Case Study #2 - ALTERNATE DOMAINS FOR NEOPETS.COM

This was reported to me by Andrea.   She accidentally mistyped Neopets.com to Neopests.com and yet everything was ok.

i mis-typed the url of Neopets and instead of putting www.neopets.com if put in www.neopests.com. well, i thought this was ok and all, and it said i needed to login. I did, and did neopets business as usual. It must have been a very good scamming site because when I signed out, i needed to do something in neopets again. So I went to www.neopets.com and found out I was still logged in. So I went and hurried and changed my Password and thank god nothing was stolen! I just wanted to report this just incase someone else mistyped!

Neopets.com has more than one domain name. Neopets.com bought several similar domain addresses, including Neopests.com, ihateneopets.com, and many other funky names. I guess the creators tried to think of as many variations scammers might use if they wanted to scam other Neopets users. But in this case, Andrea made the right move in changing her password. But currently, as of May 15, 2002, Neopests.com is also part of Neopets.com. But still, when in doubt, always log in to the REAL Neopets.com and change your password.

Case Study #3 - FOREIGN SOFTWARES (7/11/2002)

This was reported to me by Brooke.   She was surfing around and stumbled upon a site that talked about Neopets. The site claimed to help you earn lots of neopoints if you give them your password so that they can install a foreign software into your account. DON'T fall of this! It's just another scam. Here is the email from Brooke:

I found a Neopets site which offers "lots and lots of NPs and items" as long as you give
them (the usual - Neopets won't let us use certain words on Neomail) so they can "install" the program into your account. I also reported it to the Neopets staff, but I don't know if they can do anything about outside sites. Perhaps you could warn others about this specific site, though.
The site is found here:
http://sophie_lr.websitegalaxy.com/wsn9744.html
If you would like, you can list this on your AvoidNeopetsScammers site to warn others. Hopefully this website can be stopped.

Don't ever give away your password. This CANNOT be over-emphasized. Even if these website is true, you're violating the Neopets Terms of Service by adding a foreign software into your neopets account. I highly doubt anyone can INSTALL a software into your account anyways. So be smart like Brooke and just report it to the Neopets staff and ignore the website.

Case Study #4 - RIGHT MOUSE CLICK SCAMS (8/15/2002)

This was reported to me by Caitlin.   She's sharing an experience her friend went through:

Well, she went to someones user lookup and it said that if you have 30,000nps exactly on you, and you go to their shop or anyone elses, right click on an item (and that message will pop up that says to left click), then press enter for about 10 seconds and a page with lots of paintbrushes will pop up and you can choose a few and get them for very cheap. it was a scam. luckily she had gone to someone elses shop and only ended up buying a faerie and not something more expensive.

Don't get caught up by greed. If it's too good to be true, it probaby is. Right-mouse clicking has been disabled by the Neopets staff in people's shops. So if you CAN right-mouse click in someone's shops, it means it belongs to a scammer and you should report it ASAP to the Neopets Staff by clicking on the "report shop" link at the top of the page.

Case Study #5 - SCAM CODES (8/30/2002)

This was reported to me by Anonymous.   This person is sharing an experience he had on Neopets:

I haven't seen this scam warning at the scams section so I'm here to warn you. There is this new scam where the scammer will tell you to put some code on your user description, so you can change your country to "-deletedland"; etc... But that code reveals your password! That's how my other account got hacked, so please, warn people about it! Thanks! I never got my account back. =(

Be super careful NOT to put in any strange codes into your Neopets fields. The Neopets staff will just think you're trying to find ones to tinker with their system. The only codes that are acceptable are Neopets, HTML, and CSS codes. Don't use any other foreign codes, it's not worth losing your account over.

Case Study #6 - ITEM EXCHANGE (9/1/2002)

This was reported to me by Michelle.   She was a newbie when this happened.

i was a newbie for about 2 days and i was at the chat place. this dude said that if we came to his shop and bought 2 expensive items he will give you a more expensive item for free. well, just my luck and i fell for it. never got the item that he promised but i sold those 2 things i got in my shop and got my money back.

Although someone might seem really nice and really willing to help you, don't lose your edge in a transaction by giving away your neopoints first. If this dude really was geniune about giving away good stuff, then the dude should have recommended the TRADING POST. At the trading post, everyone is equal. No transaction is complete unless both parties are happy with the items and neopoints up for offer. Going to the trading post is the best place to be to insure a SAFE and FAIR transaction to both parties.

Case Study #7 - FRIENDS (12/9/2002)

This is an advice sent in by hankerchief.  Here is her message:

I urge everybody to go on the Wall of Shame on Neopets. Everyone's in a rush to make neopoints, but if you read it it just might save you a lot of money from scammers. I almost got scammed myself once. It was at my good friend "atwoz"'s house. We were both into getting money when he got off the internet and showed me something a lot like your password scam case 2. He said if you changed your (i cant say it but you all know) to a certain thing, he would give you something like a million neopoints. Now, I know atwoz better than you do, and even though he was my friend, I knew that he would take my account if he had the chance. I said no, and convinced him not to send it out, because "It's a lousy thing to do." I didn't know if he would scam or not, but I think he would have. Anyway, DON'T FALL FOR ANYTHING. CHECK THE WEBSITES, AND MAKE SURE THAT THEY'RE FROM NEOPETS. atwoz remains unfrozen, but the next time he does something like that, I will report him. Thanks for alerting everyone on this selfish way of playing a game.

Great words of wisdom by hankdercheif. Even friends walk down the wrong path sometimes. So be careful of any friends at Neopets that is willing to scam or cheat to earn extra Neopoints. A good friend would never cheat or scam at anything. Also if you share the same computer with someone who cheats or scams, there's a good chance that the Neopets Staff might freeze all accounts associated with that computer. If anyone in your family scams or cheats, it's a good idea to ask them to stop or else you might have your accounts frozen too. If you're afraid to ask them to stop, then contact the Neopets Staff and write to them regarding the situation and ask them for help.