[ArcticCelt]

People used that scam on WoW. People would type in the chat channel that they want to buy some item for 200 golds. Meanwhile they put for sale that item on the auction house for 100 golds. Some people would then rush to buy the one on the auction house to resell it to the potential buyer but of course the potential buyer is now nowhere to be seeing.

[tamana]

Are there games my kids can play and safely get burned and learned by scams like this, using play money not expensive credits from real money?

[Kiro]

Ultima Online was the best (pre-Trammel). I've never seen so many elaborate and innovative scams. On top of that, you also got to learn how to avoid being robbed of all your belongings if you went to the wrong neighborhood.

It was extremely brutal since there was literally no protection of your gear. Not only could you lose all the items on you if you got mugged or killed. If a scammer, thief or murderer got ahold of your house key they could clean out your whole house meaning you would lose everything.

I hope to experience the same rush in another game in the future.

[Jordrok]

Unfortunately, when UO was big my internet connection was too spotty for online games so I never got the chance to experience that (though that might be a good thing...). In the past few years though I had a lot of fun with another game called Haven and Hearth which had similar mechanics - down to losing your key and having your entire homestead raided.

The really cool thing about that game was that any time a player commits a "crime" like trespassing, theft, assault, etc, a "scent" is left behind at the scene of the crime which could be collected and would then allow you to track down and possibly exact revenge upon the perpetrator. I've never seen another game with a system quite like that one. The game had plenty of other flaws, but it still managed to lead to some pretty unique situations, and actually made you think twice before going on a murder/theft spree.

The game itself has pretty much been rewritten from scratch since the last time I played so I don't know what the game is like in its current state, but I would still recommend giving it a look.

[Kiro]

Wow, that's amazing. I need to check it out (even if it's a completely different version now).

[zappo2938]

I was mugged in Buenos Aires, IRL. It was ten years ago. I went to a club alone. I bought beers for everyone at $.33 a beer. Someone sucker punched me when I left and riffled my pockets. They took my wallet and watch getting a total of 10 pesos which was my cab fair to the apartment I rented. They left my keys which had the address and apartment number written on the key chain, which in hind sight wasn't too smart. Is there a game where people can learn not to talk to strangers?

[warfangle]

"sure, I can repair your armor for you, just accept the trade...!"

(before you could target the repair skill to items in the trade menu)

[omnibrain]

EVE Online.

[voxic11]

Runescape is the best for this. Learned everything I ever needed to learn about scamming from that game... well that and eve online.

[Robelius]

I remember the number of scammers started increasing when Jagex removed the buy limit from the grand exchange. Lost 150 mil within the span of a week from scammers around that time. I'll never forget that. Luckily it's what got me to quit.

[daveth3cat]

Trimming Rune pl8 4 free

[wavefunction]

WoW apparently. As long as your kids don't have the means to purchase gold from Chinese gold farmers that should satisfy your criteria. They'll just be out hours of repetitive grinding or daily missions, which may induce the learning process you're looking for.

[Cpoll]

There's not a lot of scamming in WoW, since the GMs actively punish it. I imagine they'll even punish you for the "horse trading" scam if you do it blatantly enough.

[timje1]

MMOs are generally a good place for this stuff.

I knew a fellow who would offer to offer to buy expensive runes in Shadowbane for, say, 250k gold - and then when the time came for the trade he'd slice a 0 off the amount of gold he put in the trade window. Perhaps this sort of scam is helped by small font and large currency inflation.

[AlwaysRock]

Back when I was new to the internet I got scammed using this method on Runescape. I also got scammed on Neopets. The feeling of being scammed those two times as a pre/teen made me a lot more cautious and I'm glad it happened on the internet and not in real life.