At some point in time it's possible that in UO, just as in real life, someone will try to scam you out of your hard-earned possessions. A GM can assist you in this case only if game mechanics were exploited to allow the scam. As there are very few exploits of this nature, more often than not the scam is just a scam and a GM will not be able to intervene. An exploit is defined as bypassing normal game mechanics in an unintended manner. If you are in doubt as to which your situation may be a GM can help clarify this. Essentially though, the responsibility is yours to keep your self safe from scamming. Common sense, knowledge and caution are always good in any trade situation. Here are a few tips that might just help prevent that scammer from being successful.
For diagrams and examples in addition to these please see: http://support.uo.com/scam.html in addition to this document.
Proceed Cautiously
Leaving a Guard Zone: If someone opens a gate in order to take you to a house that they are "giving you for free," be cautious. Do not carry any rare items to trade, or valuables other than checks or newbified/blessed items, out of guard protection. For example, if you are trading rare items for a house, you and the house owner should agree on a gold amount first, then trade the rare items for a check for the agreed upon amount. You can then carry that check to the house.
Unlocking Valuables in Your House: The Detect Hidden skill (not the spell, but the skill) works 100% of the time in your house, or a house that you are co-owned/friended to, even if you are at 0.0 Detect Hidden skill. If you are unlocking valuable items or stocking vendors, always use detect hidden first to make sure there are no unwelcome guests waiting to snag your item once it's no longer locked down. Tracking is also a good skill to try to use before unlocking precious items, to help you find hidden players, monsters, or animals that may be lurking nearby. Make a text macro to make unlocking or locking down items a faster process, and use these text macros every time you lock or unlock items in your house. Good habits will prevent nasty surprises!
Restocking your vendor: Be as careful while stocking or restocking your vendor as you are when moving items around within your house. Make sure no one else is around while adjusting your vendor's goods. Use a secure trade window for player-to-player trades, rather than trying to use your vendor for a quick trade.
Keep blessed items in the top level of your pack: Newbie items and blessed items can not be looted or stolen. However, bags can. If you place your newbie items or blessed items in a bag, someone can just nab the bag through the use of the stealing skill, taking your blessed items with it! Keep these items in the top level of your pack, meaning in the main backpack window, and they'll stay safe. This includes all rewards, gifts and even checks.
Be careful to not get overloaded: If you are severely overloaded (meaning trying to carry over 125 items or items weighing over 390 stones in your backpack), you can end up with stuff falling out of your pack at your feet; and this includes blessed items. Gravity isn't picky as to what's blessed and what's not! If you log out while overloaded, you could come back to find that some of your items fell out of your pack and were either picked up by other players or decayed. GMs will not replace items that fell due to being overloaded, so watch how much you try to carry. Anyone asking you to hold items for other characters, look at rare items in the trade window, or generally any other unusual request are often trying to scam you by making use of your weight and item count.
Secure Trade Windows: Take time to check the items in the window to make sure you're getting exactly what you're expecting to get. Most of the time, there is no reason why an item needs to be in a bag. Ask the seller to take the item out of the bag so you can see it in the trade window. Many scams can be avoided by looking at how the item highlights under the cursor. Always be positive you have ample room in your backpack for all items involved in the trade. Both weight and item count can become a problem during a trade and cause one side or both not to receive what they expect. Many items have unique text when clicked on in a trade window. For example an ethereal mount will indicate that it is clearly an ethereal statuette, and a pet will show the [tame] tag right in the trade window. Remember, the trade window is not timed so take an extra moment and make sure you are getting what you expect. Anyone trying to rush a trade is likely trying to scam you.
Ground/BulkTrades: There is no reason to make a trade that is too heavy for the trade window. Either use a commodity deed or do the trade in smaller amounts.
Blacksmith repairs: This one is a matter of good judgment in picking a smith. If you are not familiar with a smith, don't assume that the character offering to fix your armor is a smith, no matter what he says or wears. Handing your armor over to the wrong person to repair can leave you naked in no time. To eliminate the guesswork and possibility of being scammed, you are strongly advised to use repair service contracts when soliciting repairs on your armor or weapons. These contracts can be bought from any player that has the correct crafting skill of at least 50. Each contract can be used to repair one piece of armor, or a single weapon.
Pet Transfers: Ok, so you want to buy a Nightmare. Have the seller rename the pet to a name of your choosing - let's say you ask for the new name to be "Mary." Then, standing in a clear area, right before the trade, have him say, "Mary follow me". This should clarify that the pet you have in sight is the only pet he is transferring to you. Please feed your new pet right away.
House Transfers: When the house deed appears in the trade window it will look like a glacier blue blank scroll. This is the same color as a glacial staff and is quite obvious in the window. Both the buyer and seller must be within two paces of the house sign in order to initiate the trade. There is not a secure method to swap houses so if you must do so be certain to protect yourself with a form of collateral. For example sell your house to the other party for an agreed on sum of gold. Then go buy their house from them for the same sum of gold.
Cross-shard trades: We can not become involved in any way with cross-shard trades, either to assist in the trade or to investigate possible scams after the fact. Ultima Online supports several means for securely trading items within a shard only, and any trades that players seek to accomplish across shards are done at their own risk. Character Transfers are also available so that you can safely and effectively transfer your possessions directly from one shard to another.
Promotional Tokens: The Promotional Token was designed to help reduce the risk of trading some widely sought after promotional items and services that can be risky to trade. These tokens allow players to securely trade, via the in-game trade window, special promotions such as Soulstones, Soulstone Fragments, Character Transfers and other promotional items, without the risk of the promotion code being invalid.
General Advice & Comments
Be cautious about "proof": Don't accept ICQ logs, screenshots, and similar out-of-game evidence as proof of someone's honesty. These things are too easily falsified or inaccurate.
Know the other player: Note that if the character doesn't appear in a MyUO character search, it may be because it is a new character (it takes a day or two for characters to appear in MyUO), and this should raise a "red flag" of caution when trading. Many scammers create new characters (with extremely common names) for their scams, and delete those characters 7 days after creation in an attempt to make it more difficult to track the perpetrator of the scam.
Buying outside the game: If you buy something Ultima Online-related outside the UO game system, such as on eBay, Tradespot, or some other auction site, and get scammed, this is a legal issue and not an in-game issue. Players shouldn't page or e-mail GMs or other OSI staff with information or complaints about this type of fraud, for this is out of their domain, and we are not responsible for deals made outside the game.
Ultimately, if the other trader is not willing to do simple things to prove the legitimacy of the deal, such as rename the pet, take the item out of the bag in the trade window, or is suspicious in any way: drop the deal. There are a million houses, items and pets, and this person may be hoping to scam you.
GMs will not return items lost through scams, so we encourage all players to take an active role in protecting themselves against scams. Use the in-game tools provided for secure trades, and investigate before you buy!