What are your experiences with scammers?

[lambshu]

not as bad as some others stories ive read, but once got into a turnip exchange island that had let in like, 5 ppl at a time. they demanded entry fee first, and once we all paid, we set off to find the shop. i noticed pretty quickly they had tucked their shop onto a cliff, with no visible stairs in sight. my pockets were full of turnips so i didnt have my ladder/vaulting pole, and as soon as i was getting suspicious, the host closed the session, which saved the game, and stole all five of the visitors entry fees. ):

the host had given the choices of 3nmt, 99k bells, or pink furniture as entry fee.. im glad i only dropped 99k as that wasnt too much considering i was doing turnips, i just felt bad for some of the other people who dropped furniture or nmt. it happened so fast and i was so annoyed i forgot to get the info to report properly to the turnip exchange discord. from now i stick to TBT or trusted small discord groups.

 

[Hsn97]

Fortunately, out of the many, many, many people I’ve had over to my island, I’ve only ever had one negative experience.

I have a swap shop by my airport with a few items in. Not many, 4 furniture, 2 clothes and 2 wallpaper / flooring. It’s not expensive or rare stuff. Just a little something that people can use if they like.

I had my gates open the other day cause Celeste and Leif were over. I fenced off my town hall and path there and set up a queue on the turnip exchange. I left my switch idle whilst I watched some tv and basically trusted people to visit and sort themselves out. I didn’t charge an entry fee because I was just trying to help people out and having my switch in idle whilst I watched TV didn’t really effect me at all.

I’m really happy to say that 99% of the people that visited that night were extremely polite, respectful and kind! This experience has in no way clouded my opinion of online play because the vast majority of people are lovely!

But I did have one person steal all of the items from the swap shop. I’m not sure who it was, as like I said I wasn’t watching my switch at the time so didn’t realise until everybody had already been and gone.

The thing that irritates me more is the spite of it. The items weren’t expensive or rare. I doubt they would have gotten even 10k from selling them all. They not only took advantage of the kindness of allowing someone to visit their island for free. But they also took away the opportunity for anybody else to use the swap shop that night.

This experience won’t stop me from having people over or even having people over when I’m not watching the switch. But unfortunately now, if I’m not watching the switch, the Swap Shop and free fruit stand will be shut to be sure people don’t take advantage of it.

 

[CoffeeAndCaramel973]

someone was selling me the full creme diner set for 500k, and ofc i was new to the platform and i was desperate, so i took them up on the offer.

when i got there, their entrance was surrounded by fences and they were standing there doing friendly emotes. the limited space made it pretty impossible for us to trade.

before i could ask them how we were supposed to trade, he kept asking questions like 'why do you want this set' or something along the lines of that. i told him that it was for a cafe/restaurant for my island, but he kept assuming i was lying and decided to boost the price to 800k.

the insisting went on for around 10 minutes and at this point i was completely infuriated. he suddenly kept quiet for a few minutes before saying 'alright, 300k for the set'.

naive little me of course gave him the money. after picking up the money, he told me he 'has to be afk for a while because his siblings were fighting'. i was getting bored of waiting, so i left my switch and went on youtube to pass the time.

5 minutes, he's not there. 10 minutes, nope. 15 minutes, again, no. 20 minutes rolled by and i had found out he had ended the session, without giving me the diner set.


edit: please notice all the red flags when you're trading!! some people think it's funny to be dishonest, escpecially on amazing platforms and games like tbt and ac.

Ouch, I'm sorry to read such a sad story It shows that, even in (more or less) innocent games like Animal Crossing, there are still scammers around. Of course you could (sort of) have expected it, but still. Hidden behind a computer screen and an username, how cowardly can you be? Maybe being hidden behind anonymity (is this the correct spelling)? does lure out the worst inside of some people (this applies to other things as well but I'm only writing regarding to being scammed in this context)

 

[Ananas Dragon]

Thanks for the replies everyone! Tbt is a really nice place, it appears nobody has gotten scammed on here, which is good!

