Regarding Hacked Accounts, Scams, and Cons*.

*Cons as in trick, not RegularsCon.

This is a long post. If you read every word, and follow the guidelines in it, you will likely NEVER get hacked, scammed, robbed, fleeced, conned or duped. If 10 minutes of reading sounds like a good deal for avoiding that, read on. If not, skip to the bottom half regarding forum guidelines on this subject.

As our membership grows and AQW continues to add players, it is inevitable that scammers, cheats, hackers and predators will become more and more common, aggressive and subtle in the pursuit of their nefarious and underhanded agendas.
Following a casual discussion in-game with several senior members of the clan, it is obvious that The Regulars have fell victim to some of these scum-sucking cyber parasites. Already many of us have experienced revenge lockouts (in which another person attempts several failed logons in order to get your account locked), and several accounts have been scammed or in other ways appropriated by persons who were able, in one way or another, to obtain private information and thus log in on an account belonging to one of our members.

It is natural that when these bottom-feeding ectoplasm are successful in their perverted pastime, that the victim of their perfidy expresses anger, frustration, sorrow and all manner of emotional response.

On behalf of the moderator staff, I would like to point out some important distinctions that should be made by those who are thus victimized, as well as some guidelines on their response, and the response of all those who take part in the discussion of the problem.

Hacks vs. Scams
As far as illegal access to accounts go, not all terms are equal. I hear many people in-game complain of being "hacked". This term indicates that a person, without being given any information by you or about you, has in some way found out personal privacy access information and used it to gain access to accounts not belonging to them.

This is an uncommon occurrence, and generally is much more trouble to go through than it is worth to the person trying to gain such access.

HOWEVER: you CAN make it much easier for them to find you. There is a positive correlation between the number of people you give personal information to, and the likelihood that your account can be hacked. The more people that you give your MSN/Messenger ID to, or email, or name, or school, or location or age, the opportunity for someone to gather this information and put it all together becomes more likely.

There are people out there--tens of thousands of them--that put hours of work and research into doing precisely this, every day. I have received emails--you know the type, dying girl wrote this poem, send it to 25 friends and something "special" will happen to you--utter bulltwinkies, in other words, where HUNDREDS of email addresses, including MANY of YOURS, were listed in the body of the text. That information is worth money, and people are harvesting those emails all over the world.

Viral/chain-letter emails are ALWAYS a bad idea, and often have all kinds of embedded code to help people gather, distribute, flag and track networks of communications. Using some of this info, I have been able to track some of you down. I have found PICTURES of you. I have found hometown, school and family information on you. I have been REALLY worried about some of the indiscretion and carelessness some of you have shown, and can only hope you wise up before you become a victim. It's scary to think about how many people have also gotten the same info I did, and are much better at finding even more. Who are they? What will they do with it? The answer: you have no idea. You just read the cute or sad or touching story, and hit the forward button.
WISE UP, GIRLS AND BOYS. A VICTIM IS OFTEN A PERSON WHO HAS MADE MANY FOOLISH CHOICES.

Are you feeling worried yet? Good. Caution is the beginning of wisdom.

As I said, there are tens of thousands of people who are all too willing to put in a couple hour's work so they can add you to their list of victims. But why go through all the trouble? People are greedy. They want more stuff, especially kids, and kids are more naive, gullible and trusting than they often should be. It is far easier to scam someone.

A scam is a kind of con. The number of con artists, also called Grifters, both petty and professional in the world, likely number in the hundreds of millions. You see them every day on AQW, promising free coins, upgrades, rares--whatever will get a person to let down their guard out of greed for more cool stuff.

ALL CONS ARE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING ASSUMPTION:
Everyone is willing to break the rules if they believe they won't get caught, and the potential reward is tempting enough.
Q: Why do you think every time you log on, the Moderators of the game make that little message pop up?
1A:They know that kids are always after the next cool thing, and if they only see it once, they'll forget the very next time.
When you fit the the Grifter's Assumption--that you might be willing to do a little deal outside the rules--you are exactly where they want you. Fortunately, most of them are in for the short con. If it doesn't happen within 10-20 minutes they move on; they have only so much time to spend to see if the con will pay out. Time is money! Why do you farm at Crash Site instead of Undead Invasion? Because you get more money for time spent. The short con is like farming people.

The long con is more dangerous, involves a lot more time, and the grifter expects a much bigger and better payout. Pedophiles, kidnappers, and other psychopaths play the long con. They want YOU PERSONALLY. YOU are the reward at the end of the long con, and once they get what they want, all the friendliness, companionship, treats and ego-boosting will disappear. Enough said on that topic.

GUIDELINES FOR FORUM DISCUSSION OF HACKS, SCAMS AND CONS

If you fell for a scam, tell it like it is. Whining about "getting hacked" when you fell for a con and went outside the rules to try and get free stuff illegally is a total wimp-out. Take responsibility, say you let yourself get scammed, and let others learn from your experience. You didn't get hacked if you told the person any personal information.

Be a part of the solution, not the problem. If you were a victim, describe the circumstances, how it worked, where you went wrong, or what may have contributed to your becoming a victim. Knowledge is power, folks.

Don't be a jerk and snipe or get snarky on someone who got scammed or hacked. Either be helpful, offer commiseration, or koindly kayp yaw pie-'ole shut, moi son.
Imagine Jason Statham saying it: