PSA - Cheats are selling fake ancient SOS scrolls, don't be caught out!

[Johnny Warren]

Hey all, just letting you know that over the last few days some cheats have been dying plain SOS with uni tubs to make them look like ancient SOS scrolls. If you add them to your T-Map book you find it is a plain SOS and when you get it out of the book it has had its fake colour washed off!

I bought A Waterstained SOS that was white in colour and priced at 500k from the TC vendor owned by ******and coowned by *******. It seems like one of those 2 players deliberately put the fake SOS scroll on their vendor trying to rip people off passing it off as a cheap ancient SOS. For the record the plain waterstained SOS aren't worth a lot, nowhere near 500k.

I also was told that a player named ******* was selling fake SOS scrolls over world chat yesterday, not sure if he is linked to the above vendor as a friend. This is all in portal for you to read yourself.

Normally I would not name players in these types of things but given that the rule enforcement can be slow here it is likely more people will be scammed before +C gets around to jailing these guys. If you are friends with any of these players how about you have a word to them and remind them that we don't need scams and cheats in our small community.

So, for your own good, do not buy "Ancient" SOS from these guys for the time being as they are clearly enjoying this scam.

On a side note for +C. Maybe you could change the name of ancient SOS so that this scam can't be repeated. There were also people trying to sell plain old waterstained SOS (not even bothering to unidye) for ancient SOS prices. So I think the fact both items have the same name is a real problem given one of them is worth 2mil the other is worth 5k.

PS: This is also why you should always carry a treasure map book or 2. You can drop the SOS into it immediately after the trade and see what type it is to make sure you aren't being ripped off.

[HotMale]

I'm surprised as to why established players would engage in this kind of scam. While someone new to the server might try this to earn some quick gold, there's really no substantial gain in it for experienced players. Players with decent gear can accumulate those amounts of gold quite quickly anyway.

"fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

[Johnny Warren]

It could be an "honest mistake" but for multiple people to get done in the exact same way in 24h it seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

I have redacted names for now. But players please be careful with buying Waterstained SOS at the moment. I have a genuine one on my vendor if anyone needs a real one for crafting a T-map book or hunting their Captain Jack's...

Don't forget to test out any SOS you buy with your T-map book so you know you are buying a real Ancient one.

[Cerrera]

humm we have two scrolls actually one is 0x14ed other 0x14ee just facing other side, perhaps that could save the day, if ancient would just face other side or yeah as you said really had word ancient in front. Taking away possibilty to color something seems drastic for me.

[Muolke]

It could be an "honest mistake" but for multiple people to get done in the exact same way in 24h it seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

I have redacted names for now. But players please be careful with buying Waterstained SOS at the moment. I have a genuine one on my vendor if anyone needs a real one for crafting a T-map book or hunting their Captain Jack's...

Don't forget to test out any SOS you buy with your T-map book so you know you are buying a real Ancient one.

I doubt it's an honest mistake considering the individual has a history of breaking shard rules and scamming players. At one point this player had another player give him 500ed for some kind of secret attack move...and it was just "use momentum strike". Once a fraud always a fraud...

[Yuki]

I could see pricing the regular waterstained sos at 1 mil as an honest mistake. They have the same name and I noticed multiple people doing it so someone probably didn't know the difference then others just copied the price. I do think changing the ancient sos to actually be called that would clear up a lot of confusion. When I first started fishing, I really had to dig for information on how it all works since there's no page on the wiki about it.

Counterfeiting a sos with a dye tub is pretty malicious. Have you talked to the player and asked for a refund? The person in question is pretty active so I'd hope you two could resolve this amicably.

[Lach]

Why don't we report people and keep the forms postive none of you are staff and your only hurting the shard posting on the public website this way. Play the game and use the help report player option and go on about your day.

[Cerrera]

Yeah people here is trying to make some kind of island (shard) where honor and honestly rule, but , we shouldn't forget what game we are playing, don't think that kind of scam would be anyhow limited in pvp server, when such things was on daily basis, i believe some players live here in such way, and don't even notice that it could go other way. I been lucky getting my lesson, to still be careful pretty fast, and also meeting good people which showed best side of shard. Okay he says there is such player but also not saying he's name, think its pretty good tone. Everyone is warned to keep their ears open (better than don't know and fall in trap) . If there is any afraidance that this could make bad reputation for server, nop. I believe it directly shows that such behavior isn't something we are used to.

[Yuki]

Why don't we report people and keep the forms postive none of you are staff and your only hurting the shard posting on the public website this way. Play the game and use the help report player option and go on about your day.

We only have one admin and he's already inundated with tickets. I can appreciate not airing drama on the front page but realistically reporting a player isn't going to accomplish much.

That being said, people should really try to resolve their problems by confronting the offending party before initiating a public smear campaign. Message them and if their reply is essentially "gotcha" then screen cap it and post it as proof that they were actually scamming.

[Lach]

Why don't we report people and keep the forms postive none of you are staff and your only hurting the shard posting on the public website this way. Play the game and use the help report player option and go on about your day.

We only have one admin and he's already inundated with tickets. I can appreciate not airing drama on the front page but realistically reporting a player isn't going to accomplish much.

