Random Saturday Ep 71: Free gifts in AJPC and AJPW

What's up everyone! I'm back with your next episode of Random Saturdays! Today's topic is gonna be about the free stuff that AJ recently gave in the two games. Let's go!

A while back, AJHQ made a news announcement in PW that they were giving out a free bundle in the sapphire shop. It can be redeemed by heading over to the part where you can buy all the sapphire bundles. Click on it, and you will see an option that sell for 0 gems. The bundle contains den items, clothing items and a Pet Wild Turkey. Some of the den items appear to be differently colored items from previous sets. For example, they gave out 6 brown Beastro Dining Chairs. The original Beastro Dining Chair was white.

Other items in the bundle are the Palace Kitchen Brick Oven, Palace Kitchen Prep Table, Palace Kitchen Pantry, Palace Kitchen Dessert Station, Palace Kitchen Dinner Bell, Fresh Baked Bread, Apple Pie, Giant Carrot Cake, Giant Pumpkin Pie, Turkey Statue, Giant Cornucopia and the Feast of Thanks Table. All together, that is 18 den items. If you thought that is a lot, I'll tell you that it is not all.

The bundle also comes with 4 clothing items. Similar to the Beatro Dining Chairs, the clothing items seem to be a differently colored version of already existing items. The clothing items in the bundle are the Fall Leaf Necklace, Maple Leaf Wings, Leaf Skirt and Turkey Hat.

Finally, there is a Pet Wild Turkey in the bundle as well. It can be raised and sent on expeditions just like any other pet.

Moving on to AJPC. AJPC also has a code to give a few free items. The code to redeem these free items is "thankyou". Sadly, the number of items given in AJPC is considerably less than AJPW.  I counted, and there are only 6 items in total. They are the Turkey Hat, Turkey Tail Feathers, Cornucopia Hat, Maple Leaf Wings, Acorn Hat and a Pet Turkey.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much longer this code will be made claimable. So, I recommend you to go get the free items on both platforms if you haven't already. Some free stuff is still better than no free stuff after all!

That's all from me today. Till next post!

-Dew

aj13321 + 6841wiilove

 Do not attempt to track down or harass any of the scammers we post. We only ask that you report them, and maybe block them.

 

Hey everyone! This is Clover here, with 2 scammers that were reported through our Report Form by a Jammer who wishes to be called Red.

A couple months ago, Red saw aj13321 advertising a rare pet giveaway at their den.

aj13321's list contained a Rare Feathered Mask, a Rare Pet Squirrel, a Blackout Spiked Collar, and a Rare Light-up Flower Ring. A good rule of thumb with giveaways is that if something seems too good to be true, then it often is, and this was quite a bit to be giving away.

The first round of the giveaway was for the Blackout Spiked Collar, using the wheel method. Although many wheel giveaways are legitimate, they can also be used to gain the jammers' trust in order to scam them in future giveaway rounds.

They asked everyone in the den to send them a Jam-a-Gram in order to collect usernames for the wheel, but Red believed that the usernames were collected too quickly for the wheel to actually have been set up. The wheel was also spun quite quickly, which made it seem like a setup. 6841wiilove won the Blackout Spiked Collar, and people immediately began to become suspicious of them, believing 6841wiilove to be a spare account.

During the second round of the giveaway, aj13321 used the "accept twice then cancel method." This is a common scam method, also known as flash trading, where the jammer has to accept the trade both times they're asked, and then cancel before the other person can accept the trade. However, many scammers accept before the jammer is able to cancel the trade.

6841wiilove was the only person to trade at first. When Red called the giveaway a scam, they were locked out. They logged back in on a spare, but got locked out once again. On their second spare, they were allowed to stay.

When Red came back, everyone else believed that aj13321 was a scammer, but 6841wiilove was defending them, having supposedly traded a Red Long Spiked Collar while they were gone.

After that, one person got locked out of the den and sent Red a Jam-A-Gram saying that they got locked out.

More people began getting locked out one by one until it was just Red, aj13321, and 6841wiilove. aj13321 told 6841wiilove that they were going to trade them the squirrel, and after telling them to put a bad item on trade, Red got locked out.

Given the evidence, it appears that fortunately, nobody got scammed. Make sure to report aj13321 and 6841wiilove for attempted scamming! Remember to be safe on Animal Jam, and don't accept unfair trades!

-Clover

A96562 + dozierbul1l (AJPC)

Do not attempt to track down or harass any of the scammers we post. We only ask that you report them, and maybe block them.

 

Hey Jammers! Agent Neon here, back with another scammer post. Today we'll be looking at two scammers, A96562 and dozierbul1l, who were reported to us by an anonymous viewer via our Scammer Report Form.

