Cosrob's guide on not to be scammed by an Impersonator

Cosrob's guide on how to avoid being scammed by imposters

When reading this guide can you please read it in the classicskin. The colours of the writing match it much more.

An imposter is one of the most common way to scam people. Since imposters can use letters and number in msns id's to recreate a msn that looks like the real one. For many people it is hard to differentiate between the real msn and a fake one. Some people request a pm, but, that can still back fire as the imposter can ask them to send you one (example below). So instead of having the chance of being scammed by an imposter I created this guide.

What is an imposter: An impersonator (or imposter for short) is a person who pretends to be somebody else, for example, someone trusted and respected.

Why do people pretend to be others: They usually do it to scam people out of their money or RuneScape items while others just do it to get a good laugh. For example, someone pretended to be me a week ago but he didn't want to scam anybody. Instead, he just trolled people.

How do they try to scam you: They usually add you with an MSN address which looks similar to that of a trusted member. They add you claiming to be someone they're not, link you to a vouch thread and ask to buy your goods. Most people believe them, and fall prey to their traps.



How do they try to impersonate you: Well most of the time they use msn extremely similar to yours. For example mine is [email protected], they might use [email protected]. See how the zero looks like a O. That is a common tactic. Other ways people try to impersonate you is to use hyphens instead of under scores. This can cause you to look like the real msn. For other example look at the picture of Viper impersonaters.
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Here is a example of a person who tried impersonating me:



See how the two MSNs are similar but still very different. Also notice the '(E-mail address not verified)'.

Take The Viper000 as example, hundreds of people tried to impersonate him.





How to catch one:

Both of you begin to talk about the trade and start asking questions until you get to the part where you decide who goes first. The impersonator will always try to make you go first because they want to scam you.

So, first thing to do is find the profile of the person they are claiming to be. Most of the time they will have their MSN address on it. But if they don't, go through their recent posts and find it, some times it won't be there but don't worry.

While you are looking for their MSN tell the imposter to pm you on Sythe. Most of the time they will use a bullshit excuse such as "Sythe is down for me."

When they say that, tell him or her that you will wait until a PM is sent. Most of the times, they'll just say that they're very trusted and try to persuade you to go through with the trade. Or they will say that they're in a rush and have to go ASAP. Just politely say no if this is the case.


How to catch one that actually gets the person to PM you.



Some imposters will try to act smart and manage to send you a PM. They PM the real person and ask him to send a PM to a specific member confirming that they're trading with him/her. This isn't enough. Get them to include their MSN and the MSN they're talking with just to be sure.

Here's an example of how someone managed to persuade Gohanfoever into PM'ing me.



If the real guy gives you his real MSN, go ahead and add it. Tell him of the imposter and his MSN so he can put those addresses in a list.

Play along with the imposter and tell them that you're ready to proceed on with the trade. When they ask you to send the goods/cash, tell them that you know they're a fraud.

They will either block you or say that they're real. Don't fall for it, and just block his/her address.

Here is an example of someone who was able to send get Gohan to send a PM to me.










In the end, I ended up adding Gohan and they just blocked me straight away.​

 

There's a few things you could do to improve it.

2 of the same word.

You mean real I take it? Also, you need to add another speech mark.

You could also go into more detail about how they fake their MSN adresses, like in some cases they do two underscores (_), sometimes they do a capital O instead of a 0 and stuff.
Good so far though, hopefully it can help a lot of people.

 

Thank you, i have fixed the 2 small grammar mistake.

I will add how they fake the msn's tomorrow, as my last exam is tomorrow .

 

Pretty long with details. Centering might make it look a bit nice, but that's just me. Some sentences could use a few improvements. 8/10. Helpful for newbies.

 

Thank you for th help, also with the centre it didn't look as nice, since each line is a complete different size.