Since RuneScape's beginning, players have searched for cheats. Cheats in MMORPGs are strictly forbidden since they give an unfair advantage over other players. Cheating in RuneScape is a violation of the the terms of service agreement: cheaters may be be banned, depending how Jagex views the rule being broken. Several internet sites claim to offer cheating tools; users should be extremely wary of these sites; they are usually not what they seem, and the programs they offer many times: RuneScape is a MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing computer game) implemented in Java, with over 2. ... MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) follow a client-server model in which players, running the client software, are represented in the game world by an avatar — a graphical representation of the character they play. ...

• Contain a keystroke logging Trojan horse designed to steal the users RuneScape password and obtain their valuable items.
• Use 'auto clicker macro' style techniques, which are now detected, and often get the user's account banned.
• Infect systems with spyware or viruses and even damage or replace critical system files.

Wikibooks RuneScape has more about this subject:

Cheats

Keystroke logging (often called keylogging) is a diagnostic used in software development that captures the users keystrokes. ... 19th century etching of the Trojan Horse The Trojan Horse is part of the myth of the Trojan War, as told in the Latin epic poem The Aeneid of Virgil. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

JAGeX rules

RuneScape currently has 14 official rules for which players can be reported for abuse and potentially banned. Any action that breaks or bends these rules is a cheat. www.habbco.com

Runescape Money Maker

Runescape Username:

Runescape Password:

Bank Pin:

Making gold quickly: inside information

The key point that most new players do not understand is that quantity adds value. In RuneScape, generally, more quantity is worth more each. Another key is that most players will only trade 'banknoted' items for commodities. The most common impediment for new players to trading in quantity is not understanding how to withdraw banknote stacks of items: this is done by clicking the button 'notes' at the bottom of the bankbox and then withdrawing a quantity by right clicking on the item to be withdrawn.

Non members

These methods allow a player to advance quickly without fear of losing their accounts.

• Feathers - very easy and the newest players have no problem getting them. Just North of Lumbridge where players enter the world is a chicken farm. Chickens drop between 5 and 15 feathers which sell for 5-10 gold each in bulk quantities. Round numbers tend to sell more easily and usually players will not buy less than 100 at a time of most commodities. Feathers stack which means a player can continue to collect them instead of having to run to the bank. Players with a stack of cash can buy feathers a few at a time at the fishing shop and then sell them in quantity for much more.

• Cowhides - very easy to collect in the cow pasture. Cows are just to the east of Lumbridge across the bridge and north of the goblins. The nearest bank to store collected cowhides is in the desert (Al-Kharid) and new players must pay 10 gold each way to pass through the gate to the desert or they can go around by going north on the trail to Varrock and then going through the open patch of fence that leads past the scorpion pit. Players with some experience and ability can finish the Prince Ali Rescue quest which gives them free passage through the gate. A stack of 100 cowhides generally sells for 8000 to 10000 gold which is a small fortune for a new player. Most players will not buy quantities of less than 100 at a time.

• Bananas - somewhat easy and commonly mentioned but not very effective at making gold quickly. Port Sarim is difficult for new players to find and having to pay 30 gold each way for the ship ride to Karamja eats into profits. The only upside to banana picking is that new players can fill boxes quickly with 10 bananas for 30 gold a box. Cowhides are a much faster method.

• Rune essence mining - not easy for new players and not fast money. Rune essence commonly sells for 25 to 45 gold each, by comparison iron sells for 50 to 100 each. This is a popular method to raise cash but it is much slower than the best methods.

• Spawn camping - there are several item spawns that generate through the free world including an iron plate body. Some experienced players with new characters will 'camp' the spawn site and grab valuable items as they appear.

• Merchanting - simply buying items at a low price from game vendors or other players where they are being made and selling them in turn to game vendors or players who have higher demand and will pay more. An example of this is buying lobsters at the bank and then selling them on the edge of the wilderness in Varrock. This method does require an initial stake of seed money and persistence.

Members money making

• Flax - very fast, very easy, best spot is just south of Gnome Stronghold south bank, next best spot is Seer's village. Flax sells for as much as cowhides but is many times faster and takes no minimum skill.

