Almost got scammed for Judy! (And what were the red flags)

[cloudmask]

yikes, i'm sorry you had to go through that! i feel like if i were in your shoes, i would have thought it was a bit weird but wouldn't have picked up immediately that it was a scam. this probably would have gotten me tbh. thank you for sharing, i'll keep this in mind! though i do all my AC business on this forum so it's far more unlikely i'll run into a situation like this...but good to keep in mind.

 

[Lavulin98]

After 70 tickets found this baby frog and invited her in. Her smile was so cute~ Still no Judy. Making preparations for campsite method to do in weekends unless I found Judy until then.

Spoiler

 

[kyasarin]

good lesson. its sad how people resort to these things. hopefully you'll find her soon!

 

[Spongebob]

I don't like doing trades on Discord personally lol, they always feel sketchy as hell

 

[Farfle_Productions]

In a way you were lucky that he told you that his friend needed to leave, instead of just having his friend leave the island, otherwise he could have gotten it to save. Glad you thought quickly though and your items were ok.

 

[Lillyshins]

Thank you so much for sharing!
It would not have clicked with me that that was a possibility had you not said anything.

I still havnt tried to do any trading but it's a wonderful thing to know. And I just got ankha as a camper last night, so she will be moving in tomorrow (bye hornsby!) and I've had audie for awhile, so i do have some pretty valuable villagers that i could sell now, if i wanted to.

 

[Lavulin98]

In a way you were lucky that he told you that his friend needed to leave instead of his friend just leaving, otherwise he could have gotten it to save. Glad you thought quickly though and you’re items were ok.

yes! its weird. perhaps by acting very friendly, you would let your guard down or something, after all I did take him up on the offer to try a second time! maybe it was a signal for that friend in game to leave? tho it doesn't make sense since they probably communicated thru smth else the second time when he prepared to arrive just as I finished dropping everything.

there were lots of red flags anyway. for example the second time when I managed to drop everything, he didn't go to count the nmts or items like you would normally do, nor move from his place from blocking judy's entrance. even tho I dropped everything. He was waiting for me to exit the inventory screen, even tho I was texting him on discord live that I was ready and waiting for him to move.

I'm sure that people that traded villagers before know that this is weird and this is not trading etiquette at all! people that don't know the trade etiquette don't bother with blocking exists anyway. they wait for payment at airport at lead you to villager. and people that employ blocking off, let you move in as soon as they check the payment is all in order.

But someone that is new to trading might not know this so better spread the knowledge.

 

[meo]

It kinda makes me wonder if:

- they just bounce Judy from each town and scam people back to back that way (get her to move, friend invites, but they send moving pic to people have them come over and drop stuff save and end)
- if it was a friend truly or if the person has two consoles/two games (might be why the host's town was so new, the friend could have actually been his main town)

 

[Hodgie]

It's hard to tell when a scam is happening, for instance I trade with a lot of people on discord and many times they'll have other people trading on their island at the same time. So there have been times where I've dropped my NMTs and someone so happens to be leaving the island or flying in.

Would you have been as suspicious if he didn't outright say all the stuff he said about his friend?

If you press minus you can check people passports

 

[ForbiddenSecrets]

If only people put in that much effort to help each other instead of scam each other. Honestly. Glad you managed to not get scammed.

 

[Antonio]

This is why I never do big trades with people like this...

 

[Hedgehugs]

Discord is a good place to trade.

Spoiler

As long as you're not trying to get Raymond/Judy

Besides that, good luck trying to get Judy. Sorry this happened to you.

 

[Kyneria]

Not only Discord, other places like Nookazon (which, well, I guess it's connected to Discord too), which I've used to trade/ catalog items and even gift villagers, are being taken over scammers. They also use villagers such as Raymond, Judy and I even saw one using Beau. So for now, I think forums like this one are best for buying or trading, at least, popular characters.

I'm sorry this happened to you, but I'm also happy you were able to quickly identify the red flags and react to them!

 

[Blueskyy]

Thanks for sharing the red flags with others! So sorry that people are horrible sometimes over virtual animals. This is why I stick to TBT only.

 

[Strong Badam]

Good on ya for being savvy to the scam methods. Pretty messed up that people would do this just for items in a video game. I think platforms like Discord afford a lot of anonymity and not as much opportunity for review/feedback history like reddit and TBT do. You CAN often report to mods if you have proof and get people banned, but I think it's easy to make another discord account. In contrast, it's hard to build up an account with a lot of feedback, positive reviews, or a public trade history in order to garner trust. I even declined purchasing Judy the other day from a reddit thread simply because the thread had been deleted and there was no public indication that the other buyer with a higher offer than mine had pulled out from the transaction.

I'm usually cool selling things on Discord because there's not much risk if I just force people to come to my island (and I don't scam), but if I'm buying something and it's high NMT I usually try to go elsewhere where it's easier to vet the seller's reputation.

I'm hoping you find Judy soon, I just got her today thankfully.

 

[quinnetmoi]

This is something I'd never have even known to happen. Thank you for sharing your experience to help keep others safe.

 

[Clock]

At least you managed to know it’s a scam and found a way to deal with it, I don’t think I should trust nookazon and discord sometimes, because I heard some people being scammed there.

 

[alpacac]

That's actually frightening.. didn't think that the two people system could do that but it makes sense now that you explained it. I'm glad you were smart enough to lock your inventory but it's horrible to hear you had to go through that experience ): If I ever come across Judy I'll literally give her to you for free

Do people really don't have anything better to do than scam people in a family-friendly game ugh...

 

[Mello]

Seeing a lot of people talk about how Discord is scary because of all the scamming, but that's certainly not exclusive to discord. People get scammed all the time everywhere. Nookazon, Discord, Reddit, Gamefaqs, Turnip Exchange, even here on Belltree. It's less about the platform the person got scammed on, and more about the fact that there are simply many scammers out there; it's just the way things are. We need to be mindful and cautious when trading with anyone period. I'll say though, that trading here on Belltree does have the advantage of feedback ratings which is nice, but not always a sure indicator that someone won't scam you.

As for you OP, fantastic job circumventing getting scammed and coming out on top. Well done, and I do hope you'll be able to find Judy soon, she's adorable.

 

[Noctis]

I don't like doing trades on Discord personally lol, they always feel sketchy as hell

tell me about. specially those with no image on their icon. thankfully I've been lucky and bought 3 villagers from there with no problems but yeah I was always nervous.