coins to 1004 coins ×
 * Mature to regular beer
 * Mage book to mage arena book
 * Rare seeds to common seeds
 * Black chainbody to iron chainbody
 * Dragon arrows to steel arrows
 * Black or white mystic to blue mystic
 * Silver ore to Tin ore


 * Guthan's warspear to leaf-bladed spear (the latter is no longer tradable)
 * Uncut diamonds and silver ore on RuneScape Classic (these looked exactly alike when silver was released, but was changed shortly after).

Changes that reduce the effectiveness of this scam:


 * Magic logs now no longer look like any other logs, they are blue/green with sparkles. Scammers used to ask players to trade in a German server, and sell them Oak Logs which looked similar at the time and had a similar name in German.

Suggested actions: Check the second screen carefully. If the other player is trying to scam, cancel the trade and immediately report the player under Rule 2.
 * The Money reduce scam has a lower chance of working because of a colour coding system for certain stackable items, like coins. 1-99,999 coins are yellow, 100k-9,999,999 coins are white, and 10M+ is green. So if a scammer tries to switch 100k with 1,004 coins, the player selling the item will notice a colour change, in addition to the red flashing exclamation mark.
 * The trade system now, when a player reduces or removes displays right before displays an "!" mark where the item was.
 * Balanced trading makes this harder.

As of 02 January 2008, this scam only works for small increments of money/items due to the trade limit.

Advert scams
Some RuneScape fan sites, even the most reputable ones, may display ads that encourage cheating or real-world trading. Often, the administrators of fan sites do not have control over the ads, which are served by an advertising company. Some other ads may offer money-making "guides" that are no different from the ones offered for free on forums.

Example:

Suggested actions: Report the ads to the administrators anyway (Rule 11). The administrator may, in turn, send complaints to the advertising company.

RuneScape Classic needle scam
In RuneScape Classic, some scammers have been known to offer 10 million coins for items. Upon trading, the scammer will actually offer 1 million coins and a needle. On the RuneScape Classic trading screen, this would look like 10,000,001 coins.

Suggested action: Report the player for item scamming.

Item drop telekinetic grab scam
Sometimes players will ask the victim to drop an item across a fence or other obstacle, saying that the player can pick it up if the scammer makes a move to take it. Do not drop your item for any reason; they may use Telekinetic Grab on it. You will also not be able to tell when your item becomes visible to them, allowing them to act like they have not seen the item up to the time they cast their spell.

Example:

Suggested action: Report the player for item scamming (rule 2).

This scam only works with items of lower value because of the trade limit.

Player house item drop scam
Scammers will talk the player into dropping an item, because (s)he can pick it up again before it appears to other players. Before the player takes it, they will expel the player from their house, and will take the item once it appears to them. Jagex has implemented an update that now warns the player when dropping items in a house.

Suggested action: Report the player for item scamming (rule 2).

As of 02 January 2008, this scam only works for low value items because of the trade limit.

Recovery question scams
Scammers may also try to trick players into unknowingly giving their recovery answers. While players are prohibited from asking the default recovery questions in the forums, it is a forum only rule.

Example:

Suggested actions: Report the player for requesting personal details (rule 13).

Trade password for item scam
Some players will claim to give away their password for a certain item they want.

Example:

Suggested actions: Simply ignore them and report the player item scamming. Even though they are mentioning their password, they can't be reported for password scamming because they are not scamming for someone else's password, only their items. Since they are offering their account (even though they would probably lie about or not even say their password), they can be reported under rule six, Account Sharing/Trading.

Money scams
Scammers will try to steal free-players' money by telling them about a coin that allows them to access a members world. This will steal their money and give them one coin in return

Example:

Suggested actions: Report the player for item scamming (rule 2). Note: This scam has lost popularity due to a recent update regarding the Grand Exchange - on F2p worlds, P2p items are nontradable (with some exceptions) and labeled as 'Members objects'.

Gem cutting scam
Prior to the introduction of the Grand Exchange and the Assist System, a very legitimate form of attempting to raise the Crafting skill was to stand around and announce that they could craft gemstones of various kinds, usually announcing the most difficult type of gemstone they could cut (such as ruby, diamond, or even dragonstone). As the pre-Grand Exchange NPC gem traders did in fact pay quite a bit more for cut gemstones over the uncut variety, the statement that was found on uncut gemstones when "examined" ("This would be worth more if it were cut") was from a certain point of view to be true. Since gemstones traded in small quantities and required high levels of crafting to make useful items out of them, a great many players simply drop gemstones on the ground if they discover them or sell them to places like the gem traders or even general stores.

