Agent Insights Ep 34: What counts as a scam?

Hello everyone. Flint here, to talk about what counts as a scam.

I often see people who call things scams that we don't really consider to be scams. Things like claiming it's your birthday, advertising for mailtimes, etc. are some of these things. Today, I thought I'd make a list of things that make a scam a scam.

Deceptive

A scam must be deceptive. There must be lying, misleading, or taking advantage of someone's lack of knowledge in order for a scam to be a scam. In most scams, they promise something in return for your things, but never give it. Or they say if you don't do something, they'll harm you, when they really can't. Or they pretend to be someone they're not. Either way, some deception must be involved. 

Someone who just says "give me your spikes", takes the spikes, and leaves wasn't scamming anyone. He just left with the spikes, he never promised anything in return. If you want to give away your spikes to someone for nothing in return, then regret it, that's not a scam.

Intent counts here too. Someone making bad trades with newer jammers who don't know any better is still scamming, even if he knows that his items aren't worth anything, since the other person didn't know.

Theft

A scam must involve something being taken from you. Whether it's items, currency, your password, etc. doesn't matter, so long as something was taken.

If an event was deceptive, but nothing was taken from anyone at any point, it's not a scam. Trolling, joking, and the like are not scams. They're annoying, but there's no harm done.

If there is no deception and/or theft, it's not a scam. There are, however, some tricky cases that are still scam-ish, but aren't really scams. These include:

- Lying about what they wanted free items for, but with no pretense of giving anything in return. We do not consider these scams, or not 'full' scams anyways. It's impossible to verify if these claims are true or not, and you already knew you'd be giving away your items for free. You were never forced/coerced into giving them away, and there's no expectation of you giving them valuable items. (Examples: birthday claims, mailtime advertisements, "I'm poor give me stuff"s, etc.)

- Hacking/harassment/legit threats and the like. People who harass you until you give them stuff aren't scamming you, but they're still breaking rules and being mean. We consider them in the same category of behavior standards.

- People pretending to be famous jammers are still considered scammers, since it's easy to verify that they aren't famous, and pretending to be a famous jammer comes with the expectation of giving valuable items

We still post about threats/harassment/hacking, but we will not post about birthday-claim type stuff, nor will we post about trades you regret. Bottom line is, a scam must be someone deceiving you into giving up your items. 

That's all. Goodbye!

Random Saturday Ep 42: AJFREE

Hey all, Jade here with your newest Random Saturday! Today, we'll be talking about AJ's latest promo code, AJFREE!

This past week, Animal Jam released a promo code through the Jamaa Journal that will give two weeks of membership to any non-member! This was likely brought on by the influx of new activity as a result of the coronavirus social distancing.

 For anyone who is already a member, you can receive ten diamonds from the code! So, whether you're looking to receive a membership or just some extra diamonds, this is a great opportunity for you.

That's all for today! Hope you all are doing well and staying safe at home. What's your opinion on AJ giving membership out for free? Have you taken advantage of this code yet?

Agent Insights Ep 33: Infiltration (and why there's a rule about it)

Hello, everyone! Flint here, posting on my Coronavirus Vacation. For today's Agent Insights, I will talk about infiltration.

Infiltration, in this sense, means non-scammers pretending to be scammers in order to get access to scam teams/hangouts. Usually, the aim of this is to get the usernames of the scammers to report,  gather evidence to make posts, prevent scams by showing up to the ones planned by the group and warning people, or gaining insight into scamming methods to more easily catch scammers in general. 

In our Code of Conduct, there is a rule which states, "If in any case you find out about a scamming team or another agent asks you to scam with them, DO NOT, under any circumstances, try to go undercover. Instead, get evidence and report to someone higher up." There are several reasons why this is a rule, many of which also apply to non-agents.

• You may get reported/posted on/banned/suspended while undercover.
• People who infiltrate and people who actually want to scam but say they infiltrated when caught are often indistinguishable.
• There's a good chance that the actual scammers will quickly realize you're infiltrating and kick you out before you can do anything. 

• Scammers often use alts/hide their usernames, even in what they think are friendly places. Getting their usernames will be harder than you think, and may result in a higher chance of being kicked out.
• In a large group, if scams keep getting interrupted whenever this one person (i.e. the infiltrator) knows about it , they will quickly realize that infiltration is happening and kick "this one person" out.
• There is little scamming information that you couldn't learn by just watching actual scammers as you come across them, or by reading our Types of Scams page and our Agent Insights posts. Scammers aren't very innovative, and most scams you come across are the same old trust-trading type scams. Maybe with little twists on them, that are still easily recognizable as scams. 
• If you get caught by the scammers, they may target you for harassment/scamming/hacking. 

And, for one-on-one things like if another agent asks you to scam with them, the first point still stands. There's also very little you could do with infiltrating that you couldn't do by reporting to higher-ups, with much less risk. 

As you can see, infiltrating is a tricky business, and should be avoided for all the aforementioned reasons. It's too much risk for too little reward. This goes doubly for SASS Agents. 

