Scams in EVE Online

Introduction

Scams come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. This class will give you an overview of the most common types but is in no way a comprehensive guide on every scam you may see in EVE.

This class will begin with the commonalities of all scams. To understand a scam you have to understand the target. Scammers aim for those who are greedy, hasty, and/or ignorant. 90% of scams can be avoided by double checking a contract inventory, or carefully thinking a situation through. Quite simply: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Forbidden/Banable Schemes

Char selling fraud
If fraud is committed in the selling of a character through the character bazaar (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=734105) you can petition and have everything reversed.

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Impersonation
Impersonating another character or corporation is a bannable offense. Point finale.

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Loan contract schemes
Because of the complexity of loan contracts, they're not open to scams. (http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=1519&tid=1)

Simple Schemes

Begging
This is the simplest scam around where one simply asks for isk in popular channels (trade hub local, rookie help, NPC corp chat, etc.) They'll always have a story about how they lost their ship or they got scammed themselves or any of 1000 reasons why they want something for nothing.

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ISK doubling
This shares similarities to begging in the sense that both take place in highly dense channels. With ISK doubling a player is offering to send back twice the ISK that you send them. This is *always* a scam in the long run. The scammer will pay back small amounts in order to 'drum up sales' and get people talking, but as soon as they gain a large amount, they'll simply stop sending money back.

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Can flipping
Also called ninja'ing, this is where someone enters your mission space or ratting belt and outright steals your loot. This can get complicated, because sometimes people will be prepared for exactly this and have a point on their mission running ship in anticipation of a ninja looter. On the reverse of that is sometimes someone will steal your loot in the hopes that you do in fact shoot them while they have allies waiting to come in and destroy your ship.
The best approach to take is to simply allow your goods to be stolen. Better to lose a bit of loot than a mission ship.

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Sale of intangibles
This is the epic tale of selling someone the Golden Gate bridge. Quite simply it's selling something that either has no worth, is not verifiable, or simply does not belong to them. For example selling a bookmark to a wormhole with any kind of assurance of what is or is not in there (in terms of sites to run as well as presence of a hostile corporation inside).

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Trade Window
This scam is purely a timing thing. This typically happens when you're selling something. Someone offers you a great price and asks you to trade it via the trade window instead of using a private contract. The scammer will enter the amount of isk in the window, and as soon as you drop the item, they'll 0-out the amount of money and quickly accept the trade. (They have to pull this scam in between the time you drop your item in the trade window and when you hit accept.
To avoid this scam: never use the trade window when dealing with someone you don't completely trust. (Contract fees are nothing compared to losing an expensive item).

Contract

Ambush sale (great sell price but in low/null sec)
In this scam an item is available in the market or contract for a great deal cheaper than the average. The catch is that you'll either have to lowsec or null sec in order to collect the item.
To avoid this scam, always check the route that will get you to an item. (Checking the sec status of the system is not fool-proof as some highsec systems require traversal of low or null sec)

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Courier contracts
Related to the ambush sale (in that a scam victim is lured to low or null sec). Instead of offering a good price on an item, this scam involves a courier contract routing you to or through low or null sec.
Avoiding this scam is the same as the ambush sale: always check the route before accepting.

Sell contracts for 2x item
In this scam, a contract appears to be a typical WTB contract (possibly offering a slightly above average price) but in fact the contract is asking for 2 of the item and not 1. It can be an easy scam to fall for in cases where you have the 2 items and are not carefully reading the contract.
Always take time to verify what a contract is asking for, and if you want a failsafe: only ever keep a single copy of an expensive mod on hand when accepting WTB contracts.

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Fittings without ship
This is a very common scam. Usually a scammer will link a contract selling a ship (seems to be hulks a lot) for a seemingly very low price. They'll say that they're offering the ship and all the fittings, while in fact the contract will only have the fittings. This relies on people not properly checking the items in the contract.

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Multiples of 1000
This scam can involve market buy orders as well as contracts. Simply, the scammer sets up a buy order at 1000th the average price. It relies on people not noticing the difference between 121 thousand and 121 million.
This scam can also be run with markets, especially in less populace regions by offering ships or modules at 10x their price. For example if you're not careful and need a rifter, you might accept the only sell order in the region as the average, while they're selling at 100m instead of 100k.

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Similar names
This is yet another contract scam where a scammer will advertise a ship or module as its faction varient and rely on people not checking the actual item being offered. This can also work with modules of similar names such as Pith C-Type in a contract advertised as an A or X type.

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Big Schemes

Banks
At it's heart it's a simple idea: get people to give you their money. The inner working are similar to a ponzi scheme. To my knowledge, no bank has ever been legitimate in the long term. Every one has either been robbed or been unmasked as a scam.

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Ponzi scheme
The ponzi scheme works in the same way as a bank. It works under the guise that money invested is invested, and the profits are distributed to the investors via dividends. In a ponzi scheme though, the scammer running the 'investment fund' simply uses the pooled money to pay out dividends. Then when they've reached an amount of isk in the fund that they're happy with, they simply take the money and run.
With both banks and investment schemes, know that other people won't make your isk for you.

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Corp theft
Corporate (and alliance) theft is hard to avoid, because the person who intends to steal for you, will wait as long as they need to in order to steal what they want. But simply, corporate theft can work on many levels. As roles and trust grow, the opportunities to steal increase. It can't be emphasized enough that a person who's looking to steal from the corporation will not show their intentions until things are too late. This is probably the only scam that I can't find a solution for.

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Corp initiation fee
Reputable corporations usually don't ask for any kind of initiation fees. One can imagine though how a fake corp can create a fake killboard and website, and using alts in the recruitment channel establish a kind of fake reputation and build a sense that it can be worth a few million isk to join a top notch corp.

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Lotteries
As a rule of thumb, I avoid all lotteries outside of my own corp or alliance. It's *very* easy to fake a reputation and establish a lottery, so quite simply: I don't know which I can trust so I trust none. If I want to gamble, I'll get into a frigate and play around in lowsec.

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Recourse

With the exception of those scams specifically forbidden by CCP: scams are fully allowed in EVE. You have no recourse other than to set sec standing and hope you one day catch them in low/null sec.