Guide to Protecting Your Neopets Account by Danny

Neopets (like any other RPG game on the Internet) has a certain aspect of cheating to it. There are always people who will try and trick you out of your account, or rip you off. The sad thing is, these people are often very clever, and if they put their talents towards playing Neopets, they would be able to get rich without cheating. In this guide, I will explain the scams and tricks that are most commonly used. If you know how these tricksters play, you will be able to protect yourself and be aware, making you one step ahead.

STEP ONE – YOUR PASSWORD

Obviously, giving your password to anybody is a bad idea. No matter how well you know the person, even if they are your best friend/uncle/goldfish, it’s not wise to give out your password. Allowing people to ‘NeoSit’ your pets while you’re away on vacation is also pretty dumb. Also, while browsing the Internet, you may have come across people saying “OMFG!!! I’ve found a cheat in Neopets that gives you any item you want! Just send me your username and password and I’ll get you it!”. Can you see how this is obviously a scam? It’s pretty blatant to anybody, right? Wrong. It’s amazing how many people fall into these traps. Don’t be one of them.

It is a good idea to change your password regularly. Once a fortnight is good, or even once a week, depending on how paranoid you are. Don’t choose a password that would be easy to guess. Your name, the name of your best friend/uncle/goldfish would be easy to guess by anybody who knows you. For example, if your name was Danny, having your password as Danny is a pretty crap idea. Danny472049 would be much better. I mean, if you were trying to guess somebody’s password, would you think of typing in Danny472049? No, you wouldn’t.

But wait, I hear you say. If you change your password to a complicated one, doesn’t that make it harder to remember for you. The answer is yes, but the extra security is worth it. If it helps, write your password down on a slip of paper or in your diary.

STEP TWO – FAKE LOGIN PAGES

There are an alarming amount of pages on the Internet that claim to be official Neopets pages, but actually aren’t. Yes, they may look exactly like the real Neopets login pages, but if it doesn’t say “www.neopets.com” in the address bar, it’s not real. Entering your password and clicking the button won’t actually log you into Neopets, but it will send your password to a scammer who has been waiting for somebody to fall into their trap. If you come across one of these pages, you have two options. One is to report it to Neopets. You can do this if you want, but nothing will be done about it. I know of one that has been reported a thousand times and still remains there. The best thing to do is just ignore it. If anybody else falls into the trap that’s their problem for being dumb enough to think the page was real.

STEP THREE – PROGRAMS

Go to Google. Type in NEOPETS CHEAT PROGRAMS. See how many come up? Guess what! They’re all fakes. One kind of program will ask you for your username and password. Typing it in and clicking the button will again send your details to a scammer. More malicious people have hidden viruses and Trojan horses in these programs, either destroying your computer or gaining much more than just your Neopets password. There are no cheat programs for Neopets. You shouldn’t want to cheat anyway, Neopets is to be played properly. Cheating makes the game unfair for others.

STEP FOUR – TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

If you check the Trading Post, you’ll see a lot of trades that are designed to rip you off. Would you really trade a paintbrush for a codestone? No. So if you see somebody offering to give you a paintbrush in exchange for a codestone, do you think they mean it? Nope. You’ll send them the codestone, and they will conveniently go offline and never talk to you again.

STEP FIVE – YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

When you signed up, Neopets asked for your email address. Repeat that. YOUR email address. This is so that Neopets can contact you, and send you your password if you forget it. If somebody asks you to change your email address (even if they promise you that it will get you a million paintbrushes), politely tell them to shove off. If you change the email address, they can easily get your password sent to that address, and then retrieve it and log in as you. Your email address should be your own, it shouldn’t be shared with anyone. You can get your own free email address at www.hotmail.com or www.technomail.zzn.com

STEP SIX – THE NEOBOARDS

Although we’d like to think the Neopets monitors are doing their job properly on the NeoBoards, they actually suck pretty badly at it. There are always at least four or five threads claiming to know a site where you can get free items. These are scam sites. If you see a thread like this, don’t bother to report it. The staff won’t look at it. The report link is there for decoration only (sad fact, I know). Just ignore it.

Also, if you don’t want to get your account frozen, it is a wise idea not to enter into any activities the staff would see as inappropriate. It’s hard to keep up with the staff’s ever changing vision of what is right and what is wrong, but generally, don’t enter any discussion about illegal activities, or anything that breaks the NeoRules. Better yet, don’t use the NeoBoards at all. There are certain monitors (not naming any names, but I have seen this from certain monitors before) that have very itchy fingers. If you do a better job at keeping users in line than them, certain monitors WILL freeze you, just because they can. Don’t bother saying ‘You’re a spammer’ in a thread, you are more likely to get frozen than the spammer. Usually, you can contact another staff member and explain the situation, and your account will be unfrozen. If this isn’t the case, create a new account and don’t use the chat boards.

STEP SEVEN – GLITCHES

There are glitches in Neopets that the staff are working on. There’s one thing to say about these glitches. Don’t exploit them, you will get frozen indefinitely.

CONCLUSION

I have explained everything you can do to protect your account. The rest is down to you. As long as you play the game fairly (and try not to get too big a high score, the monitors don’t like that. I know of many people who haze been iced for being too good at the games), you will probably be safe. If not, expect to be frozen, have your account hijacked, or worse. – dannyvorhees@hotmail.com