That being said, people should really try to resolve their problems by confronting the offending party before initiating a public smear campaign. Message them and if their reply is essentially "gotcha" then screen cap it and post it as proof that they were actually scamming.

Dude already made it right because i told them it was a crappy thing to do. Its not even against the rules i don't believe at least that's what they said . So we will see if he gets jailed or not. But that is +C's job not any if ours

[Johnny Warren]

Why don't we report people and keep the forms postive none of you are staff and your only hurting the shard posting on the public website this way. Play the game and use the help report player option and go on about your day.

So, firstly, how is warning the server (without naming anyone) about a scam going around hurting the shard??? What sort of logic is that. The person scamming is hurting the shard, end of story. Secondly, I did. First course of actions was PM player involved, then use the help menu and page +C. I also messaged +C on discord about the forum thread I made because I didn't want to start drama but I did want players to be warned so instead of 2 help requests to deal with when +C finally gets to them he might have 6. For the record +C said the help requests were very backed up so he wouldn't have got to this quickly.

I am not in the business of starting drama, but as I have stated many times: I won't stand for cheating in our small community.

Dude already made it right because i told them it was a crappy thing to do. Its not even against the rules i don't believe at least that's what they said . So we will see if he gets jailed or not. But that is +C's job not any if ours

This one genuinely made me laugh. Thanks mate, I am glad you made this one right. You're a hero.

Secondly, please do not try and condone this type of cheating. Saying you don't believe deliberately scamming people is against the rules! Way to set a good example. Read the type E Exploits: https://uoex.net/codex/penalties

Pretty sure if you buy an item for less than 10k, dye it to make it look like a multi million gold item and relist it you actually hit 3/4 of the criteria for an exploit, which falls into the "heavy violation" territory which can result in account bans. So yes, for people reading this thread, do not listen to this advice. Trying to scam people IS against the rules.

[Lach]

Agian as I said just leave it off the forms someone already made it right with the "person" that fell for it . Yea because you know I come and cry to the community & +C every chance I get LOL, about auction prices, stuff that has nothing to with me, player of the year, what am forgetting ah that's right anything that doesn't go my way. Also I didn't say that it wasn't against the rules its what "someone" told me. Community wouldn't be so small if all everyone see's is that the entire shard needs to cater to the many & not the few. Edit: I see +C is cool with it I'm still not because "Someone" even had to dig at "someone" because they didn't know the price of an item. Keep on subject I'm tired of others business coming out of "someones" mouth. Just because you don't meantion someone's character name don't mean everyone don't know what your talking about. Quit trying to push down on people because "someone" thinks they are better than them because they spent 10+ years of there life on this shard. If I'm not mistaken thats a form of superiority complex.......

[+Colibri]

Thanks for the headsup, I don't mind it being posted here for everyone to be alerted of a possible scam. The name of the player isnt written so it's not blacklisting (it could be an honest mistake). Could take a while before I get online and resolve it.

The player dyed 3 regular SOSes to hue 1150 which is the white color that Ancient SOSes use. I can't consider that as an accident (and he also changed his name in the meanwhile, and has some bad reputation from before) so he got some jail time & tasks.

The ancient SOSes are getting a slight change in appearance and labeling. Server needs a restart to apply this change, I'm planning on one any day now.
I guess I could also make it unable to dye these SOS messages to a white hue, but there's a few white hues and maybe this labeling and appearance difference will be enough to make it less possible to pull off such a stunt in the future.

2024-04-22 ancient sos appearance change.png (44.11 KiB) Viewed 4326 times

[Johnny Warren]

Thank you for addressing this +C and supporting my Public Service Announcement. I think the name change and appearance change of SOSs will stop this scam.

The player told me it was an "honest mistake" but then it turns out they had deliberately dyed 3 of them this hue, so I guess it was a scam, not an honest mistake. Glad to hear jail time and tasks were handed out.

In the past players have tried similar scams with SoTs. Remember, always double check what you're buying, read the name, don't rely on the item appearance as it can be used to fool you.

@Lachian, I didn't even bother to read that last reply, but honestly, what is with the relentless attacks on me?? Nothing in this thread was about you or related to you. I made a post to help the server while buying +C time to make it right. That's all. Then you come onto the thread and start ranting about how you fixed the situation (which you didn't, +C did, and which had nothing to do with you). More worryingly, you try and suggest to everyone on the server that cheating, by dying items to appear like other items to sell fakes for profit, is not against the rules (which it clearly is), so I corrected you. If you don't have on topic things to add to a thread, don't post. It isn't always about you. Some of us just want to help the server out. As someone who runs a guild claiming to be guiding the next era of Excelsior, you should be 100% on my side with this and helping stamp out scammers, cheats and scummy players.

EDIT: This is the response I get from most players when I provide information/services on the forums:

[Lach]

Go back and read it all i got to say.......... Oh wait why you think they refunded two people probably didn't get to the third. Also don't act like you didn't implie I was trying to scam someone because I simply didn't know the price. Go back and read our messages I convinced them to do the right thing. Without bringing it up or wasting time. It was over last night quit talking about stuff you know nothing about. Or wait did you the almighty fall for it probably to resell for proft huh? Like the world tele you bought for 15mil.