With the introduction of the Grand Exchange, access to other players who wish to improve their crafting skill by using gemstones has improved significantly, and uncut gemstones are worth considerably more than their cut counterparts for all gemstone varieties. Depending on the current market conditions and the gem type, the value of the uncut variety may even be worth double the value as the cut version of the gemstone. The statement from examining uncut gemstones was changed by Jagex several months after the introduction of the Grand Exchange and after it was pointed out in the Runescape Official Forums to be completely false, and that some scamming based upon this statement was happening.

People involved with this scam try to convince generally new players that the old economics of RuneScape are still in place, and that these players can "earn" huge amounts of money by having their gemstones cut. The worst of the worst kind of scammers will still insist that you "give" the gemstones to be cut, and often just walk away or even teleport to a new location in order to avoid the player they just scammed. If this happens, Jagex does consider this kind of act to be against the rules, and it should be reported as soon as it happens. Unfortunately, the player who gets scammed will not recover their lost gemstones.

A more subtle scam is to offer to "assist" the player in cutting the gemstone without revealing the loss of value that will result from having the gemstone cut. Legitimate players who train crafting by cutting gemstones may power level by purchasing a large number of uncut gemstones from other players, and either offer those cut gemstones on the Grand Exchange or create jewellery and other items from those cut gemstones. What the scammers are trying to accomplish here is to quickly raise their crafting skill without having to spend the coins that more legitimate players would usually spend to accomplish that same task. A legitimate transaction would have players trading cut gemstones for uncut ones, however the new trading interface would quickly let these new players be completely aware of the huge loss they would suffer from such a transaction. Trading limits may even apply and prevent such a transaction with a large number of gemstones at once, as it would exceed the 3k trading limit (for new players and F2P). By only offering the "assist" feature and turning down trade offers, this "fact" of dropping the value of the gemstones is hidden from these newer players.

Unfortunately, Jagex (as of May 2008) doesn't consider this to be a scam and will not apply any black marks or cause any penalty to those players who engage in this practice. This is a "buyer beware" situation and is mainly a warning to those players who may be tempted to engage one of these gem traders for assistance when you can earn more money from uncut gemstones simply by selling them as uncut gemstones.

This is not to suggest that offering assistance for gemcutting is always a scam, and there are legitimate reasons including some quest requirements that may require some gemcutting services. But they are quite rare, and it would be the player who has the uncut gemstones that ought to initiate the request to have the gemstones cut in that situation. Most crowded areas of Runescape... particularly banks and near popular furnaces... have several players with high levels of crafting that would more than satisfy any demand for crafting assistance should the legitimate need for such help arise. Crafting is also such a difficult skill to earn experience points in (or expensive to earn experience quickly) that requests for assistance usually have multiple players showing up and eager to offer that assistance for "free" at any time.

Suggested Action:Don't give free uncut gems to another player to cut, this can just be done through the assist system

Making a Video whip scam
Another scam is sometimes a player will come up to another player that has an abyssal whip and say:

He doesn't record it, but drops 3 noted Dragon battle axe or any other weapon that is worth a lot, then waits for them to appear to other player with whip. The other player sees an expensive item, so first reaction is to pick them up. Player2 picks them up and has 4 items and then player1 quickly kills them. When he/she reappears, they have 3 Dragon battle axes but no whip. They lost over 600k worth.

This results from the fact that the high level alchemy value for the dragon battle axe is greater than that of the abyssal whip, meaning that the axes will be protected upon death over the whip.

A similar scam used to be that two players ask one to fight them for a video, gives them a Chinchompa, attacks them first so the victim didn't think they'd get skulled, and the victim throws the chinchompa, which also hits the second scammer, making the victim skulled. The two scammers would then kill the player.

Suggested actions: Never let another player kill you intentionally.

Dragonstone Scam
Some players will trick other players into buying expensive items, and then selling them, to lose relatively large amounts of money. For example:

Player 2 ends up with only a few fire runes, which is worth much less than the uncut dragonstones. This results in Player 2 losing some money.

Suggested Action: Check the money making method with Grand Exchange database and other resources before trying the method if you're unsure.