I know that a lot of you out there have been subject to many types of scams. Some are easy to spot, whilst others not so. In this article, I will be explaining some of the ways you can be scammed and how to avoid them, also recognizing common scams, and the things to look for in not-so-common ones.
First of all, HOW TO RECOGNIZE A SCAM:
Many scams are distinguishable because of what people will ask you to do, or telling you impossible things. Scams occur in many different forms, as I will explain later. Important note: Any non-Neopets site asking for your username & password is a SCAM! Also, players who ask you for your username & password are SCAMMERS! If you report these people to Neopets Staff, they will freeze that person.
An important aspect of this article is also knowing some COMMON SCAMS:
One common scam there is, is the “Triple-point Scam”. A player will message you, telling you that they could treble your neopoints by giving them your username & password to enter your account. This one’s a little obvious, but there have been some gullible enough to believe it. You can catch them out fairly easily by asking for instructions instead of letting them into your account. If they say they’ve got a special program (which many do say), you must know that no program in a home computer is strong enough to manipulate the Neopets’ mother computer and hack the program files in it.
The second scam is the “Web-page Scam”. Usually there will be a link on somebody’s homepage or neoboard message. This will take you to a page called something like “More Neopets”, or “Neopets Secrets”. It will ask you for a username & password to enter, and then it leads nowhere, and their home computer stores your username & password, enabling them to enter your account and steal your things, or perhaps change the password so you can’t access it.
Things to remember about SCAMS:
Remember that Scammers can only operate by knowing certain things, such as your username & password. Remember also that Scammers suck you in by offering you the impossible, like the “Triple Point” scam. They also may get you to give them this information by offering you the opportunities to find secret realms in Neopia, eg. “I can tell you the location of the Hidden tower if you log in to this site.” or “I can tell you how to get a Krawk and Draik for free if you log into this site.” The latter is impossible, you need not be told.
To Conclude:
When on Neopets, just be wary of things like the site you log into (it must say www.neopets.com or it’s most likely a scam), and never be gullible, don’t get sucked into scams. You know, I once typed in www.neopets.com.au into my browser, logged in and found it was a scam. Many of my belongings were stolen, and my neopoints. Luckily, I was able to change my password before any more damage was done, but that means I am all the more careful about scams and I wrote this article (apart from wanting the 100,000np!) so that you don’t have to be scammed like I was. – georgiaroxhorseland