the most recent scam, be careful.

scruncy wrote: »

you are all right .
Yes , you should not give things away
Yes u should go not to 3rd party pages
Yes u should not do this and that

Thats all correct , but this doesnt mean that people who go around and try to trick others or lure them somewhere should be unpunished.

Its like living in a criminal environment in rl. What do you then? You move to a other place where you feel saver.
And this can not be in the interrest of pwi.

Then take a more proactive approach in-game. If a scammer makes an attempt to get your account info or borrow your gear then screen shot it to post on some image hosting site. Then spam a link to that site, what the scammer did, and who the scammers are in WC. Out the scammers in the game. Humiliate them. Get your in-game community more involved with identifying and dealing with these scammers.

Slivaf - Dreamweaver wrote: »

*cough* look at what happened with the goon glitch, and the orb glitch. (Not to mention other... cases... that I am forgetting to mention.) xD

Cheaters absolutely seem to prosper in this game sadly. What community is left has pretty much just accepted it since pwe/pwi doesn't seem to do anything about the one's who do abuse/'cheat' their way to uberness. ;/

In this case it's the victims who are allowing these cheaters to rob them. Would these people lend their car to a total stranger for a test drive? Would these people give their debit card and pin to someone who promised to deposit free cash into their bank account? In essence that is what they are doing in the game. People who get scammed gave the scammer everything they needed to scam them. PWE has nothing to do with people allowing themselves to get scammed other than warn people not to allow themselves to get scammed. Scammers who get banned just create new accounts and scam again. What then?

Best course of action to prevent being scammed is to not give the scammer what they need to scam in the 1st place. That is on the players, not PWE. People greedy enough to try to get something for free deserve what they get.

Skaitavia wrote: »

If anyone knows who the culprit is in particular, please send me and/or the mods and CM information, so we can look into this and hopefully end the scamming that they're causing!

its funny as for 3 weeks i been loooking in to this guy i have posted in game pms and Skype chats. but yet he is still playing the game from a baned regin and yet the player who was **** have got no support from pwi and the players have spend over 2kEuro /usd on there account to get the stuff but yet still no support from the GM to replae the items.

-snip- has it now got to the point where pwi dont care about the players, now have the attude of if the spend 1k befor now they will spend 1k more to get items back. the players who lose the items can get items bak but pwi have to pull finger out and help its members.

i took Rank 3 week to track down the hackers by skype messages and in game sales he dose not have the power of a GM to find out but yet found out who the player is why cant the GM have done this baned the player ip and all account loged in to it and returned all the items the GM have a list of all the items as there was tickets made from all accounts

I SAY STOP COUNTED UR R9 SALE BANK BALLANCE AND HELP OUR MEMEMBERS

Point is, don't ever share account with anyone, you don't know who's the real person behind a certain toon, hell, it could even be a horse or a turtle playing that toon, or even SkyNet.b:shocked

And if you share your account info, then just prepare for the worst case scenario.

These scammers are getting smarter each day and who knows what other trick they have for the near future.

Liveena - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Point is, don't ever share account with anyone, you don't know who's the real person behind a certain toon, hell, it could even be a horse or a turtle playing that toon, or even SkyNet.b:shocked

And if you share your account info, then just prepare for the worst case scenario.

These scammers are getting smarter each day and who knows what other trick they have for the near future.

the scammers are not hackeing wiht shared info iths a web site that looks like real pwi site but when u put ur password sod all hapens that you can see BUT they have just got ur user and log in with in 24 hours they steel ur account and all items and NPC ur R9 gear so u cant play

I'm all for rage against the scammers here, yes, they are horrible people, I too hope they suffer pestilence and plague in biblical proportions.

I'm very much against rage against the victims.
The situation they're in alters my sympathy levels, but still, lets not harp on someone's intelligence levels or gullibility.
Remember, Common Sense is NOT common, and people will always trust someone. Sometimes trust is misplaced, but is that the fault of the one who trusts? Especially if it's a "friend", I say no.