About four months ago, the anonymous viewer attended a giveaway of a black long and RIM headdress, hosted by A96562. The giveaway was split into two parts, one for the black long and one for the headdress. The "random" winner of the first prize was dozierbul1l. 

For the second part of the giveaway, A96562 said they would be using the "accept, accept, decline" method, which is a common scamming method. The scammer then locked out anyone in the den who wasn't willing to use the new method.

The trading went on for a few minutes, and dozierbul1l quickly began winning with a black long and blue skunk tail. Another Jammer decided to trade a black long and some other items in order to win. A96562 managed to accept the trade, the Jammer was locked out, and everyone else was also locked out soon after.

Because dozierbul1l won the first giveaway and was trading items that were not scammed in the end, they were likely an alt or accomplice of A96562. The first section of the giveaway was likely a method to gain the victims' trust by appearing to give away a black long, but really just giving it to an accomplice.

Please report A96562 and dozierbul1l for scamming, and be careful of people claiming to give away items. Remember, if it seems to be good to be true, it most likely is. Thank you for reading, everyone, and stay safe!

Agent Insights Ep 65: Two-factor Authentication

What's up everyone! Today, I bring to you the next issue of Agent Insights! Since there was a recent data breach as explained in a previous announcement, I thought it'd be fitting to talk about account security.

Having a strong password isn't the only way you can secure your accounts. Though, having a strong password is still very, very important. You can read more about strong passwords in our previous agent insights here. The method that I'm going to talk about in this agent insights can be used on top of a strong password to add another layer of security on top of it. This method is known as two-factor authentication, or 2fa for short.

2fa can be enabled on many online platforms like Google, and even Discord. Unfortunately, Animal Jam doesn't have the feature (yet, as of writing this post). So, if you have other online accounts aside from AJ, I strongly recommend you to go check if there is an option for 2fa, and enable it if there is.

So, what is 2fa? It essentially is an additional step that people have to do before they can enter their accounts. To set it up, you'd need an authenticator app. One example of such an app is Google Authenticator. What it does is that it generates a six-digit code that refreshes itself periodically. One set of six digits corresponds to one account.

During the setup phase, you must link your account to the authenticator app. Most apps should have the function to use a generated code to link accounts. After logging onto your account and clicking 2fa, there should be instructions to follow. Just follow the steps, and you would be able to enable 2fa for your account.

After 2fa is set up for your account, you need to refer to the app to logon to your account. After keying in your username and password, you would be redirected to another screen. You'd have to key in the six-digit code from your authenticator app that corresponds to your account before it refreshes itself. You can only access your account after you key in a code that exactly matches that in the authenticator app at that point in time.

Since the breach, AJ CEO Clarke Stacey stated that they will be improving their security over time. The whole video may be watched here, with the announcement of new security measures around the 6 minute mark.  I sure hope that 2fa is among these new measures that AJHQ will be using!

With that, I've come to the end of this post. Once again, I'd like to emphazise the importance of 2fa. I also encourage all of you to check through your other online accounts to see if they do allow it, and enable it if they do.

That's all from me today. Stay safe and jam on!

-Dew

Goldfish102 (AJPC)

Do not attempt to track down or harass any of the scammers we post. We only ask that you report them, and maybe block them.

Hello! Sunny here with another scammer. I found Goldfish102 in Jamaa Township, advertising that they were having a giveaway at their den. 

Goldfish102 said we would be playing a game, which was to trade them, accept twice, then cancel. In Animal Jam's trading system, there is no third accept/decline page, so this is a method of flash trade scamming.

They announced that they were giving away a magenta furry, and that the best trade would win the item. They said that a person who traded a black short was winning, after which I traded my yellow long and my black short. They continued to say that the person who traded the black short was winning. When I asked how I wasn't winning, they didn't say anything. 

I left the den for a bit, then tried to come back, but they locked me out. Earlier in the giveaway, I had been saying that I just wanted to observe, so there was no reason for them to lock me out unless they were scamming. I believe that the reason they said I wasn't winning was because I didn't accept the trade- another common feature in these kinds of scams.

Please report Goldfish102 for attempted scamming. Be sure to stay safe!

-Sunny

IMPORTANT: Animal Jam Security Breach

Update: As of the morning of November 12, WildWorks has force-changed the passwords of all Animal Jam accounts and parent dashboard accounts. You will need to reset your password to something new in order to access it. If you no longer have access to the email associated with your account, send an email to support@animaljam.com. Rumors are spreading that if you do not have access to this email, then your account will be lost forever, but this is not true. Animal Jam Support can help you transfer your account to a different email if you contact them. It would seem if you have used the "remember me" function on your AJPC desktop app, you are still able to login without changing your password.

