Scams and Scammers

Often I hear things like, "I lost my account!" or "My avatar items got stolen!" I wonder why? The reason is that, people are getting scammed!

What are Scams?
Have you ever gotten ads that say "Congratulations! You are our 1,000,000th visitor! You win a free laptop! Click here to redeem your prize!" and you click it? It then asks you your address and phone number and you give it out? That website just scammed you. Nothing is ever free and you don't end up getting that free labtop. That's sort of what happens on neopets except it's a bit different. People scam you to get your account or avatar items that they need. You just need to know when to say no.

Neositting
Say you're going on vacation and you don't want your neopets to starve. Suddenly someone says, "Hey, I'll neosit your pets for you. All you need to do is give me your Username and Password." Even if this person is one of your closest friends, say no! If you give your password out, there's a 90% chance that your account will be stolen. All that hard work, your neopoints, and your pets will be gone. Don't ever fall for this one!

Scam Sites
A lot of sites you see will say, I will give you 10 million neopoints or more! Just fill out this form. There will probably be options that say Baby Paint Brush, Royal Paint Brush, Morphing Potions, and other rare items They say to just tick what you want and give your Username and Password but think to yourself: "Why would they need my password to send me items? Couldn't you just send it to my username?" It's definintely a scam! No matter how professional they sound, don't believe it!

Fake Login Pages
I don't see these around anymore but they can be seen around shops owned by different users. You see a really rare item and it's really cheap too! You click on the item when suddenly it says you have to log in again. You believe it right? SO you type in your login info. Guess what? You just gave that user your account info and your account can easily be stolen! You'll know if the login page is fake if at the top it isn't neopets.com.

Avatar Items
If you're in a guild where they are all about avatars, they often give out avie items like TCGs, and certain pet pets. One day, some person will join your guild and will be very active for a while. They will then ask if they can have an avatar item. Of course, you give it to them but shortly after, they leave, not even bothering to give the item back. If you try contacting them, they don't answer! Your guild just got scammed! This kind of scam is really hard to judge because the person could be trustworthy but sound like a scammer.

Fake TNT
The Neopets Team has their own account but will not contact you on email, msn, or AIM or anything else besides neoemail. Their neopets account is theneopetsteam and nothing else. If someone named the_neopets_team contacts you and says it's their side account, don't answer them! They are not TNT! If they were, they would have posted on the news page. If you get something in your email and says something like,

Dear Neopets User,

It has come to our attention that your account may have been hacked into and in order for us to know that you are the real owner of this account, we need the following info:
Username:
Password:
Birthdate:
Pin Code:

You can definitely tell that this is a scam. As said before, TNT will never contact you outside of neopets. This one can easily be avoided so if you get this, don't answer the email.

Avoid Being Scammed
There are so many ways you can be scammed. Here are some ways to avoid that: