Trading Scams & What You Should Do

Scam n. A confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, esp. for making a quick profit; swindle.

Scams are, unfortunately, common things in VMK nowadays. However, there are many ways to prevent them, listed in this article.

From the 12/18/06 Newsletter "If you are in a trade with someone and they say they have entered furniture in but it remains invisible due to a bug – DO NOT believe them. This is a scam, and you should report them!"

Typical Scams

• "Invisible Furniture" entered in trade.
• Code that gives you an item, only if you don't have it, thus tricking you to trade your item away
• Other party's item taken out right before you click "Accept"
• Third party website asking for your log-in & password, saying they will give you codes for your account
• When trading codes, code given to you is fake
• Someone asking you to "borrow" your items
• Scammer saying that an pin that isn't rare is a rare pin in disguise
• When trading more than 15 items (trade limit), other party waits until most of your things are traded, and leaves without giving you your item

Scam Preventions

• Your password is for YOU to know, and no one to find out
• Don't trust anyone you don't know in real life
• If the trade is too good to be true, it probably is

If You're Scammed

• Contact VMK via the 'Help' button
• Contact VMK via 'Contact Us'
• If you remember the scammer's name, report them