Scam

Scam happens everywhere in our life, such as telephone scams, e-mail scams etc.
One of the common scam in our life would be the sms scam, a text message that inform you about millions of cash that you have won and you will be asked to call another number to claim those rewards but it often turn out to be fake rewards.

Scamming is unethical even in MMORPG. Players spend time and money in acquiring some particular items or weapons. In some online games such as Chibi Online or Mo Siang Online, some items are rare and even impossible to obtain unless one puts a lot of effort and hard work or throwing real cash into it. Such as,

A Rare Gold Enchanted Weapon in Chibi Online

An Un-Obtainable Weapon in Mo Siang Online

Despite all the hardworks and cash money that players invested, it is an accepted part of the game that players are strongly encouraged to protect themselves from being scammed. Even the game's developers and company have acknowledged that corporate infiltration, scamming and hackers are just another part of the harsh criminal underworld for MMORPG. In most MMOs, acts of theft could earn the perpetrator a permanent game ban, which means they cannot play the games anymore.

Types of Scam in MMORPG: (based on personal experiences and word of mouth)

- Item Scam -
also known as illegal gains where scammers gain items from other players without paying or giving anything in return, games' developer tends to overcome this problem by creating a system where items and weapons bind to the owner only. Players are unable to resell or buy any binding items or weapon.

- Gender Scam -
In some MMORPG such as MapleStory where there are wedding system in the game (where male players buy cash item and propose to female players and get married in the game), male players often invest real cash and find himself a wife in the game. However, all these can turn out to be a male players married another male player in disguise. These scammers create fake Fakebook account and give fake information and scam the other players' cash.

- Cash Scam -
There are players who use real cash to trade with in-game players, this is the most risky trade as it require both honest players participating in the trade. Some players might use Digi/Celcom/Maxis's Reload Card as an offer to buy anything in the game and if the offer is attractive, players will answer the deal. Once both players agree on the trade, cash player will reload for the in-game player and the in game player will hand over the stuff to the cash player. However, there are cases where in-game players log off directly after receiving the reloads.


Before I end this thread, there is something which I will like to ask,

" Is scamming in MMORPG a crime in the real world ? "

17th December 2009, China jails 11 over online games scam, 11 people are jailed for up to three years for their roles in online gaming scams that netted them around 140,000 Dollars. These people wrote or somehow created a Trojan Horse viruses and steal 5.3 million user names and passwords from online gamers, which were then used for "illegal gain".

http://www.france24.com/en/node/4950332

Readers are welcomed to ask anything about this post if it's too complicated or add in information for us if you have any personal experiences. Thank you.


References:
http://www.massively.com/2010/09/11/eve-online-player-steals-45-000-worth-of-isk-in-massive-investm/

http://www.france24.com/en/node/4950332

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090901183709AAvtZle