 

[niko@kamogawa]

I made a few trades here. So far, all the people here are wonderful and understanding.

 

[Corrie]

I got scammed once while trading amiibo cards on here. It was a one for one trade thankfully and she didn't end up sending me my card. I left her negative feedback and that was that. She hasn't been active on here since so whatever.

Otherwise everyone has been super lovely and I generally always feel safe trading on here

 

[Druidsleep]

I haven’t got scammed on any serious level but had cases where they forgot to pay and do come back this is happened more then once which is strange but i didn’t mind since the payment was not anything serious I’m just too nice I guess

Just to check all our trades are cool right?

 

[TortimerCrossing]

Unfortunately, with the fact that people are actually selling bells on ebay and etsy and things like that it really opens the door for more scamming. Not to mention this game (thank you quarantine) has really taken off. Now the dupe glitch is fixed and people are probably running out of their glitched bells to sell so they look to scamming. Its sad because this community is super kind and I can only imagine how distraught someone must be if they ever do have that happen to them.

 

[marieheiwa]

i had my island open on turnip exchange almost all day and asked for tips, thinking i’d get a lot of people just leaving instantly after but not really being too worried (didn’t want to stress people out by asking for entry fees so i was ok with not getting anything from it). actually despite having my island open for hours only 2-4 people left without a tip and one even came back because they had disconnected! the AC community is surprisingly kind.

 

[juneau]

I've only traded with people here, which makes me feel a lot safer because of the level of communication, rating system and general atmosphere. I've not been scammed here (yet, and I hope never).

I see places like Nookazon, and the availability of items and speed at which it moves is appealing, but the lack of accountability and on-site communication definitely puts me off.

 

[Ananas Dragon]

I've only traded with people here, which makes me feel a lot safer because of the level of communication, rating system and general atmosphere. I've not been scammed here (yet, and I hope never).

I see places like Nookazon, and the availability of items and speed at which it moves is appealing, but the lack of accountability and on-site communication definitely puts me off.

I know what you mean, I won't use Nookazon until they implement a chat system, which they said they were doing

 

[sheepie]

i got scammed trading a villager over discord. i had someone offering 30 nmt or something for coco and they gave me 10 nmt, took coco, and left and blocked me.

after that i learned to reset the game when people try to scam so that they don't get anything and i don't lose anything. i've had a few people attempt to scam me afterwards, to which they failed. most people i trade with are very nice. i don't see the point in scamming someone on a game like this.

 

[fallenchaoskitten]

I guess technically it falls under scam but more like they are just a **** person

Had a massive give away.
The fun classic, everything is in gift bags (400+ btw so took HOURS) where you take x amount of goodie bags you randomly pick up then leave and open them on your island.
Someone wanted to take multiple, run over to where "i couldn't see them" then open their bags to drop what they didn't want, then run off to pick other bags since "they didn't grab x amount yet." Caught them doing it TWICE.
I force closed the game and left them negative feedback here on the form with great detail of what they did.

It was a giveaway with a MASSIVE amount of items that I didn't really care about so it wasn't a huge deal to me, but the person is a **** person for stealing during a giveaway.

Also, Celeste showed up randomly in the middle of my giveaway! Everyone could get a free recipe too when they visited to grab goodie bags. Because of the force close, had to track her down then body her back into the plaza for others to get a free recipe from her while grabbing goodie bags.

 

[Sudsofsplash]

I've never been scammed! I've held a few free giveaways and everyone was very polite and respectful! (I'm planning to host an even bigger giveaway today)
I don't really care if someone takes more items than asked, I mean I'd rather someone just ask me if they can take more or shake my trees for fruit instead of just doing it without asking, but most people are really polite on this site so I'm sticking to just doing it on here.
I used to open my gates in New Leaf and let random people from tumblr come to my town and I stopped doing it when someone stole a bunch of my clovers (Which I had tons of extras if they had wanted!)

