Dummies Guide to Scams

Resources Community Tutorials
#1

Hello! If you offer services, selling your creations, or Hire people to do work, There is a big chance that you get scammed. Even if you didn’t get scammed ever, You still have a big chance being scammed. I’ll separate this into 3 parts/chapters. How to avoid them, How assets should be secured.

Chapter 1: How to avoid scams

Hiring

If you hire developers, Make sure that the following is met:

  • They have an existing Portfolio.
  • They Have past work.
  • They have experience with the field for some time.

Another good tip, Give the person a trial. Let’s say you want a scripter working for your game. Ask him questions about the job, How he does the job, and ask him basic script ideas such as variables or functions. What if I have no expertise of the guy im hiring? Ask another scripter in a discord server to test him out. Exchange messages between the Guy you are Hiring and the guy who has more experience. Another example is giving deadlines, And daily/weekly updates. Play safe. Know what the guy is doing and make him stay on the right track. Be sure that he does the job he was intended to do.

Working

If you work for someone, Make your work on a different place, or game. This funnels some scams but not all. One thing to note as well here is that people can easily take your models, Local Scripts, everything that is on the client side. An example of this is going to be synapse. You can easily get anything from the client-side not the server side. So anything on the Server can’t be accessed, from what I know.

Others ~

Consider the age of the person you’re working with.
Find the timezone where he/she lives in/
Make a certain deadline.

Things to watch out:

  • Unusual Prices
  • Abnormally slow response times
  • No past works.
  • Unprotected payment method.
  • The guy doesn’t really do much work.

Now to clarify this, If the price is really low and the “Past works” are too good to be true, You should watch out. If the Person/Guy is refusing to give any works, It’s a big chance it is a scam. Ask the person what is his/her time zone. What’s their desired schedule, tell him/her to notify you incase he has something important, an event, or anything that might affect work. If he replies slowly, or doesn’t really give updates that much, reach out to him. Ask why he hasn’t updated in a while, when will he do so. It doesn’t mean that if he replies very slowly, he is an absolute scammer. Reach out to him. If the guy has no past works this brings us back to this:

Give the person a trial. Let’s say you want a scripter working for your game. Ask him questions about the job, How he does the job, and ask him basic script ideas such as variables or functions. What if I have no expertise of the guy im hiring? Ask another scripter in a discord server to test him out. Exchange messages between the Guy you are Hiring and the guy who has more experience.

Chapter 2: How to secure assets

After working for sometime, you’re finished and will have to give your result to the buyer. Often this would be the most messy part and where scams usually happen. Here are few ways to be safe.

Middle man

A middle man is a guy/person who will take both the result and payment and distribute them respectively. This might sound like a big bonk for a scam but only do this if your server has one, Trusted guy. You can then have him the asset and let him get the Payment or verify to the buyer that it is legitimate and give the payment to the seller.

Seller First

If the seller has passed your standards and had met the requirements (e.g Portfolio) Then you are certain to pay him up. If you are a Seller you can check your transactions tab if you have pending funds. After which wait for 3 days and you can get your bobux.
If you are an buyer and you don’t trust this method then you can go ahead use the Middle man method.

Pay for the amount of work done

@PseudoPerson Explains this very well, than I can.

Chapter 3: Scammed, What to do?

Depending on the server you recruited him, They should have Scam Investigators. You can reach out to them and explain every detail. If the server doesn’t have any Scam Investigators then… Just why did you join? Don’t Worry. Try to get your asset back Within 3~5 days, And if the guy refuses or hasn’t removed your content, then you go to the 2nd step. File a DMCA related claims directly to support.

Well I hope that helped you :sweat_smile:. It might be alot of text to eat up but trust me it would be helpgul sooner or later. It took time to write this so it is greatly appreciated to share and like. Big Kudos to the help of some Scam investigators from HD And RoDevs!

30 Likes
#2

What are you talking about??? You can scan 3d scan objects and convert something into objects? I have never heard of it for the 6 months I have been on here. And you would need to show proof of your type of work besides the other stuff. You forgot about other types of ways of scamming. RoDevs are full of scams so I dont really find this a useful place to get work
EDIT : forgot to add that pictures always used because of their vercitilities.

3 Likes
#3

Stated by @Aotrou here.

2 Likes
#4

Hmm that seems a little sus tbh and anything can be replicated I have seen programs that can real life objects but you would have to hire someone to make the same type of asset so that is not really possible. My gaurdian angel is watching over me having a good day my friend?