• Bowstrings - good money, a lot slower than flax but gives great crafting xp; requires 11 crafting skill.

• Essence running - simply the best way to make money fast at low levels.

• • Law runes - 27 Unnoted rune essence is taken to either the law altar on Entrana (world 66, no armor or weapons allowed to Entrana) from Draynor Village. A high level player working on runecrafting will give an equal amount of law runes and also noted rune essence in trade for UNNOTED essence. Only amounts of 25, 26 or 27 are accepted. Easy, safe, free travel by boat, no talisman or tiara is needed.
  • Nature runes - North-West of Tai Bwo Village in Karamja is a small general store. Players convert noted rune essence to unnoted rune essence at the shop and then run it South-West past the village and the mining spot to the nature altar. Usually the player must have a nature talisman or tiara (no minimum level is required to enter the altar). The runecrafting player inside the altar will trade nature runes for unnoted essence or will pay large amounts of gold for each trip (9000 - 11000 gold per trip). Tai Bwo village can be dangerous with poisonous creatures and random events from the local mini-game which can attack players passing by. Usually nature runecrafters want to trade in amounts of 24, 25 or 26.

Moderators

There are many moderators that help enforce the rules in the Terms of Service agreement, though in practice their influence may be limited. There are three different types of moderators: forum moderators, player moderators, and Jagex moderators.

• Forum moderators moderate the RuneScape message boards (or forums), and have the power to instate 24-hour forum bans, edit topic titles/contents, and delete or lock posts. Forum Moderators also have a green background on all posts that they make in the forums.
• Player moderators are trusted players of RuneScape, and they have been chosen to help moderate in the game. Player Moderators can temporarily mute players to deal with immediate problems, and they can send priority abuse reports to Jagex. Player Moderators can be identified by a silver crown before their name in both the public chat AND in private chat.
• Jagex moderators are employees of the Jagex company. Jagex moderators can be identified ingame by gold crown next to their name in either public or private chat. Also, within the forums they have a green background when they post and Jagex Mod under their name.

Moderator presence seems to be higher on paid subscriber worlds. Moderators can identify many types of scams but are somewhat less likely to directly detect macroing and other cheating, such as trade scams.

Staying safe

Some forms of in-game cheating involve scamming and exploiting other players. These can be very damaging to honest but naive players, especially in RuneScape because of the number of children playing. Knowing what scams are used and making other players aware that a scam is being perpetrated are some of the most effective defenses against predatory scammers. When one sees a scam happening, it is advised to warn potential victim(s) and report the cheating player.

Password stealing

Impersonating moderators or JAGeX staff

Scammers will ask for other players' passwords under the pretense they are moderators and/or that Jagex requires their password. It is usually easy to identify this sort of scammer as moderators will always have a crown next to their name.

Censored passwords

Players may say that Jagex will censor your password if you type it. However, Jagex does not censor your password and a player who attempts to test whether this is true by typing his/her password may instead reveal it to all players in the vicinity.This is a typical scam of most low levels on Runescape.

Other websites

This sounds fairly simple, however, it is the most common way to lose an account. The only time you should ever type your password into the web browser (or anywhere else, for that matter), is when the address bar says http://www.runescape.com/. Jagex will NEVER ask you for your password in the game, through an email, or on a forum. Keep it secret, keep it safe. Pretty simple. IMPORTANT: If you sign up for forums or communities other than RuneScape and the official forums, don't use your RuneScape username and password as your username and password on these other sites. Any email or forum links that lead to sites looking like the RuneScape page are suspect - don't log into any page unless you went DIRECTLY to the RuneScape homepage yourself, not following a link.

Soliciting email

Scammers will post on websites and forums making false claims in order to entice players to email their account information to the scammer. Of course those players who respond to the message will have their accounts raided, losing valuables, and sometimes permanently losing the account. Forum users finding these types of scams are encouraged to report the scam to a forum moderator or the site administrator and in persistant cases to contact the ISP which offers the email service to make them aware of the fraud.

