Beware of "Quitting FFXIV Giveaway" messages

[AngelCheese77]

I wouldn't exactly call it evolving, this is literally the "hey I'm an african prince and I want to send you gold" email scam from the early 2000s.

It wasn't long ago that hackers/scammers created a replica of a Lodestone page with a QR code in e-mails that were sent out to FF14 players. I won't put a copy of it here, but you can Google it. It spoke about a mount that was the "last chance" to get it.

Aim for those gamers who have a weak spot of their wallet or FOMO.

Not my fault people fall for it. Even if a friend sent me a tell I am not dumb enough to click on it. It's not victim shaming its a thing called COMMON SENSE if you decide to follow such a link out of the blue then you deserve to have it taken. I mean if you really can't think for a second that something seems off then you just deserve it. Just have to think and be smart enough

Scammers look for specific victims; the lonely, the elderly, the financially desperate, and the non-tech savvy. They have no qualms about sending thousands of e-mails, phone calls or texts. They make e-mails and calls look and sound genuine with actual icons and pictures of companies.

You can call people dumb and not using "common sense" but everyone has their weak moments. You don't know what was happening at that time.

[Liam_Harper]

Another victim shamer. See the post I made above. Scams are evolving and we need to keep up.

The people who are the loudest over shaming others probably have the most to be ashamed of in other areas and it's a way to compensate. Someone who is intelligent has no need to put others down.

Like I said, even someone has never fallen for a scam in their entire life I can guarantee they've been stupid in other ways at least a handful of times. It's normal. I've never been scammed, but I'm sure it applies to me too. If people who get scammed are idiots who deserve bad things, then most of the posters on this thread do too.

[MontecristoSandwich]

The people who are the loudest over shaming others probably have the most to be ashamed of in other areas and it's a way to compensate. Someone who is intelligent has no need to put others down.

OP made a braindead mistake falling for an incredibly obvious scam and decided to make their lapse in judgement known by trying to act as though this was something anyone with two braincells to rub together needed a notification of. OP is putting themselves down by making their own failing public. Pointing out that this is an incredibly blatant scam that is routinely avoided by 99% of the playerbase is not "compensating." It's making it known to anyone that if you do fall for something like this, you should be humiliated. That way next time anyone sees an advertisement for something this dumb and obvious remembers the humiliation of someone that fell for it. If you act remarkably stupid, expect to be called out on it.

[LianaThorne]

Wow, someone who fell for it but actually realized what was going on and did a smart thing in response. It's like seeing a unicorn when it comes to these stories.

[Boblawblah]

as long as people are greedy, these kind of scams will always have victims, so we're always going to have these scams.

[Nyxs]

as long as people are greedy, these kind of scams will always have victims, so we're always going to have these scams.

This to be honest. Gil isnt hard to make. Stop being lazy and you wont get phished. We see this topic every week now.

[SassyAssassin]

I mean, yeah, I fell for a Runescape item scam when I was 11, but even that was significantly less obvious than this, and I was a child. Online scams have been a thing for decades at this point; the only way this FFXIV giveaway scam could be more blatant is if it literally had "this is a scam" in the whisper. Someone falling for something this obvious is concerning, and certainly doesn't need an entire callout thread. This isn't 1995, everyone should know about these kinds of things already.

You do realise you were not the only 11 year old to play games right? There are still really young people in game and old people as well. Just a few days ago we had a post of someone asking what class can they play because they are old with arthritis.
Unfortunately its mainly those people that fall for obvious scams. Its not a bad thing to make a callout thread once in a while for the new people joining the game/forum, I mean we have actual ridiculous unnecessary threads going on for days that offer zero insightful material.

[Ishnar]

I think you're being overly judgemental.

First of all, people giving their stuff away when they quit is a thing in every MMO. It happens a lot. So there is no reason to assume all giveaways are scams.

1. Don't click links - This is because links can be spoofed. This is why you should always copy and paste the link. No one can spoof links in chat. So that is not a worry. If you get a /tell link, you can copy and paste that link without worrying that the link will send you somewhere different than it says.
2. Read the link. https://forum.square-enix.com-fg.eu/[redacted] The link I got looked pretty legit, it is even https so usually when you get an https address they have to have a valid certificate or your browser will reject the site. the -fg.eu threw me off though and made me look closer.
3. As a general policy, when you follow a link and shortly after following that link you have to enter a username/password it is best to go to the site directly. Open another tab and, in this case, type out https://forum.square-enix.com and then login and look for the post. It wasn't there and thus I learned it must be a scam.
4. Don't feel rushed. The whole reason scammers use time limits, "In 15 minutes there will be a raffle," is to create a sense of urgency, and hopefully panic. People are stupid when they panic. It is a fact. The only solution is to never panic. The "raffle" post also created a false sense of urgency. There was 30 slots and 3 pages of people claiming slots already. "Oh no! I have to log in quick or I'll miss out!" is what they want you to think.

And yeah. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone is prone to different mistakes. So you would never make the mistake the op made. I believe you. But, I'm sure that there is some mistake you are prone to that the op would never make. It is part of everyone being different. Your strengths might be another person's weakness, but another person's strength is your weakness in turn.

Human brains have been shrinking for the last 10,000 years. Yes, people are getting dumber, but it's not just "other" people. We just can't see our own blind spots. We all have them.

[AriannaStormwake]

when i get one of these i put them on blacklist/ignore
did someone notice on the launcher we have a post about there being an attack at SQE?and including a link to reset password
besides the topic about to not click on suspicious URLs

[Ujifujimaru]

I just got this scam and fell for it cuz I'm a dummy. Luckily I found this thread, so thanks for raising awareness to this. I changed my password quickly.