Fortunately, nope.
I guess being extremely careful/selective on who I choose to trade with,
and (usually) not letting anyone in my main town really helped.
One thing I love about The Bell Tree is the wi-fi feedback system.
I always look thru members' actual feedback (not just the %) plus the feedback they left for others,
to get a general idea of how things are. Well, not a complete guarantee, but it has been very effective so far.
That said, I do have two minor incidents that I can recall, so I'd like to share them here.
1) A certain member (probably inactive now), let's call her D. They wanted to adopt a villager from one of my cycling towns.
Fee is 50 BTB. Initially I am reluctant to trade with them, as I can see they are shady & annoying.
But hey, benefit of doubt, right? So I replied in my thread & PM'd them, stating clearly that buyer need to pay first before coming into my towns, and gates will open once payment cleared. I say that in every trade, to everyone.
And guess what, D keep pressuring/rushing me to open the gate, yet made no mention of payment.
So after the 3rd try, I told them the trade is off, as I won't be dealing with the likes of them. D, of course, tried to shift the blame on me, saying that I wasn't clear on the payment thing.
Seriously, what part of "pay first and I will open gate after that" is not clear enough.
Trying to pull a "talk-and-run" on me? Nice try.
TL;DR: Cyclers or not, always ask the buyer to clear payment first BEFORE letting anyone into your town to adopt villagers.
2) Also happened in my cycling town. One member, A, paid for a villager whom their friend, B, will show up to adopt.
I have no problem with that whatsoever, and actually it's v kind of them to do that for their friend.
Anyway, things got a bit bizarre when A keep rambling on and on about how I should meet in their town with friend B.
It's like....listening to a high/drunk person. So, I politely told them no, and reminded them whoever wants to pickup the villager should, in fact, come to my cycle town for that, no the other way round.
Someone finally showed up at the station, I was greeting them there, and long pause of silence, no response from that player at all. From the posture that I can see from my screen, it seemed like they are checking out the rest of my cycling town, while searching through their pockets. Why they did that, I have no idea. Before I can ask are they ready to walk to the villager's house (after that awakward long pause), they took a mad dash from 0 to 60 and ran out of sight.
Funny that they are not even at that villager's house. So at this point, the benefit of doubt is basically flying out the window.
I flipped the wi-fi switch (for the 1st time), promptly refund the BTB to member A, and told them this is a jerk move, and the trade is off. The member replied, blaming it on a bad connection. Yeah, right.
TL;DR: When things starts to not feel right, wi-fi switch is your friend.
after that I only opened for best friends, all my other Gang members were best friends except them so everyone else could visit. So my friend came back and we had a good night. She dropped the bells for me again and at 10pm I had to go so I ended the session. After that I deleted their FC and told everyone on the forum to avoid them
