Agent Insights Ep 38: My Shop Scams

Hey everyone, Jade here with today's Agent Insights post! Today, we'll be talking about a few new scams that have originated with the My Shop feature and how to best avoid them.

The most common new scam I've seen that uses the My Shop feature is the "reward" scam. In this scam, the scammer will advertise a shop in their den and tell Jammers that if they buy anything from the shop, they will gift them a reward. The scammer will put the items in the shop at a very high price in order to make a profit off of people hoping for a good prize, then refuse to send anything if someone does buy the items in the shop. Do keep in mind that this can occasionally be a legitimate advertising strategy- the difference depends on the price of the items in comparison to their worth, and if the gifts are actually sent out by the seller.

A similar scam to this is a giveaway scam, where the scammer will advertise a giveaway in their den when all the items in their shop are bought. Again, this could be a genuine advertising strategy, but if the items are overpriced or unrare, it's almost always a scam. The scammer will wait until the items in their shop are bought, then never do the giveaway that they promised.

In Play Wild, there is one scam that can't happen in AJPC. A scammer will ask you to put an item in your shop and say that they won't buy it, but that they just want to try it on with the dressing room feature (exclusive to AJPW). They will then buy your item and leave. Often, in order to convince you that they won't buy your item, they will tell you that they don't have any gems or sapphires, so they couldn't possibly buy it. This is almost always a lie.

Finally, we have the high-value scam, which Flint talked about in a previous Agent Insights. You can read about that here.

Overall, the best way to avoid these scams is just to use your best judgement. Don't buy anything overpriced and don't trust random strangers on the internet. As with the trade system, if you just use the My Shop system for its intended purpose, you won't get scammed!

That's all for today, thanks for reading! Stay safe, and Jam On.

Random Saturday Ep 46: Animal Jam Merch and Promo-Codes

Hey every jammer, it’s Agent Mage. I am writing my first ever Random Saturday post! Yay! Today’s post is going to be on real-life Animal Jam merchandise and promo-codes. It’s important to note that these items are available for real money!

Animal Jam merchandise is a way to show off your love of Animal Jam in the real world, such as with clothing, accessories, keychains, etc. From here on out, I’ll be calling the items “merch”. A lot of the merch comes with promo-codes, which will give you access to an exclusive in-game item. How exciting!

One of the newest forms of Animal Jam merch is the Animal Jam Box (https://www.animaljambox.com), a quarterly subscription service that is priced at 31 real-world dollars per box. The boxes come with games, crayons, clothing, slippers, bracelets, pens, accessories, mugs, and all kinds of other items!

Here is an example of a box from the summer of 2019. It came with a promo-code for an in-game mystery item. Unfortunately, I was not able to find out what that item is. Another example of Animal Jam merch is the playsets, which you can find in several different places, such as Amazon.

They all vary in the retail price, with the “Animal Jam Club Geoz Playset with Exclusive Diamond Arctic Wolf” playset being $15.61. These are great for younger kids who might want some toys or even older kids and teenagers (or adults, for that matter) who want to collect. This item also came with a promo-code (which was impossible to find online). 

Promo-codes are Animal Jam-verified codes for items in the game that correspond with what you bought in the real world. They motivate some to buy and are just a fun extra to others. The items that promo-codes give you are often of high in-game worth because they are exclusive and hard to get. 

Animal Jam also makes plush animals, like this bunny that resulted from a collaboration with Pillow Pets. The bunny comes with a code that gives you a bunny pillow pet in game- so your avatar gets to have one too!

Animal Jam merch is a wise marketing decision because it helps younger kids formulate real-life connections with the game they love, and it encourages older kids, teens, and adults to keep playing and become a collector. 

Agent Insights Ep 37: Lies Scammers Tell

Hello everyone. Flint here to talk about some common lies that scammers tell.

These lies are the sort that are scam accessories. I'm not talking about, say, them saying they'll decline the trust trade when they won't, because that's obvious and part of the definition of being a scammer.

"I can't use the trading system because..."

If they say it's disabled, AJ only disables trading and gifting at the same time. It should also be noted that people who say their trading is glitched or otherwise unworkable are lying to try to avoid using the trading system.

"If you don't go away/give me stuff, I'll report you and you'll be suspended!"

That's not how reporting works. Generally, when someone is reported AJ will go over their chat logs to see if they ever said anything suspicious, and if they did they'll get suspended. If someone reports someone else for no reason, nothing will happen.

"If you don't do what I say, I'll get you suspended/steal your items because my mom works for AJHQ!"

They are almost certainly not related to anyone who works for AJHQ. Even if they were, nobody who works for such a company would listen to their young child whine about how he wants to suspend someone who didn't give him their spikes. These people especially should be ignored.

"If you don't do what I say, I'll hack you/mess with your account!"

This is almost certainly a lie. If they were actually capable of hacking you, A. They would probably be going after famous jammers or people who are well known for having tons of rares, and wouldn't go after random people, and B. They could just hack you anyway without telling you. The only reason people would try to intimidate you with threats of hacking is if they can't hack you and just want to intimidate you into giving them items.