 

[Mieiki]

Never been scammed. Maybe I've been lucky but all the people i've traded with (90% were TBT users) were extremely polite and nice!
When I think about it, it makes me very happy. Generally the community is absolutely wholesome.

I've had some people running around my island without consent, but I believe they were just younger players excited to visit my town.

 

[niconii]

I've invited people from tbt to go to my island to sell turnips or talk to celeste and even trade diys and other stuff and thankfully I haven't been scammed so far! Everyone I've interacted here has been nice and though I've even have some bell trees unguarded here and there (too lazy to shake them l o l), no one has tried taking those bells. Or trample/pick flowers.

Most of the trading/scamming horror stories I've heard are from people that trade on sites like Nookazon or Discord. Which makes me wary to trade on those platforms.

 

[AccfSally]

Never been scammed, but I had things stolen from me on ACNL. Still kinda upset about it.

 

[Toci]

I just got scammed a few minutes ago. the island is called Flottante, claiming turnip prices at 653bells. The entrance was fenced up & the island owner had a friend helping him. They demanded visitors to pay first (1 NMT & 99k bells) before they let you in. The nook cranny was located reallly far into the back of the island. The visitor before me was speaking in French so I did not understand until he said “refund“.

I was suspicious but I went for the cranny anyway. None of the sale items were sold (which was unusual...). After asking Timmy, turned out the turnip price was only at 101bells. When I asked the island owner about it they simply said “seriously?” “must be a bug sorry” but they refused to give us back our NMTs and bells and kept telling us to leave.

The other visitor taught me how to report them in-game. I asked the hosts why were they scamming people because the island was not decorated AT ALL. no flowers (except for the garden in front of his house), no furnitures, nothing. And they said “because we want to see the people falling for it, now leave”

After hearing that, in-game report didn’t feel punishment enough. So yes I got petty and ran right across his tiny little garden till they were all bald. Not long after, another visitor came. So I decided to stay right by the fence that they made and warned as many new visitors as I could about the scam before they handed their entry fee. Didn’t get to help that many before the host kicked me out of the island.

Just a tip, check the tiny island map where the nook cranny is located. And if things start to seem fishy, ask to check the prices first!

 

[Ananas Dragon]

I just got scammed a few minutes ago. the island is called Flottante, claiming turnip prices at 653bells. The entrance was fenced up & the island owner had a friend helping him. They demanded visitors to pay first (1 NMT & 99k bells) before they let you in. The nook cranny was located reallly far into the back of the island. The visitor before me was speaking in French so I did not understand until he said “refund“.

I was suspicious but I went for the cranny anyway. None of the sale items were sold (which was unusual...). After asking Timmy, turned out the turnip price was only at 101bells. When I asked the island owner about it they simply said “seriously?” “must be a bug sorry” but they refused to give us back our NMTs and bells and kept telling us to leave.

The other visitor taught me how to report them in-game. I asked the hosts why were they scamming people because the island was not decorated AT ALL. no flowers (except for the garden in front of his house), no furnitures, nothing. And they said “because we want to see the people falling for it, now leave”

After hearing that, in-game report didn’t feel punishment enough. So yes I got petty and ran right across his tiny little garden till they were all bald. Not long after, another visitor came. So I decided to stay right by the fence that they made and warned as many new visitors as I could about the scam before they handed their entry fee. Didn’t get to help that many before the host kicked me out of the island.

Just a tip, check the tiny island map where the nook cranny is located. And if things start to seem fishy, ask to check the prices first!

Thank you for sharing! Also I admire how you helped people! We need more people like you!

 

[Bloobloop]

i've never been scammed before, probably because i only rely on tbt for trading/selling/buying. i've used this site since the new leaf days and it always worked for me, so i've never felt a need to use any other means for transactions! i'm glad i've only ever used tbt since i've heard so many horror stories of people getting scammed