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

Random Saturday Ep 41: News About the Feral Beta

What's up everyone! I'm here with your next dose of Random Saturdays! Alright, today I'll be talking about the Feral Beta Testing update that I'm sure many of you got.

Recently, I received an email from WildWorks that the closed Beta will be opening up to "more players than usual". When I saw that, I thought that it could mean round one of beta testing is over. That means, it could be time to move on to future rounds!

In addition, they also said that it's not too late to sign up to be a beta tester. I guess, those who haven't signed up yet can still do so at the official feral website. They probably will be able to join in the closed beta when WildWorks decides to roll it out to more people.

Speaking of which, the email said that they will be rolling it out "in the next few weeks". So, it is happening very soon!

Lastly, it seems as if everyone who signed up to be a beta tester got the same email as I did. If you know you signed up for the beta and weren't picked for round one, you might wanna go check your email now. Also, don't forget to check your spam box in case you cannot find the email in your inbox.

That's all from me now for this episode of Random Saturdays. Stay safe and Jam on!

-Dew

Update Post - February

What's up guys! Bit late, but I'll be reporting to you your Update post for February.

Firstly, we have made radical changes to the society ranking system. The alpha rank is no longer the highest rank -- it has been removed. Rather, society decisions will be made amongst staff. More information can be found here.

Next, we also have closed games and events in the society discord for the time being. If we get more members and the server becomes more active again, then we could open it up again.

Next, we will be resuming regular posting schedule with scammer posts every week and random saturdays and agent insights on alternate weeks.

Finallt, we are hiring! If you feel like you want to join the society, fill up a form under the joining tab!

That's all from me now, till next post!

-Dew

Random Saturday Ep 40: History of Skullys

Hey ya'll, happy leap day! It's Shade here with your latest edition of Random Saturday. Today, we're talking the history of skullys from the beta. 

In the early stages of the beta days, skullys were one of the cheapest items in Jam Mart Clothing. They were Animal Jam's first tail item before they were removed shortly after for unknown reasons. There was a rumor going around that skullys were removed because they looked inappropriate on pandas but that hasn't been confirmed. 

As the game went on, skullys became something simply of the past. Most jammers forgot about them and new jammers didn't even know what they were. But in 2014, that changed a little. For a short time, some jammers were able to get their hands on a skully and apparently trade them away with a glitch. 

However, AJHQ removed skullys again and took them from all the accounts that had access to them. It wasn't until 2016, when the item resurfaced, and officially reentered the game through the diamond shop. 

It was then skullys had a redesign, the new version appearing flatter than the original. 

Since then, there have been a few other editions of the skullys, including the Crystal Skullys that look a little closer to the original. 

 

Today, skullys are still going strong in the game, being enjoyed by a new generation of jammers. 

And that's a wrap for this Random Saturday. Have a good weekend everybody! 

-Shade

Agent Insights Ep 32: Trusting Strangers

Hello, everyone. Flint here, to talk about trust, and how much you should place in people on Animal Jam.

I'm not talking about the scam of trust trading here, I'm talking about how "trust" is normally used, to refer to how much confidence you have in someone to show up on time, contribute, not lie/steal, etc. In Animal Jam, trusting someone usually means you trust them to return your items/carry out their end of a trade/have your password and not use it maliciously. 

Sometimes, scammers will say that if you don't trust them, they won't give you the items they're offering. They might try to make you feel bad about not trusting them, or accuse you of being paranoid/defensive/hostile/stingy. They might also convey this message with a shrug, saying "well if you don't trust me I can't help you" and then just ignore you.

There is absolutely no reason to feel bad about not trusting scammers/random jammers. If someone is scamming or acting suspiciously, there is no reason why you should trust them to not scam you. Nobody is always 100% trustworthy, and thus nobody deserves your trust all the time in every situation.

You can think of this like you would walking about in a public space with random people. You can trust that these people probably won't try to kill you or kidnap you, and there's no reason to walk in a public park while staring at everyone suspiciously and assuming that they're trying to harm you. However, you shouldn't trust a stranger to hold on to your valuables, because you know that it would be very easy for that person to run away with your stuff. Similarly, while random strangers probably don't want to kidnap you, strangers asking you to get in their car with them have shown that they don't deserve that assumption.

Most jammers aren't trying to scam you. However, you still shouldn't gift-trade or trust trade or participate in other scamming methods, because it's exposing yourself to unnecessary and rather pointless risk that could easily be avoided. And, people acting like scammers are probably scammers, and don't deserve the benefit of the doubt either way. 

There is absolutely no reason to trust random jammers with your items or password, or to trust random jammers when they say they'll give you stuff in return if you just give them your items or password. Jammers that aren't scamming won't use scamming methods. Just trust yourself when you think something's a scam.

That's all for today. Bye!

Random Saturday Ep 39: The New PW Trade System

What's up everyone! Today, I bring to you your next episode of Random Saturdays, and I'm quite excited to share with y'all this news! Let's go!

I recall a few weeks back when I wrote and Agent Insights episode about how scams can arise through the limited trade system of AJPW. If you haven't read it, you may find it here. Well, a few weeks later, Boom! We have a new trade system in AJPW! I will explain how it works in today's Random Saturday.