A month ago I got an odd message from a friend on my friends list, telling me about the +12 orb give-away and to go to some website. It was in an offline chat window message, which they'd never done to me before.
Now, I have Uncommon Sense, so I thought I'd check the pwi website and forums to find out about it. Knowing that there was no such info, I did not go to that website, and instead frantically skyped my friend about their account being compromised. I did also have prior information about a scam going on, so I was extra cautious.
Unironically, a second friend on my friends list 2 days later messaged me with the same message. I was in such a rage, tables were flipping. Why is PW not doing anything about this??? Then, I calmed my T's and said "Well, what -can- they do?" Jack-shizz is about all I expect.

But, what if I had no prior information about possible scams before? There is always a small window of time before a big scam like this one becomes public knowledge on a wide scale. Most people I have no reason -not- to trust, because a lot of them I've "known" for years. Maybe if I wasn't such a paranoid person or didn't keep up to date with PWI forums, or if I didn't associate with informed members, I might have visited that site myself. Who knows? Do I get to judge others based on my standards because I'm hyper-vigilant and they're not as much? I don't think so.

It's a sad day when you need regular System chat messages about not sharing info or going to sites other than this one or that one, and faction members need to constantly post alerts that people are impersonating them to try to get stuff from people.

Joe - Morai wrote: »

Do I sympathize with "hackers"? Hell no. I simply dont mind them. With their ways, they wont get my Info anyways (: No need to protect the ppl, let them do mistakes and they will know how to proper handle this kinda situation when they encounter them again. PPL always only learn the hard way. So if you look at it from a more psychological way, then one could come to the thought that those so called "hackers" did even do more good then OPs post ever could do. Not always is anything just Black and white.

I agree with you that the "****" victims are often to blame themselves, or at least partly. However, you can't let the scammers just continue with that excuse. That would just open the way for everyone to try making coins/gear this way, and result in a totally paranoid community. Jealousy already creates enough fairy tales, no need to add excessive fear to be scammed/**** to that. The lack of common sense of the victims isn't a reason not to give attention to this kind of issue.

TZoner - Raging Tide wrote: »

Everyone always tries to say that the **** are also to blame but i have to disagree...a good example is what if its a good friend that was **** and you are oblivous too it...and they managed to ask you to borrow something or other or like a page they started or something...most people wouldnt think twice about it cuz you already have that person as an established and trustworthy friend...and boom you get **** too....Sadly many players do take the stance of oh well....i will just ignore it and not care...we have to watch each others backs or scammers will keep scamming.

T, my account totally hasn't been comprised *shifty look* can i borrow all your stuff?

On a side note though, if someone did **** my account and actually managed to scam my friends id be disappointed in them. I have certain mannerisms when typing in game like emotocon use, sentence phrasing etc that unless i was being stalked by the hacker for a good few weeks i doubt they would be able to copy.

Thx for posting this. they tried to use my name as director from a guild on DW n also from leaders n marchal names. Never ever give ur account info or atleast verify with the officer thats involved.

TZoner - Raging Tide wrote: »

Everyone always tries to say that the **** are also to blame but i have to disagree...a good example is what if its a good friend that was **** and you are oblivous too it...and they managed to ask you to borrow something or other or like a page they started or something...most people wouldnt think twice about it cuz you already have that person as an established and trustworthy friend...and boom you get **** too....Sadly many players do take the stance of oh well....i will just ignore it and not care...we have to watch each others backs or scammers will keep scamming.

Many are just to easy with their trust then. Lending some items, sure. I lost some that way. Lending an item that would make me quit if I were to lose it, I don't do that to just game acquitances. It's not just about trusting that the person doesn't have bad intentions, but also trusting that the person you lend something to will be just as carefull as you are. If you increase the risk exponentially with your own actions, then no security system will be able to prevent it.

OPKossy wrote: »

Nigerian Prince is still active and working on an unfortunately large enough amount of people to still be a thing so... I guess the answer to this one is a big fat yes. b:laugh

I have little sympathy for those who are scammed by the Nigerians either. Unfortunately people are naïve and just plain ignorant. Maybe it because they get so lost in a fantasy that common sense evaporates. Every time I read about someone getting scammed out of 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands of $$ by a scammer I just can't comprehend the complete lack of perspective regarding the situation for a person to be taken like that. It's poor choices based purely on emotion.

