Inspired by the old Diabloii.net Warnings section, this guide lists most of the common scams and rip offs on Battle.net, with advice on how best to avoid them.

See the Warnings section for much more historical context to this subject.

Strategy guide info:

Version: v1.10+
Game type: All
Character: All
Author: Darnoc {Source. See the thread for many updates.)

Introduction

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to this list in the first scam thread; you’re posts are helping others from falling for the same scams!

Many people have posted scams in the original scam thread that have happened to them or that they have seen happen to others, so learn from their encounters and be wary when trading publicly and keep an eye out for new scams that might arise. If you come across a new scam you don’t see here or a new variation of one of these, or just have a question about any of these, please post it so we can keep this list up to date and as comprehensive as possible. I tried to list the more common scams first, and put the ones that might have been fixed by patches towards the end:

Trade Window Switch

when trading for an item make sure you put the cursor on the item your trading for; don't just take the person's word for it- this often happens with:

Gull Daggers and plain daggers.
Tal Rasha’s Set Armors and Rattlecages.
Unique Shakos and caps or plain shakos socketed with emeralds.
Baal’s eye and the relic from the quest in act 3; look for the change in eye color.
HOZ and a plain zakarum shield or the unique dragonscale shield.
Stormshield and steelclash or milas orb shield.

But also, many other elite items have crappy counterparts that look the same. Just be suspicious of anyone who shows you something you want to trade for, then exits trade screen to "make more room" then comes back with a normal dagger or whatever else you’re trading for.

Clan Scam

(/DND scam): People will ask you if you want to join their clan. They will ask you to go to a private room (so no-one else can alert you), add your account to their friends list and ask you to do the same. They will then ask you what your "dueling and damage ratings" are. WHICH DOES NOT EXIST! They will tell you you can find this out by typing "/dnd (acct name) (acct password)- but what it really does is tell your account information to anyone who messages you while you are in DND(do not disturb) mode! Just do not type your account name and password anywhere for any reason except to log on to your account.

The Standard of Heroes

This item drops when you finish uber tristram along with the hellfire torch, many people are claiming 12 cubed in the matrons den to opens another portal- this does not work! There might be some use for the soh since it has a lvl 90 requirement, but no one knows yet; so until this is figured out and you see posts about it in the community forum confirming its use, it's best not to trade for them, unless you can get them cheap and want to gamble on the fact that it might do something. I wouldn't though.

Hack program scam

There are a number of map hack programs, or other programs on websites on the internet that may actually work- but more often than not they will record your cd key or acct name and password and send it back to the program's author after you start them up along with Diablo 2.

Anni Scam

(muling scam): Since annihulus, torches and gheeds charms cannot be put into the trade window people are forced to do drop trades for these. I would like to say at this point, just don’t trade for any of these with anyone who doesn’t post regularly on these forums; even then there have been occasions where drop trading has gone sour unfortunately. Anyways, there are a number of places that have been proven bad for drop trading:

-Out of town at the rogue encampment right around the wall so you can see them out of town- they will drop their stuff and ask you to do the same either for the trade, or to prove that you are "trustworthy", then they will teleport from the blood moor into town and take all ur stuff- it doesn’t matter if there is a moat either- they can still teleport over the moat and take your stuff.

-The tents or walls in act 1 rogue encampment; some of the walls items allow items to be picked up through; but there are programs that let people walk through them too. Other places to be wary of are: act 2 through the palace walls where jehryn is, act 3 tele across the bridges or betwen square-shaped areas at the Kurast docks, and act 5 from one level to another like from stash level to the next level up.

-The palace in act 2. Someone might say "I'll drop trade my annihilus for your SOJ". So, he'll stand on the ground on the left of the palace while you stand inside the palace right next to the palace cellar entrance. You'll be directly above him, he’ll drop his annihilus, and you'll drop your items. But since you're standing above him, and inside the palace building, it seems as if there is no possible way for him to come steal your items. But the scammer's friend is hiding right inside the entrance to the palace basement. Right after you drop all of your items, his friend will pop up from the palace basement entrance and will steal your items.

