Guild Wars 2

Earlier today I received a whisper from someone who said they were interested in joining my guild and had found my advert posted in the Guild Recruitment section. He wanted to join and do wvw, however, he said, he was on Tc with 3 level 80s and didn’t want to delete them. Long story short, he asked if my guild would be willing to help him transfer from Tc to my server by donating 43 gold. I politely declined for obvious reasons, but still offered that he submit an application and save up to transfer over if he really disliked Tarnished Coast. Temporarily placing him on flist, I noticed his AP was just barely over 200.

This is just a friendly message to my fellow players and Guild Leaders/Officers to please watch yourselves.

Good call. Very suspicious behaviour for certain, and a positive sign that gold farmers are having a hard time.

Oh man, I hope you screenshotted it and reported him for scamming.

Sadly people always find a way to amaze me how lowly they can act :/

Dondarrion.2748:

Oh man, I hope you screenshotted it and reported him for scamming.

Nothing that he did constitutes as scamming. He asked, OP said no, end of story. I’m not picking up any signs of malice here.

A scam would be if you did pay the money for his transfer but then never heard from him again.

But it is still a try of scamming, for example imagine that a thief try to rob your smartphone, but you don’t have it and the robber go away, technically he did nothing to you but it is still a try of robbery.

Not really. The robber was trying to steal you. In this case, you don’t know. Its suspicious enough, we are pretty much all sure the guys was scamming, but it could also be a new player that want to switch server but don’t have any money to do it. The chance are slim because really at 200 AP you know nothing about the game and are still running around in solo to do heart and reach level 80.

Well yeah, the chances of be a legit case is almost none, and even if it is legit that player ego must be huge for think that the guild would give 46g to have the honor of having him in the guild, instead of him getting the gold to join them. Sure he could give the gold later but he could do the same thing and get the gold first.

Belzebu.3912:

Well yeah, the chances of be a legit case is almost none, and even if it is legit that player ego must be huge for think that the guild would give 46g to have the honor of having him in the guild, instead of him getting the gold to join them. Sure he could give the gold later but he could do the same thing and get the gold first.

I would not say that. I could very easily see a new player doing something like this, not knowing any better. If he was new, that would also explain the low AP.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Belzebu.3912:

Well yeah, the chances of be a legit case is almost none, and even if it is legit that player ego must be huge for think that the guild would give 46g to have the honor of having him in the guild, instead of him getting the gold to join them. Sure he could give the gold later but he could do the same thing and get the gold first.

I would not say that. I could very easily see a new player doing something like this, not knowing any better. If he was new, that would also explain the low AP.

Well a legit new player is likely to not have 3 level 80’s. Which is where the major clue is.

You’d probably have to try really really hard to have 3 level 80’s with only 200 AP.

GuzziHero.2467:

Good call. Very suspicious behaviour for certain, and a positive sign that gold farmers are having a hard time.

Or a sign that everyday players are having a hard time making gold and the gold farmers / TP Barons have hardly been affected.

Either way, the 200AP makes it seem fishy, but since there was no actual scam done here, I’d say just file it under something to watch out for/ use your common sense. OP was smart enough to realize what was going on before the scam took place. Kudos!

I’m really not seeing the scam here. What if he really did transfer over with that gold? What if he just kept doing the same crap without exploring to level? This may very well have been a completely honest transaction.

I’d sure as hell not fork out money to a stranger. Teach a man to fish. But to jump the gun and call this a scam? You may very well have just outed an honest man who you believe actually reads these forums.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Dondarrion.2748:

Oh man, I hope you screenshotted it and reported him for scamming.

Nothing that he did constitutes as scamming. He asked, OP said no, end of story. I’m not picking up any signs of malice here.

A scam would be if you did pay the money for his transfer but then never heard from him again.

It was a pretty obvious attempt at scamming. The fact that it failed doesn’t make it okay. If you shoot at someone and miss, the cops aren’t going to say “no harm, no foul!”

Taking the OP at face value, the alleged scammer contacted someone without being invited and claimed to have three max-level toons, which is an obvious lie if he only had 200-odd AP. He wanted someone to send him gold for the purpose of transferring servers so lying about your accomplishments in the game is not a good sign. The chances of ever hearing from such an individual again are so slim as to be irrelevant.

Can someone please explain to me how this is a scam?

On a side note: If a guild leader is willing to send Gold to complete strangers, my IGN is Penguin.

This isn’t actually a potential guild related scam, it’s just a normal issue when dealing with humans in life. I’m not seeing a need to be aware of anything beyond normal awareness.

Darkobra.6439:

I’m really not seeing the scam here. What if he really did transfer over with that gold? What if he just kept doing the same crap without exploring to level? This may very well have been a completely honest transaction.

I’d sure as hell not fork out money to a stranger. Teach a man to fish. But to jump the gun and call this a scam? You may very well have just outed an honest man who you believe actually reads these forums.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

I agree, I tend not to just hand out money to strangers as well. I also agree on teaching a man to fish.

However, you’ll notice that this is just an alert that it could have been a scam as it set off multiple red flags for me. Though I took screenshots of the conversation, I did not post this person’s name here. If they read this, then I hope that they avoid asking complete strangers for money in the future as well, as that is very suspicious activity and generally frowned upon socially.

Almost certainly scamming, but not even close to enough evidence to justify a report.

Is it a scam? Most likely, yes.
If it was, was it successful? Nope.

So no report can be made. This is the equivalent of a person walking up to you and asking for enough money for a bus ticket, you saying no, and him walking away.

All the OP wants to do here is give a friendly PSA.

Pexx.6327:

So no report can be made. This is the equivalent of a person walking up to you and asking for enough money for a bus ticket, you saying no, and him walking away.

That in itself isn’t a scam. A scam would be “I promise you a 50% interest return if you invest 200 Gold with me.”

It’s pretty clearly a scam considering the guy said he had 3 80s when he has an AP of 200.