In the game this kind of choice is based on greed. Free gold or other free ****. Many times it's trying to find a way to cheat the game - illegal bots, tricks to **** the game, etc. It's this that form the basis of my complete lack of sympathy for people in the game getting scammed.

As for those who give their stuff to others to try out if they are that foolish then a learning experience is what they need. These kind of experiences will help them make better choices in the future as the play the game.

Oh, and I had my fun scambaiting a Nigerian scammer. I posted the entire conversation on my faction's website. After 3 days of IMs I was ready to get married to someone who wanted a church wedding so I made arrangements with the reverend Charles Manson in the Sacred Mother's Church of Bovine Excrement. But Tragedy struck as I was on my way to Western Union to wire airfare money to my Canadian princess stuck in Nigeria. I was attacked by the evil Donkey Kong gang and ended up in the Lee Harvey Oswald Memorial Hospital under the care of Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, And Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Well you get where this went.

who is stupid enough to fall for any of that? i mean come on, if you been playing any game online you should know never to lend your gears or click on any link people post or site people give you or believe you will get anything free..

its just common sense

XXHotXx - Morai wrote: »

you really cant just blame scam victims since PWI left open lot of chances to hackers and actually made them able to set up clever scams.

So what we got here ? Clever Scams , MAGNIFIKO hot you overcame yourself again!! if your *cleverness* is on that lvl then I am so proud of you!!!

A very interesting point DuckNine posted earlier,scammers from Egypt?Oh MAMA!!b:shocked
PS: aren't your leader from Egypt and couple more ? That's make me wonder hmmmb:dirty

And if you cant read that's a disaster !! people got scammed after the red system message spammed in wc evry 1 hour not to go to that and this site ?

No you know to get scammed once is ok, but fool me once shame on you,and fool me TWICE shame on you too? Try to use the cooking Pans that you got on your shoulders, it might have some good ideas sometimes!!

... funny, how endgame people with "thousands of euros in gear" are so quick to relinquish control of that kind of investment, xHotx. "Let me try your gear" is something I wouldn't trust any faction folk with. Especially if it is top level gear. The few friends I do trust with it would need to ask me over Skype first.
Suppose it's a reminder that binding your gear isn't a bad idea if you don't intend to ever trade it.

This isn't PWI's fault. This is ignorance on the part of those who trust too easily, or try to cheat the system. There is no "easy" button to get a free endlevel character. There are no Nigerian princes.

ThunderBow - Morai wrote: »

you guys finally caught them after everyone claiming i was the scamme, how funny

Oh Christ not this **** again.

RankNine - Momaganon wrote: »

hello community.
my server, morai, suffered from a huge wave of scam that almost hit every faction recently. items and chars worth many billions got stolen and abused for phishing/scam. many of our friends quit after being the victim of that crime.

the scamer/hacker appears very dumb ingame, but his actions prove that its just an act to earn your trust.

thanks to core connect we finally managed to discover who was responsible for all the scams.
its a couple from egypt, which uses proxy server to still access PWI, even tho the region is banned (ironically for an excess of scaming coming from that country).
according to pwi forum rules, i am not allowed to give you the names, but be sure that this couple has a lot of chars in almost every big faction.
recently they became more greedy and less careful, which lead to the final bust.
while investigating, we found out that the couple seems to be active on other servers aswell, thats why i started this thread now. BE AWARE! do not trust or trade anyone your items, DONT visit any link that promises free stuff.

their usual tactics:

-faking the names of officers of factions, then pming everyone thats online, trying to get them into smalltalk to eventually lure them to a phishing site, by claiming you get free stuff.

-once they got info to accounts that visited their site, they proceed the same tactic with the friendlist of the hijacked chars. we usually trust our friends, right? thats what they abuse.

- "hey, let me try your gear" is also very common. they will ask you to try on your tome, or your necklace. gone forever.

everyone be careful and feel free to share if similar stuff happened on your server.
whoever wants to know the names of the couple, feel free to leave a forum msg or pm me ingame.

There are 3 people i trust in this game....Me, Myself & I, and even them i don't trust 100% b:chuckleb:chuckle