-Act2 near the inn. “He was standing in the inn, I was standing out of it. He counted to three, so I dropped mine, then he said pick it back up because he couldn’t see it. I got closer and did this several times and suddenly he went through the walls somehow and picked up my ist. I remember his exact words: "that’s close enough". You can actually reach through the walls of the inn to pick up items, no program is needed in this scam

Trapsin scam

Another scam involving trading the annihilus small charm. A trapsin with lightning traps that do massive damage will try and pull this scam off. She'll stand inside of town next to the wall and say "I'm inside of town so I can't teleport to steal your item" and drops her annihilus small charm. And you'll be on the outside of the town wall so it appears safe. But the trapsin, at the start of the game, hid her traps by placing them underneath trees so it'll be somewhat difficult for you to see them unless you really try. So as soon as you drop your items, the trapsin will hostile you and all of her hidden traps will kill you while your items are still on the ground. She'll then waltz outside of town, take the items, and leave. (Could someone confirm whether or not traps disappear when you enter town? This was never clarified in the previous scam thread and I don’t build trappers.)

Merc Killer scam

I’ll hafta check into this since I didn’t think your merc would remain out of town if you were in town., but here it is: “A high lvl pally makes a game called Free hoto and cta here. When you go (like a fool) into game, he says he has to trust you, and tells you to drop your rarest items (mine were andy and seraphs, but I dropped andy and marrowalk). But first, he secretly positions his mercenary outside where you drop stuff, and when you drop, he drops his hoto and cta while going hostile and the merc kills you. Then he strolls outside and gathers his stuff. See above for the moral: Never drop your stuff 'less you want it taken.”

Game crash scam

It appears there is a program that will cause a game to crash and kick out people specific people from a game(opportune for a drop trade scenario); whether this still works with 1.11 is beyond me. I found this posted awhile back: “A paladin (unfortunately, I cannot recall the name) entered the game and offered an Annihilus for my Um. The suspicious thing about it was, the game crashed at the exact instant (or at least as close as I could determine) when the other player would have dropped his Annihilus. Sequence of events:

I drop Um.
I take a step forward.
The game crashes.
When I got back after reconnecting, the paladin was nowhere to be seen and half of Lut Gholein turned into an instant crash zone."

Corpse Popping

After dying 16 times without recovering your body, the last corpse will explode, littering the ground with every item your character was wearing. People have tried to say you can dupe items by doing this, but also watch out for annoying pk/nkers who are just trying to see if they can steal your stuff. (pretty sure it’s 16, but I’ve heard anywhere from 15-20; does anyone know for sure?). Some have reported people offering rushes or items if the victim allows them to kill them 20 times.

"Guess who" scam

Either from chat or a public game somebody makes like they know you and tries to get you to give or loan them items, or makes an account name similar to someone you do know(this happened to Crazypayne not too long ago so watch out!!)

Pul scam

When trading for the infamous HOZ (herald of zakarum - paladin shield) the mod to look for is % enhanced defense. If you are trading for a perfect or near perfect zaka make sure its not socketed with a pul rune to improve the %ED.

Free item

(Vote for my Clan scam)- some more ingenious scammers have developed programs that can read your cd key, or acct name and password, or just simply make you drop everything you have on your character. They will say they will give you a really good item for free if you "vote for their clan on an internet page by:

Minimizing D2 and going to a webpage that they tell you to and clicking on a certain link. You then download a D2 patch or hack program that will take your acct, cd-key or items since you still have D2 running.

Free account scam

Someone might say "Free account with level 99 chars. Whisper [insert account name here] if you want it". People message him back. He asks them "What do you want me to change the password to?" People will tell him to change it to [insert password here]. As soon as they message him with what they want the password to be, the scammer logs off and tries to log into their account with th[highlight]e password they asked for, because some people are naive enough to ask him to change his password to the password on their account (without realizing they're giving it out indirectly), so they can remember it better.