Howdy Jammers, it's Danny here with a safety alert for you guys. Earlier today, WildWorks announced information about a security breach targeting a third-party database that contained Animal Jam account information.

That was a lot of big words, so to put it simply: the service that AJHQ uses to store some user data for Animal Jam (usernames, passwords, parent emails linked to players' accounts, etc.) was compromised, and as a result, some private information was released in a security leak. WildWorks is reporting that 46 million Animal Jam accounts were affected by this data breach, as well as 7 million parent email accounts.

The account information that was leaked in this data breach primarily includes information that was entered when your account was first created, such as your gender and your date and/or year of birth. What was also included in this breach was the passwords associated with player accounts affected by the leak, albeit in encrypted form. This means that, while the passwords were leaked, they are not readable by normal means and would have to be carefully decrypted in order for hackers to access your Animal Jam account. If you already had a secure, complex password on your account, your account is probably safe. However, if your account had a weak password, it would be pretty easy for the hackers to decrypt it.

As a precaution, WildWorks is asking all Animal Jam players to change their passwords. If you have used the same password across multiple other accounts on other websites, we recommend changing those passwords as well. See last week's Agent Insights post for more info on how to make your password safe and secure.

Do not freak out over this; it is quite unlikely your individual account is at risk, considering that the passwords are all encrypted and considering that millions of other accounts were breached as well. Change your password to something secure and you will be alright.

For a more detailed analysis on the data breach and information that was compromised, we recommend you check out WildWorks' full official statement here.

We also recommend putting the email associated with your Animal Jam account through this website, which checks to see if that email has been included in any data breaches. If it has, the website will tell you which breaches it was involved in. If you no longer have access to that account, send an email to support@animaljam.com. If your parent email was included in the breach, we advise you to change the password linked to your parent dashboard account, or ask your parent to change it if it's their email account. If your email was affected by the Animal Jam breach, the website will show you this:

That's all for now. If you have any questions, you can contact WildWorks on Instagram, Twitter, or send an email to Animal Jam's customer support email (support@animaljam.com). WildWorks will likely continue to update us as their investigation continues. If any big developments happen, we will make another post on the matter.

Rícø (AJPC)

Do not attempt to track down or harass any of the scammers we post. We only ask that you report them, and maybe block them.

 Hello! Quacc here with another scammer that I found advertising in the Diamond Shop. Rícø was advertising that they would be giving away a black long spike at their den. 

Rícø then said that they would be using flash and the accept, accept, decline method. This is a method when scammers tell you to trade them your valuable items only to click accept twice then decline. The catch is that the trading system only lets you accept twice before the trade can be completed which can make you lose your items from using flash. When the scammer gets your items, they usually end up logging off or blocking you. 

After a few people asked for Rícø to use a wheel instead but came up with the excuse that people always used spares. This is no reason to excuse a scamming method because there is still a big risk of 

Since I wasn't trading Rícø anything, I ended up being locked and blocked from the den.

Report Rícø for attempting to scamming and stay safe!

Note that when you're reporting Rícø, make sure to copy the username from here then paste it because some of the letters have special accents that can't be typed.

Agent Insights Ep 64: Wiki Worth Scam

Hey all, Jade here with your latest Agent Insights! Today, we'll be talking about a pretty rare kind of scam, but one that's also pretty easy to fall for: the wiki worth scam.

One very helpful tool to anyone looking to trade on Animal Jam is the Animal Jam Item Worth Wiki, or the AJIWW for short. It has pages for the worths of nearly all rare items and is kept very up to date with various changing worths.

However, since the wiki is collaborative, users can choose to edit pages and add incorrect worths. Sometimes this is done for trolling purposes, but it can also be used to scam. When setting up a trade with someone, a scammer could go to the wiki page for one of the items in the trade and edit it so the worth is incorrect. They could use this to get you to trade more for their item, or to get you to accept less for your item.

Since the worths are from such a reputable source, it's very easy to fall for this scam. However, there's an easy way to avoid being tricked: Go to the wiki yourself and check the page edit history. Pages are regularly edited with updated worth, so you can't be suspicious of every edit you see, but if you see a sudden and large drop/gain in worth, a very recent edit, an edit from a new/inactive account, or any combination of the three, it's likely a scammer trying to trick you into a bad trade.

In the case that you find someone attempting this scam, you should simply undo their edit and then report their account. As long as you take some time to investigate and don't let anyone pressure you into trading without double-checking worths, it's relatively easy to avoid this scam!

Well, that's all for today. If you have any questions about the wiki or this scam, feel free to leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading, everyone- Stay safe and Jam On!

ale2012 (AJPC)

Do not attempt to track down or harass any of the scammers we post. We only ask that you report them, and maybe block them.

