Tips and Tricks on Avoiding Scams

With any growing economy comes opportunists who seek to scam others for what they've earned. Laifubot, unfortunately, is no exception. While we try our very best to maintain an honest and pleasant community of gacha addicts, some people manage to slip through the cracks, so with this article we hope to inform new and old players on how to best avoid getting scammed and how to spot the signs of a scam.

## Knowing Your Card's Value

First thing's first, it's important to know the value of what you are trading before you go to trade it.

A trap many new players fall into, is not realizing that the Zeta Zero Two they just pulled is worth way more than an Alpha of their favorite side character from that one anime they watched 5 years ago. The easiest way to recognize a card's value is by its influence. Influence can generally be used to get a grasp of how desired a certain card is, and is commonly used between players to gauge an equal trade. To find out what the best and most high influence cards are, you can do .top to see where your card stands in the current waifu rankings.

The second best way to tell a card's value is based on rarity. Simply put, rarer cards are worth a lot more than their influence alone, and sometimes a rare of a certain characters can be sold for upwards of 25,000-30,000 influence worth of cards. In addition, one important metric of a card's value is their global ID. This ID, same for every copy of a card, denotes a specific character, and .info (global ID) pull up that character's information.

If the global ID is higher (ex. 9684), it is more recent and has been added later compared to earlier cards with lower IDs, like 3257. Usually this doesn't mean much when comparing IDs from 1-6000, but if the card is extremely fresh, like 10000+ ID, it may not have had much time to gain influence (ex. Tokyo Revengers or other recently added popular series), so it may be worth to keep cards that are decent influence (50+), with very high global ID, and weigh them over cards with lower global ID and same influence.

The rarest and most valuable rarities are as follows :

1) Event

2) Ultra

3) Zeta

4) Scarlet

This list isn't set in stone, but it's a good reference point if you aren't too sure how much that rare card you just pulled is worth. Generally speaking, Epsilon cards and below aren't very sought after, so you won't find many people willing to pay extra in return for them. These rarities are extremely rare and can be worth thousands and thousands of influence, do not trade them until you are aware of common trading pricing.

## How to Spot a Scam

### **New Player Scamming**

                As stated before, most players on Laifubot are genuinely good people with good intentions in mind when it comes to trading. Scammers like to take advantage of that and prey on people who are complacent. The most common scams that occur are targeted towards new and susceptible players that are unaware of the value of their cards. Scammers will make what seems to be an honest and fair offer for one of your cards, only for you to realize later that you just traded a high valued character away for a few pieces of trash. To avoid this scam as a new player, try asking mods or other long-time players if they think the offer you've been given is fair. They are usually happy to help, and will be willing to help you get what you deserve for your cards.

### **False Offer Scamming**

                Another common scam which is hard to spot is a bit more nefarious. You might ask a user if they are willing to sell a card they have, and try to work a deal out with them. However, at the last moment they will say that someone else has offered more than you on the card, and ask you to raise your price. They may continue this charade until you're now paying way more than you originally planned. Obviously there never was a third person involved, and they just wanted to get more out of you. The best and easiest way to avoid this from happening to you is by making sure if someone else outbids you on a card, you get that person's name and ask them directly if they are actually offering on it or not. Do keep in mind however, that they could be working together, so use your best judgement on whether you think that person is honest before proceeding to outbid them.

### **Troll Bid Raising**

                This one is less of a direct scam, and more of a bait. Some users like to artificially raise the bids on certain cards with no intention of actually paying for them. This tactic is usually less of a way to scam you directly, and more just a troll method to make you have to pay more for what you want. However, it is hard to tell if this is happening or not unless admitted, so, just like the other false offer scam, use your best judgement and set a limit of how much you want to pay. It sucks, I know, but there isn't much else that you can do unless you plan on massively overpaying.

### **The Long Con**

This involves gaining the user's trust over a long period of time. A scammer will first establish trust with the user by offering good trades that favor the user, borrowing and returning, and being overly polite to the user. There will come a time where they will ask the user for a big trade, either involving lots of influence or a valuable card, which they intend to be their last transaction and interaction with the user before they cut them off entirely.
It is your own best interest to use good judgement against these types of people, and only trade valuables with them if you unconditionally trust them. Even if you can make friends in the server, a true friend is not someone who earns their title only through trades, but with other interactions and shared interests as well. Some red flags include asking to borrow a card with an intention on giving it back; (whether you do get it back or not, trading a card or trading unfavorably to yourself always poses some degree of risk), being overly polite in conversation, and other claims of good reputation.

### **Abusing Your Desires**

                The last scam we will talk about in this article is fairly simple and easy to spot. What commonly happens to most players once they have been around the server for a while, is they build a reputation of liking a certain series or character. Once this happens, people will often try to abuse your desire for that character by refusing to sell that character/series to you unless you overpay for it. This is easy to avoid with some patience and willpower, and by declining to buy any cards at unreasonable prices, you'll eventually be able to complete your collections without being forced to pay absurd amounts for specific characters/series.

                Scammers aren't stupid. They are typically crafty people who will look and find new ways to rob people any way they can. However, if you keep this article in mind, and ask around the community for help, you'll avoid the majority of scammers that come your way. However, we will not do anything about these scams, as it is your job to educate yourself on these tactics and fair market prices. However, if they outright lie, such as putting a different card, running away with a card after an agreed trade, etc. then we can do something, and should be reported. Keep in mind that if one chooses to scam, they will have a bad reputation in the community.