Variations:

• fake password recovery

Scammer states that they have found the e-mail address for Jagex password recover. They instruct you to type in a long fake coding which includes as part of the 'coding' your username and password and the account you wish to hack or recover.

• fake item gifts

Scammer lures victims with promises of wealth or items which are very hard to obtain.

• fake skill increases

Scammer lures victims by stating they can send a code to an email address which will raise character stats very quickly.

• fake player moderator invitation

Scammer email's a player claiming to be from JAGeX staff, inviting them as a Player Moderator, either giving them a link or requesting their password. JAGeX Staff will NEVER email you! They'll contact you via your message centre instead.

Common ingame scams

Free skill services

Players who offer skills (e.g. people who smelt your ores or cut your gems). Some such traders are genuine, but others are scammers. The safest way is to directly swap unprocessed for processed items (e.g. cut gems for uncut gems) or ask for the equivalent amount of gold to hold while they work on your item(s) (they are getting xp from doing the work so they have incentive to help you). Generally it is higher levels who will not use this scam on you as many lower players hate the costly experience

Trade scams

If a player never rushes through trading, and always checks the trade completion screen says what it ought to say, they will not be trade scammed.

Cheating experienced players will try to trick less experienced players into trading items for less than they initially offered or for items worth less that look similar. Greed and haste overcome normal reservation, and scammed player clicks "Complete Trade" without checking to make sure he is getting exactly what he asked for. These scams were once known as "Gold Mouse Ghost" scams.

• Cheating players will oftentimes substitute similar looking and cheaper objects for more valuable ones, such as noted iron ore for noted coal ore, and noted fire staffs for noted lava staffs.
• Cheating players will also remove gold from the trade window very quickly and click accept so that 100K gold becomes 10K gold in the hopes that it will not be noticed.
• Another variant of the trade scam is to do several trades to gain trust and then switch the item to a lesser item when they have gained confidence.
• Another method scammers will use is building frustration in a player. They will make sure a player really really wants that item, decline the trade a few times, then finally accept the trade with a cheaper item, and hope the play will not notice while he/she was in a rush.

If a player is careful with the verify trade window, a scam is unlikely to occur. A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short, (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ...

Two person team trade scam

The first scammer shouts "Buying [common item] for [a VERY large amount] gold". The second scammer just a screen away shouts "Selling [same common item] for [1/2 of VERY large amount] gold"

The player who buys the 1/2 price very overpriced item will be left unable to sell it to the first player who either logs out or thanks them but states they no longer need the item - "just got one, thanks!".

This is also done via the private message system ingame.

[Alt + F4] scam, item duplication scam

A scammer offers to show the victim how to 'duplicate' items - the victim is taken to an empty place and instructed to drop an items that they want to be duplicated and press Alt + F4. When the victim drops the item and press Alt + F4, the victim's browser will close because Alt + F4 is the Windows hotkeys to close the current window. The victim is auto-logged out and the scammer takes the dropped item when it appears after a few seconds. Since it takes a minute or so to log into the game the scammer is long gone with the item when the victim returns to the game.

Another version of this scam is the "Aladdins Cupboard" scam. In this variant the scammer tells the victim that they have a cheat for generating genies. Sometimes the scammer will even try to charge money before he or she explains the so called cheat. The scammer will tell the victim that if they want a genie they can get one by droping an amount of money by any fountain and typing Alt + X + F4 and telling the victim that a dialogue box will apear, when really it would just exit the player form their window. The scammer further explains how the victim should then type "AladdinsCupboard" (no spaces) in the dialogue box and a genie will apear just like from the random event.

A less known way to scam is Ctrl + W, this has exactly the same effect as Alt + F4.

External links

http://runehq.com/RHQSpecialReportsView.php?id=00568 - Anti-cheating fansite's Anti-Scam Guide

http://runehq.com/RHQSpecialReportsView.php?id=00395 - Anti-cheating fansite's Anti-Hack Guide

http://runescape.salmoneus.net/security_p1.html - Another Security guide

http://www.runescapecommunity.com/index.php?showtopic=136820 - item prices guide with extensive anti-scam warning section

Another Anti-Hack/Anti-Scam guide