Scammers will never go away from this world. This is a fact.
No matter how smart a person is, at she might have a weak point or time that a scammer might use on their advantage.
Almost everyday we see scam cases in the news. Only difference is small or big the scammed amount is.
Looking at my past, I definetely has experience of being scammed.
It was not real money, though. It was in an online game that I played back in high schools. Like first time people discovered IRC, we thought everyone was innocent. We’d trust a girl named IDs as real girl.
Back to the my first scam story. The game was Ragnarok Online. Back then we need to buy game time from prepaid card from shops.
I was young acolyte, around level 20 at that time of incident. I inspired to make hybrid build, balanced between dps and healing so I can play alone if nobody was around. Also known as battle acolyte build.
One fine Saturday evening, I logged in to my character, and hanged around at merchant NPC that sells armour in Prontera.
Chilling around while listening to the background music. It was really peaceful and I was in the mood to grind some experience. But first, I need to upgrade my gears.
At that time, I had around 20,000 zenies that I grinded my ass till I get myself to level 20. I was looking to buy a buckler to upgrade my armor stats.
I can’t remember the price of the buckler at that time. It was expensive.
One alchemist entered the shop zone and PMed me, asking if I want a discount for any item that I want. Alchemist is a class that has a commerce skill that allows her to buy wares from any NPC at discounted rate.
Tempted by getting my desired buckler on discounted price, I agreed to send him the money. For some reason, I sent him all my zenies’ savings.
And suddenly his character disconnected.
I waited, and waited. Even PMed him few times to get my money back.
An hour later, I realised that I got scammed real hard. All my (virtual) savings, gone. I was really mad at myself.
Invaluable lesson learnt that day. Never trust anyone online.
Luckily my first scam incident was in online game.
PS: Prontera theme song is indeed a masterpiece. Sometimes I play it back just to recall good times in Ragnarok Online. Ah, good times.