Brief introduction:
Scamming is the form of lying or stealing about a trade or transaction. To scammers, they usually trade with you as normal, though when you put in your items, they take it and only give a partial payment or leave without any payment. It's best to avoid scammers as they will steal your items that you worked hard for and spent your time on. Scamming is a bannable offence and anyone caught doing it will be permanently banned, only to be unbanned when his/her appeal is accepted. This thread will teach you how to avoid them and if scammed, report them.

How to avoid them:

Scammers are quite hard to spot in general. You never know if they are scamming until you find out. Here are some signs of possible scamming and why they're signs.

• Asking you to go first in the trade. Every scammer tells you to do this. Even though, some of the players that ask you to go first aren't scammers, a good amount of them are. Be cautious if they ask you to go first and take screenshots or record a video. They can't scam you if you don't go first.
• Selling in increments of 10, 50, 100. If you see someone trying to sell in increments of 10, 50 or 100, then chances are that they're a scammer. The 10 rule isn't as strict, but 100 and 50 are uncommon numbers in Minecraft as item stacking is based off powers of 2.
• Rushing the trade. Most scammers will ask you to take the deal or they'll leave. They want to get the trade over as soon as possible. Most of the time, they disconnect from the server after the game. They will wait until the person is offline until they return back on.
• Urging you to drop trade. Some scammers want to drop trade as it's harder to provide evidence for and is less likely going to lead to a ban. If they want you to drop trade, you can back out of the trade or tell them to chest trade.
• Is it too good to be true? Scammers use deals that are out of this world to lure humble traders in. Let's say they give you 100 diamonds for 1 grass block. It's probably going to be a scam. Also, if a "greenbean" is trying to sell a Noobcrew head. (I'm not saying one won't legitimately sell one at one point) but it's most likely to be a scam. It's common sense that a "greenbean" probably won't have a Noobcrew head. That doesn't mean you shouldn't respect them and treat them as kindly as other players.
• Asking you for partial payment. This greatly varies among scammers. Most of these happen with real life trades for donor ranks or upgrades. Not all scammers are greedy so some would rather have partial payment and lure you into the scam rather than to not get anything at all. Example: Bob wants 10 diamonds for an upgrade but wants you to give half first and half later.

Some tips to avoid or recover from a scam:

• Trade in chests. If you chest trade, a moderator can log the chest and see if it matches your story. If so, there's a good chance that you're going to be refunded and the scammer to be banned.
• Take screenshots or record a video. This information can back up your evidence of chest trading. Uncommonly, sometimes they are enough evidence for a drop trade which is strongly discouraged. Some of the most vital pieces of evidence can be provided with screenshots. Make sure to take a screenshot of an agreement, you placing the item in the chest and possibly them saying they have to go.
• Ask a moderator or a $400 donor to check the trader's inventory. This is a very helpful thing to do to avoid scammers. Most of the time, they won't have the requested item in their inventory. If they see in the inventory that they don't have the requested item, chances are that they're a scammer. If no $400 donors or moderators are online, ask them to hold the requested item in their hand.

How to report them:

Reporting scammers is easy if you have the sufficient evidence. Sometimes, scamming is hardest to provide evidence to but follow the steps and it may be easier. NOTE: These steps apply to chest trades.

1. If a moderator is on, contact them as soon as they scam you.
1.1 If no moderator is on, report it on the forums, the steps of the reporting on forums will be down below.
2. Have them log the chest, and tell them the original trade. If your story matches the logs, you will most likely be refunded, if there are no logs. Create a conversation with the moderator and send them the screenshots or continue to step 2.1 to know how to report them on the forums.
2.1 To report them on the forums, you first go to the reports section which can be found here: Report | Skyblock Forums. Click create a thread, and provide the chest coordinates in hidden content unless it's a skybase chest. Provide the screenshots or video that you took or recorded. If the evidence is sufficient, you may get a refund.

Side notes:

• You will not always get a refund, in the case if there is not enough evidence.

• Drop trades follow the same steps as chest trades but must be reported on the forums instead of contacting a moderator in-game. Unless you turn the image into an URL that the moderator can click on and access.
• Lying about the price of an item is not considered scamming. However, it is very disrespectful as you are taking advantage of other players who aren't familiar with the economy.
• Lastly, in real-life trades (trading for a donor rank) are not refundable due to it being out of reach of moderators.

Hope this guide helped. Happy Skyblocking.

 

Nice guide

 

Very helpful

 

Wish I had seen this thread before I was scammed out of my first diamond... very helpful

 

this is pretty helpful And the most helpful thing u wrote is
to ask a mod/donor400 for a inventorycheck!

 

^ so true!

Nice thread

 

Made some slight changes. Thanks, krissy.

 

I just realised that I've been watching this thread but haven't posted. Nice guide

 

Good guide, extremely helpful.

 

Oh... that gravedig, though.

 

I will now update this because I've now had so much experience with scams due to mineverse.

 

great guide. good for newcomers. this should defs get stickied...

 

don't like geting scammed XD

 

This is a great guide but there are some mistakes

To get refunded the moderators have to find the items stolen as moderators can't take items from creative and owner won't refund as it will crash the economy. There is a mod storage for refunds made by donations but it's out stocked and you'll need more evidence than matching logs.

This is not always true. When I was greenie I owned stuff worth a noobcrew, this shouldn't be considered as a point that degrees the risk of getting scammed. The rank doesn't matter in my opinion

 

T

This was made quite some time ago. Addressing your second point first, please read the text in the parenthesis beside it. I explicitly stated that it isn't always reliable.

For the first point, most scams got their refunds back when this guide was created. I don't know about now, though.

 

Very Useful Indeed.
(Especially for all the new greenies)

 

No One likes to get scammed.