4 Likes
#5

There are alot of underage “Developers” So watch out.

Uh… Excuse me? Not all young commission-takers are scammers.

10 Likes
#6

Just to let you know the hackR cannot take anything on the server, he can only take things on the client, not server side scripts. So I recommend if you are planning for a big part of your game is scripts, put them in server script storage. So that the hackers get the maps but NONE of the functionality.
And also the hackers can basically take ANYTHING in the workspace.

2 Likes
#7

Im not trying to say that all young Developers are Scammers.

Edit: Ive rephrased it. Hope that should fix it.

2 Likes
#8

This part doesn’t really feel right, even after you rephrased it. Maybe it’d be something more like “There are some developers that aren’t experienced, don’t have the right resources, are new” something like that.

5 Likes
#9

What if the person doing the work is just getting into making models, and needs to get work in their portfolio, or, for instance, whenever I close a deal with someone and send them the model, they tell me to delete all images and copies of the model, as they don’t want it getting leaked.

1 Like
#13

It will, since if the user is done with the commission they have to pay for it first before getting it or put a watermark on it.

2 Likes
#15

This article is great, and I suggest you to continue this and make an Experts Guide to Scams or something.
It’s great how you listed what to watch for and possibilities of something being a scam and how to avoid them.
For Middle man, it may be difficult because if you give the funds to the middle man, and he/she gives it to the other person, it goes through a 70% transaction each time, wasting funds.
Also, sometimes middle men scam.

3 Likes
#16

I think a good addition to the “Secure Assets” section would be the pay for work method. This is where the seller gets payed for how much of the asset they finish. This method makes it nearly impossible for the buyer to scam the seller. One flaw of this method is that the seller can only do part of the work and still get part their pay. Example: Someone is designing a map. They finish 20% of the map. They get 20% of their pay. This continues until they finish designing the map.

2 Likes
#17

Would asking to be paid in milestones a good idea? Say you are building 4 vehicles for someone, you could ask to be paid per vehicle? If they don’t pay you in milestones that can be a red flag.

3 Likes
#18

No, they can only take local scripts which isn’t usually the core part of your logic. They also need the server script for everything to function correctly (which they can’t get because serverscriptservice isn’t replicated to clients). So no you should do this if your system isn’t purely client based.

3 Likes
#19

There really isn’t a better way of protecting yourself from scams other than just using common sense.
This whole thread is just things that no one falls for, and things that are obviously sus. Scammers these days make the scam so believable, that you cannot tell a difference from a real comission and a scam.

4 Likes
#20

You can’t “3D Scan” a game lmao, i think you should fully get a grasp on what you’re talking about before you incorporate it into an informative post.

Basically you just grab the info replicated to your client, and because of this local scripts and their contents, as well as the location and name of server scripts can also be seen and taken.

The entire post it just sounded like you were pulling things off the top of your head without research and what i mentioned previously was the cherry on top, it just doesn’t seem credible at all.

Edit: replied to the wrong person lol

2 Likes
#21

I disagree, you shouldn’t mess with the logic and performance of your game just because of an irrational fear, hiding the core functionality from the client causes big problems both functionally and especially performance wise.

Just to let you know the hackR cannot take anything on the server

not entirely true, they can take what’s meant for the server in replicated storage & module contents that could be meant for the server. they can also view the location and name of server scripts that aren’t hidden away.

So that the hackers get the maps but NONE of the functionality.

i think you underestimate how difficult it is to re-create the entire server side of a game even if the developer is completely careless about hiding things.

And also the hackers can basically take ANYTHING in the workspace.

not anything, everything. every single thing replicated to the client, because the client can see it, can be taken and stolen.

2 Likes
#22

Your whole post was good but this offended me. As a 13 year old scripter and working for commission i beleive there are so many kids out there who can script or build.

7 Likes
#23

It wasn’t personally meant to you, it’s just how usually young people behave. It doesn’t mean your bad or anything it’s a safety precaution. A lot of young children behave like this because they can’t take commissions as seriously as older people. (Now that doesn’t mean YOU do it, I don’t think you do I’m saying what the majority of them do). Also, I wouldn’t consider 13 years old as young for me anything below 12 is young.

3 Likes
#24

You don’t have an idea of what you are talking about.
3D scanning:

A 3D scanner is a device that analyses a real-world object or environment to collect data on its shape and possibly its appearance. The collected data can then be used to construct digital three-dimensional models.

Not Roblox games. You cannot “3D-scan” a Roblox environment.

1 Like