Warning
First off, anyone who has their finger on the pulse at BasilMarket should know there is a bit of a fiasco around guides at the moment. So I wish to assure you, this is a rant not a guide. If this rant helps you in anyway, you do so at your on peril.
How to not fall for a scam.
I’m tired of people who fall for obvious scams and then complain. It’s really not hard to not be a victim.
Don’t be a moron.
A common scam - drop games. One of the simplest ways to not get scammed is to not put yourself in the position to get scammed. Anyone who plays the game should be aware that when you drop an item, it immediately becomes lootable by other plays. This fact alone should stop people from falling for it, but it doesn’t.
Be wary of other people.
I think the most common “scam” (I’d not call it a scam myself) is people “hacking” their friends. As [MapleTip] loves to remind us, we should never give our account details to anyone. Is someone really your friend? They may act all nice, but how can you really tell? Certainly by not giving them everything they need to steal all your items and money. There are people who I would trust my account to, but if one of them were to back stab me I’d accept all responsibility.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, so if someone wants to give you an item for free, if you let them wear your sword of +1 rareness? Just walk away. There is a new(ish) scam that involves a hijacked account being used to spam the FM shops with “I saw you in some video at ___Maple.com“. Really now? If you don’t remember ever being asked or told about making a video, or you’ve never heard of the site in question be very careful.
Don’t get greedy as it will be your downfall.
Most scams play on your greed. They tempt you with fame, mesos and NX to fool you into giving the scammer your money. Are you really selling a steely for 15m, if only the seller didn’t drop lagging and cancelling the trade? Sure you are. I’ve encountered this scam myself, and had great fun being as slow as I could. Eventually, the scammer realised he’d not get anything from me and left the FM with the lovely goodbye message “fck u noob”. 15 minutes later he was back and the fun began all over again.
Conclusion.
If you fall for a scam: You’re a moron - I hope it teachs you something. Mesos aren’t the end of the world, your bank account could be.
If you scam people: Fuck you.