Don't believe these lies, and don't believe scammers in general. They're almost always lying in order to get you to give them stuff. Bye!

Random Saturday Ep 45: My First Experience with Feral

Hey ya'll! How is everyone doing today? It's Shade with your LATEST Random Saturday with the LATEST news about Feral! And WOW! What a great game is all I gotta say! 

So a few weeks ago, I was invited to a beta testing of the game by WildWorks. And for the most part, I didn't know a lot about the game. I knew it was for people who outgrew Animal Jam and Play Wild and that it was a fantasy kind of game where you could create your own creature. But other than that, I didn't really know a lot about what the game looked like except from a few pieces of concept art. 

The game is just so beautiful! That's all I gotta say about it! You can tell the effort that WildWorks really put into this game, making it the next best thing. For my first animal, I ended up getting the Senri as seen above. But you could also pick this fox kind of animal too called a Kitsune. As the game went on, it reminded me a lot of the Skylanders games, Super Mario Galaxy, as well as a game called FeralHeart. Anyone else who's played those think the same? :o

Right away, I spawned into the city of City Fera. And again, oh my gosh this game is so amazing! There's so much potential and so much to this game that makes me so excited for what is to come. 

So one of the first things I ended up doing was playing a few games with this guy above, asking to play 'Queen's Duel' or 'Four Crows'. To play the game, I guess you had to bet some of your money which I believe is counted in the number of hearts by your player card. (As seen on the top left on the photo below). I had no idea what I was doing the whole time but somehow I ended up winning the crow game. Haha. 

Going deeper into City Fera is probably my favorite part of the city; the castle, and you CAN'T EVEN GO INSIDE YET! UGHHH! But isn't it so beautiful? I already love this game so much and I've only played it a few times! 

And wait until you see the rest of the maps, oh my gosh! 

I think the Blood Tundra ended up being one of my favorite places in the game. (Besides the Sunken Thicket, ohhh we'll get to that later!) Here, is where you get started with some of the mining and crafting to create your own items. If you walk up to certain things, pressing the 'e key' rewards you with different resources to create different items you can redeem them for in the different shops around Feral.

There's also a few chests around these maps that you can unlock using lockpicks, to get what I can amuse, are better resources. However, those can be a little harder to get than the resources just lying around the map.

So I ended up going to my inventory next. There's not a lot, a lot to see and the picture is kind of self explanatory here but yeah. I think it's a really cool concept having to work for the different items you want to get, as well as collecting the dyes to change the colors. It's fun just exploring the worlds and looking for random things that can help you out later. 

One of the first items I ended up crafting was this very nice wallpaper that you could put inside your Sanctuary. The place may look small but from what I've seen, you can add even more rooms to it kind of like how Webkinz was. (Did anyone else play that game before, or is it just me? Is it even still around? :o) 

This world is probably the top favorite right here. It reminds me of a bigger version of Balloosh and just all the color and the mysteriousness about it, I just love it! 

Another thing that can be found in the game is the ability to add friends or buddies. I haven't really looked much into it yet but like Animal Jam, you're able to search up other players, go to their house, ect. 

And the second to last world; the Shattered Bay! The graphics on this game guys, they're just so great! Ahhh! 

I ended up running into this Dodger guy and had an interesting conversation with him. :o I really like how with some of these characters you can chose your response. And thinking of the potential of how this could all go farther; it would be cool if later on in the game they ended up adding different quests and stuff. 

And here is the last world! Probably one of my least favorite world out of all of them but I still really really like it. 

Here is the small town that can be found there. There's a lot of characters to interact with but I do wish I was able to go inside more of the buildings... 

For my first impression of this game; wow. This is awesome. I know it's a little early in testing still, but I already like it better than Animal Jam and Play Wild. When it becomes a finished product, I can't wait for what's to come in the game. Welp, hope you all enjoyed this post. It was a little different from what's normally done for Random Saturdays but I couldn't contain my excitement for this game! 

SO, what does everyone think of the game so far? Have you been invited for the beta yet? Comment below! 

And until next time, 

Shade

Agent Insights Ep 36: My Shop High-Value Item Scam

Hello, everyone. Flint here, to talk about a certain scam involving the My Shop den item, henceforth referred to as a shop.

When you set the price of an item in these shops, the upper limit of diamonds is 500. So, you can't price an item at above 500 diamonds. The limit is higher for gems, but gems are not used often, especially for high-value items, like the ones I'll be talking about. 

Sometimes, people want to sell items at above the 500 diamond limit. One way they go about doing this is to ask the person they're selling the pricey item to to first buy a necklace or similar item for several hundred diamonds, to make up the difference. Then, they say, they will put the high-value item in the shop for 500 diamonds, at which point you can buy it.

This is often a scam. They will wait until you buy the necklace, and then either take the high-value item off the shop or never put it on. In this way, you have just bought a necklace for hundreds of diamonds and have not gotten anything in return for it.