Howdy everyone, Danny here with a bit of a shorter scammer post today. I was in Aldan's Temple of Zios when I saw ale2012 advertising that whoever gifted them a really great item would get the items on their trade list.

ale2012's trade list consisted of a single item, a pink long collar, quite a valuable item to be giving away!

I suspected this was a scam, as almost all "best gift wins" giveaways are. Why would you gift somebody numerous valuable items just for the potential chance to win an item on their list? How are you supposed to know they'll actually give you the item if you "win"?

I went up to ale2012 and asked why people couldn't just trade for the pink long instead. They already went through the trouble of putting it on their trade list, it would be silly to make people gift for it instead of trading for it, unless they had the intention of running off with people's gifts.

ale2012 went silent for a minute, before suddenly disappearing. I checked their player card and they had logged off the game entirely.

Make sure to report ale2012 for scamming. Stay safe and trade fairly!

-Danny

00ll00 + xrarejammerx (AJPC)

Do not attempt to track down or harass any of the scammers we post. We only ask that you report them, and maybe block them.

Hey y’all! Pepper here with a two person ally/alt scam, submitted to us by Polar using the scammer report form. 00ll00 came to their den offering an overtrade (4 solids and multiple headdresses) for a burger hat, which is worth a few RIMs at most.

 

A few minutes later, xrarejammerx came to their den asking them to overtrade their whole list of spikes for a burger hat.

They declined the offer, and asked them if they wanted to trade with 00ll00, and they said no, because they did not like the items on their trade list. This is likely a scam, because 00ll00 and xrarejammerx may be working together or the same person, and they worked together to try to convince Polar that burger hats are worth a great deal more than they actually are. 

Remember to treat anything that seems suspicious or too good to be true like it is, and to never accept a trade that does not seem legitimate.

-Agent Pepper

Agent Insights Ep 63: Strong Passwords

Hello, everyone. Flint here, to talk about how to make a strong password.

Often, when we talk about hacking, we say things like 'just make sure your password is strong, don't give it out to anyone, and don't enter it in weird places, and you don't need to worry'. This is good advice, but we haven't covered what counts as a strong password yet, so I figured it'd be a good thing to cover.

First tip is, don't make it really obvious. Having passwords like 'password' or '1234' makes it much more likely that a hacker will guess your password, as those are the first things they will try. Similarly, making it your avatar's name, your online alias, or other specific information known to be relevant to you is a bad idea, because it's easy for people to guess them. One-word passwords are also easy for people to guess. In general, if your password is super common, short, or relevant to you, don't make it your password.

To make a good password, you should make it long. The more characters a password-cracker has to deal with, the harder it'll be for it to hack your account. It's also hard to guess long passwords that are mnemonics, random numbers, or similar. If you don't have a password manager, mnemonics for sentences that you can remember are good ways to make good passwords.

Don't include actual English words. This makes it so that the bot has significantly fewer variables to consider and makes it easier to crack your password.

In general, you should be including numbers, symbols, and punctuation in your passwords. It makes it that much harder to guess when hackers need to account for them. Combining words and letters with symbols is recommended.

Don't make your passwords the same as other passwords on other sites. If a data breach happens on one, the passwords there will be added to password-crackers that brute force hacking by using bots to try many passwords in a short amount of time, and it's much more likely that other accounts that share the same password as the breached account are at risk, since the password-crackers will try the breached passwords.

Password managers are highly recommended. The passwords they generate are nigh-unbreakable, and you don't need to remember each one. I'd recommend looking them up if you're interested in having an especially strong password.

Most hackers aren't going to try to target you specifically. You are one player out of many, and the chances of you being targeted for hacking specifically are low if you aren't very famous. However, these tips apply to passwords for other things too, and it never hurts to be safe.

That's all for today. Remember to make long passwords with at least some degree of randomness to them, and of course to not share this password with anyone. Bye!

Update Post - October

What's up everyone! I'm back from my leave and here to bring you your update for October!

October was a bit of a quiet month for the society. We didn't do much testing for the monthly events, which means that we cannot start it till a later date. Sorry about that!

On a brighter note, we'd like to congratulate Gamma Rose for being promoted to Delta! Congratulations!

Next, I'd like to remind all of you out there never to give your password to anyone you meet, especially those online. The only people who are probably ok to tell are your parents, if they ask. I'd also recommend you to give your password a checkup. Is it too easy to guess? If it is, it's more likely for hackers to gain access to your account by guessimg your password. So, change it to something that is hard to guess, but easy to remember!

Finally, the staff are currently working on a system to give quality checks on posts made by our agents. The idea is still new though, so please stay tuned to maybe next month's update.

That's all from me today. Until next post!

-Dew