How Not to get scammed

[wowdruid]

I recently advertized some characters for "Sell" and i got a few interested people in the account. So after talking with them on MSN for a bit i decided that i had a serious buyer and proceded with doing the transaction. I am going to play the monday morning quarterback here for a bit and give you all some key things that should raise alarms.

1. Day One : Talking and tryin to get transaction done. Money sent to my paypal account and then returned because we never finalized the transaction and it was getting late. So we decided that it was best to return all money and pick this up the next day.

2. Day Two : Again talking and making progress, waiting for the money to show up in my paypal account, and there it shows up from a different paypal account then the first day. I checked the addresses on both senders and they were totally different after what happend next. I get an email stating that the sender has cancelled payment.

3. Course of action was then to check to see how many email accounts were used during this whole transaction and i counted up to 5 different email accounts. My wow password is changed because it was a done deal for like 5 mins.


4. Since i havent recieved payment from the buyer i will be calling blizzard and informing them of the comprimisation of the account and plead with them to freeze the account or even ban it.


So in closing, pay attention to all the different emails people use to throw you off their trail. If you cant get the transaction done fast, there is probably a reason for this and you should stop and think about it for a min.

I would also like to say that Yeah ive been had and actually there are no real hard feelings as i was never intending on making my way back into the world of warcraft but there is a principal of payment which is why i am going to try and get acct banned.

[dark xeon]

So many scammers makes selling an unwanted accoutn so hard, gone through it myself for weeks and still havent found an honest buyer, still trying though coz the money will make a big difference to me irl.

[konahime]

after a while it's sometimes easier to just use eBay (after getting past its damn filter haha), even though it still uses PayPal at least you'd need an account so all your reps and other information are visible - ie harder to run if you do the-old-chargeback scam. If you're still selling, the most obvious signs that they might be a scammer is that: they're in a hurry to buy your account, they give offers without asking for more information (armory links etc), they give very high offers without much considerations (I once had several scammers continually raising each other's offers to over $700 for an account I later sold legitimately for $250, it was fun while it lasted, esp with each calling the other a scammer haha)

[rockguitar130]

Any tips for trading accounts?

[Emph]

Use an eGaming Supply middleman to trade accounts. Honestly, it's one of the best ways to not get scammed. The middleman will verify both chars and give each other the other's information.

best tip is to go by your gut... If the person seems too willing to trade, or their account is substantially better, it may be a scam. Would you take my $100 for your $50 if I knew your bank account information and could get the $100 back? Bad analogy, I know, but, uh, think of it as a good one that makes sense, and there you go.

[rockguitar130]

Thanks a bunch, I'll google that site. So is this site more of a discussion tool? Or do people trade via this forum?

[rockguitar130]

oh nevermind... wow lol THIS is eGaming supply! I game here via google and wasn't paying attention.

[Emph]

dot dot dot dot dot dot...


naaaaaaaaah this isn't eGaming Supply. This is just some random site that promotes other sites rather than its own. ;p

Welcome to EGS. If you've got any questions, such as where you are (;p), please feel free to PM me. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please also feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to help ya out.

[rockguitar130]

Lol, alright man thanks for the help and welcoming

[TheTWKid]

I've actually sold a few characters without issue. The primary thing with me is talking over the phone. Scammers, in my experience, will not talk over the phone. Now a lot of scamming companies seem to have caught on a bit and have HUBs set up directed to a US area code - so they'll give you a phone number to call, of course not answer, and then call you from a blocked, most likely foreign, number. So my advice would be to always get a phone conversation going, even if just for two minutes.