You can avoid this scam by not agreeing to buy something for over the limit. Either trade for it, buy it at 500, buy the necklace after the main item, or don't get it at all. 

That's all for today's post. Bye!

Random Saturday Ep 44: Tree-Planting Shops

Hello, everyone! It's Rose with my first post as a member of the AJSASS! I want to thank everyone at the AJSASS that helped approve my application form, to help me succeed as a scam-catcher and as a contributor to this blog. Without further ado, let's get onto this week's Random Saturday. The topic is the new Tree-Planting Shop that has come in with the new Animal Jam and Animal Jam - Play Wild update.



In Animal Jam (for PC), the Tree-Planting Shops are in multiple places, signified by a dark orange adobe-colored banner with an acacia tree drawn on.



On Play Wild, the Tree-Planting Shop looks like a default My Shop in green, except with a sign saying "Tree-Planting Shop".



In Animal Jam, the trees are fully grown and can be selected.





However, in Play Wild, you can only purchase a Tree Seed Packet, which is the only item in the Tree-Planting Shop, and wait to see the sapling grow after being placed in a den.

 
 

The trees in Play Wild grow into 6 different variants, the Acacia abyssinica (Acacia Tree), 
Grevillea robusta (Oak Tree), Faidherbia albida (White Acacia Tree), Tabebuia (Tabebuia/Trumpet Tree), Jacaranda cuspidifolia (Jacaranda Tree), and Dracaena ombet (Nubian Dragon Tree). 



Animal Jam HQ's purpose for the new tree planting update is to raise awareness of deforestation and environmental harm that comes with not just deforestation, but also other factors that the environment has been exposed to because of people.

To wrap up this week's Random Saturday, stay safe and stay healthy!

-  Rose ♥︎

Agent Insights Ep 35: Bidding

What's up everyone! Today, I bring to you your next episode of Agent Insights! I originally planned to write about pseudo-gifting in AJPW, but something crossed my mind that I thought was more urgent to write about. So, that said, the topic for today is bidding.

What is bidding? I'm not sure if the greater AJ community has a term for this, but for the sake of this post, I will refer to it as bidding. So, bidding is a process in which someone puts an item up for sale (using my shop) for a certain amount of currency. Alternatively, they could show it on trade and say the starting amount. They tell people around to say how much they are willing to pay, and then the price is set to the amount of the highest bidder. The process continues until no one is willing to pay a higher amount than the highest bidder. Then, the highest bidder will buy the item for the amount they bid.

I have never seen this method be used before, but I think I should inform you all in case it becomes common. This method could be a scam because the scammer could have an alt or ally in the den who will always bid higher than the highest bidder. They will keep pushing the minimum amount higher, which means that the other jammers will have to state an amount higher than the alt/ally in order to get the item. However, the alt/ally could always push the amount higher. This way, the bidding jammers could be scammed of their currency because the highest bidding alts/allies may not be real. 

Now, how can we avoid this scam? Firstly, we don't have to participate in bidding at all. The moment you see someone asking for bids, remember what you read in this post and stay alert. If you really want to participate because there is no other way to get said item, then always, always set a cap for yourself. Think about what is the absolute maximum you are willing to pay for anything, and don't let anyone push you past that amount.

That's the agent insights for today. Stay safe and keep healthy!

-Dew

Random Saturday Ep 43: Pseudo-gifting

What's up everyone! Today, I bring to you the latest edition of Random Saturdays! The topic for today is Pseudo-gifting.

In PW, there is no direct gift system. There is no button that directly shows you the option of gifting. However, I recently discovered that the PW trade system can work like a gifting system as well.

You see, the PW trade system has almost a freeform element to it. Both sides can edit their trade list while the trade is underway. So, I realised that one side can have an empty trade list, while the other side has stuff on it. This way, items are given to the one with an empty trade list once the trade goes through.

This is a great way to give your buddies items! It is also surprisingly effective for mass transferring of items to alts. However, we need to be vigilant, because scams could use this method to scam you of your items. I'll probably write about it in a future Agent Insights. Stay tuned!

Therefore, the PW trade system definitely has its benefits, but can be used to trick the unwary. Thankfully, both sides have to agree twice for the trade to go through, so the pacing isn't too fast.

That's all from me today! Stay safe and healthy!
-Dew

Update Post - March

Hey all, Jade here with your update post for March!

First up for this past month: Omega Rose joined the society and was promoted to Gamma! We're glad to have them with us.

We have also created a Get to Know the Agents page, which you can check out here!

To help us keep better track of our posts and agents, we have created a society-wide database. It's not available for non-agents to view, but we're very proud of ourselves so we wanted to let you know anyways.

Finally, we have discussed creating social media accounts in order to better integrate with Feral when it is released- so, keep an eye out for that over the next few months!

Thank you all for reading! Please stay safe, especially with the virus going around right now. Stay home, wash your hands, and Jam On!