Account trading is the act of buying, selling, or otherwise trading a RuneScape account for RuneScape coins, items, or real-world money. This is a direct violation of the 'Buying, selling or sharing an account' rule under Honour, and the punishment for all accounts involved is generally a permanent ban.
Account trading scam[]
Players who attempt to buy an account are also at danger of being scammed of their money, because the scammer can simply reclaim the account through the Account Recovery system, and the player who bought the account would lose all of the money they paid for the account. Another way scammers tend to trick the account buyers out of their money is receiving the money on another account and giving a false password, which means the buyer cannot access the account. Accounts are often sold over eBay and other sites so the scammers' accounts cannot be reported through RuneScape. Jagex monitors online market sites such as eBay to prevent account trading. Account traders are sometimes found on other MMORPGs such as Guild Wars selling RuneScape accounts or items for money and items in other games. These account traders are most likely scammers.
Prevention[]
To avoid this scam, it is best to simply not buy an account in the first place, as that is against the Rules of Conduct anyway. RuneScape accounts have no real value and players trying to buy accounts are easy bait for scammers. Furthermore, the Jagex Terms & Conditions clearly state that all accounts are and remain the intellectual property of Jagex. Therefore, selling or buying accounts is actually classified as buying/selling stolen property, and may even result in criminal charges.
Example[]
- Person 1: Selling lvl 138 account 100 mil!
- Person 2 reports Person 1 for account trading.