Cheap trade scam

Usually in trade room, which involves 2 guys (they are most likely friends). Eg. one guy says I need a 3 open socket sword badly, then goes to trade screen with you and shows you what he got for the it (probably a bunch). But of course you wont probably have it, then the another guy goes to trade to screen with you and so happen to have 3os sword (yea right), then you might think 'hey if I could get that 3os sword then trade it with the first guy for his bunch of stuff, then I'd make a profit~!' Well the second might want some or your stuff which values > a 3os sword. Then after you got the 3os sword, you would want to find the first guy. But he either leaves room or ignores you. Then you are left with a 3os sword.

Ghost Item Scam

(may have been fixed by 1.11)- There is a program that can make it look like someone has an item in a trade window, usually a soj or something that takes only one square, but the item is not actually there. It appears in the upper right corner of the trade window as I have heard. This fools people into thinking they are trading for the ghost item, when in fact they are just giving away their items. This can be checked for by asking the trader to move an item to a different location in the trade window- if the person refuses to move the item from this square, do not trade.

"I can dupe" scam

There's a program that allows you to create multiple copies of mephisto soulstones (may have been fixed in 1.11). From what I've heard, it's not really duping, but just creating a program that creates soulstones So this person will create a lot of soulstones and drop them on the floor. He'll say he has the ability to dupe and ask for an item so he can either teach you how to dupe or he wants you to give him an item for him to dupe, You can always tell when he's lying by asking him to give you one of his items that he duped, Usually he'll come up with some idiotic excuse and you can easily tell that he's lying.

CTRL + Left click scam

(an alternate dupe scam)- This might have been fixed with the 1.11 patch: When you press ctrl+left click on your horadric cube while in a trade with a npc, you will get connection interrupted. There are a lot of varieties on this scam. Example: A stranger offers you to teach you how to dupe. You get very excited. He then tries to tell you he will go to another act or he will go MF to make you feel secure. He instructs you to drop your Items you want to dupe and then trade with a NPC (especially gheeds<-- the most believable since there was a dupe called Gheed's dupe once) and then instructs you to press ctrl+left click on your cube. You get 'Connection interrupted'. Then the scammer then takes your dropped items.

Trade Window Hack Scam

Not sure if this one still works with 1.11 but here it is since it has worked in the past: "one way of scamming a person via the trade window is a hack. That hack allows you to keep the tradewindow open when you exit it. That way, when you reinvite the person to open the trade window again, he isn't really clicking ok to open the window but clicking the V to green. Thus automatically transferring the items he put in the trade window to the other player. This hack is one of the reasons why I never trade on Bnet." Courtesy of Dawnmaster One way to avoid this problem would be to only open the trade window with a specific trader once per game, especially if you have not traded with that person before.

Item Switch scam

You put an item up for trade, ex: Hoto, the scammer (usually) puts an expensive item up worth more than the hoto so they're guaranteed you will trade. When you click trade (the trade check stays green) if you listen carefully you can hear an item sound such as a flail (sound effect) being placed on the trade screen but the item he is trading to you does not change. (nor does the arrow turn red) When he accepts the trade you get the crappy item he changed it too. I’m not sure how they did it, but I've seen it twice now. So all I’m saying is KEEP YOUR SOUND ON WHILE YOU TRADE!! And if you hear anything fishy just leave the game. (not sure if this still works in 1.11)Posted by ickick

Reverse Scamming

This doesn't mean you can use these methods to scam either! there are "scam the scammers" hack programs too where you can teleport out of the town, through buildings in town, lock into your hacking item purger and make it work on you! (may have been disabled in 1.11)

So, in summary:

Never type your account name and password, except in the log on screen, or if you want stuff taken from your account. Ever!

Blizzard will NEVER ask for your password. If you get an email, or a "blizzard-rep" whispers you or something just ignore it.

Be careful posting your email addresses or account names on these forums as people who are not forum members may try to trick you into thinking they are someone you know from here.

Do not use hacking programs! You might be able to find a non-scamming hacking program, but probably not without having to pay $$ for it- plus, when you use these, you never know what holes they might have that can be exploited by other scammers to take your stuff!

Never drop your stuff on the ground unless you are prepared to lose it. If you want to trade for a annihulus or gheeds charm- contact someone from this forum with a good amount of posts and have them moderate the trade.

Good luck and happy hunting!!

Guide:Warnings Guide, by Darnoc

Contents