To Catch A Scammer

Episode One: Flash Traders

To Catch a Scammer: Episode 1

The species of scammer we will be observing today is the Flash Trader. The Flash Trader is a scammer of the past, one of the first species of scammers to pop up on Animal Jam. Back in the early days of Animal Jam, there was only one confirmation screen when trading; however, nowadays Animal Jam has three confirmation screens.

Flash Traders used the one confirmation screen to their advantage to scam players out of rare items. Most of the players they scammed were new, and most likely gifted a rare by a kind jammer, or younger children who were too trusting and hadn't yet learned that not everyone was a nice person.

I was personally scammed out of my first ever rare. (I think it was a rare blanket or something. Not too rare, but at the time I thought it was awesome.) I was told by someone in the arcade that they would trade me two rares if I quickly accepted without looking. When I asked why, they said they wanted it to be a surprise. Me, being the naive child I was, agreed. We traded and the person immediately left. I looked in my inventory and he had traded me a necklace. A NECKLACE!!! I was devastated and actually cried. I quit the game for a month because of that. I never got his username so child me couldn't even get the satisfaction of reporting the guy and getting "justice".

Recognizing a Flash Trader Scammer was fairly easy. They would say to accept their trade without looking, and they would give you a spike. They would advertise their flash trades.

Once people caught on to the Flash Trader Scammers, they mostly ignored them.

After AJHQ added the extra confirmation screens when trading Flash Traders were, thankfully, eliminated.