olivehead
07-01-2013, 09:23 PM
Note: The following guide mostly caters to inexperienced or first-time buyers looking to stay safe that want to use proactive methods if within their transaction case rights. Proactive methods to get one's account back are often risky, dirty, seemingly too-bold and not for everyone. This is simply what's worked for me personally: it may not work for everyone or be agreeably on the same page with what this forum believes. If the following message inconveniences or offends you, I apologize. Thank you.
Like many illegitimate buyers are afraid to admit, particularly as first-timers, you may secretly suffer from an extreme case of ‘give-a-damn’. Nobody wants to get themselves or others frozen.
You’re smart enough to avoid scammers and ill transactions on the forums—-the real problem at hand is fearing that your account will be frozen or coping with the fact that your account has been frozen! Regaining your rights to play safely and freely on Neopets can be a difficult journey with dicey success rates.
If you have been frozen or you believe you’re at-risk due to buying something over the forums, I have (in my clumsy experiences) discovered a few methods to help YOU in both prevention and recovery. Want your good ol’ main back? Made a bad move and want to wriggle out of getting hit by TNT? Just want to be careful? Read on!
First Thing’s First:
1. By buying Neopets items, points, NeoCash or NeoCash items, accounts, pets, trophies, etc. in the first place, you ARE taking a risk. No method is impeccably going to keep you out of trouble, and sellers are NOT responsible for what you do with your purchases.
2. Your risk and acceptance of the risk increases significantly if you choose to buy anything blatantly illegit or stolen (from AutoBuying, hacking, scamming, Score-Sending, etc.). My guide primarily is most effective when used in buying the safest merchandise possible. Buying legit is often more expensive, but will decrease your risk of being caught.
3.If you must buy anything illegit for Neopets, first try to learn the importance of “securing”, letting things “sit”, and being unknown to the public eye (via the Neoboards). Examples of being a smart buyer: Don’t buy fifteen items in ETS in an hour; buying one or two more expensive items instead is the smarter option, and you can trade them off on your own. Don’t give Neopians reason to report you or shift blame. Though no methods of securing and laying low will completely keep you out of trouble, be sensible; maybe it’s better to keep your main account anonymous from sellers by having them send that Royal PB to your side account instead.
4. Man up: crying about your lost account, panicking and hiding, or shedding blame unto others on the forums won’t do you any good. To stay safe and have a shot at what you want on Neopets requires being proactive. Only you can get yourself out of trouble.
We ready to move on? Good.
Writing a Ticket if You’ve Been Frozen for Buying/Selling
DISCLAIMER: If you have been frozen for (presumably) buying Neopets stuff illegally, then there is an extremely high chance that the seller and his/her other consumers have been iced as well en masse. Forum-wise it is best to communicate with the seller first to know what exactly happened—do NOT make moves with iTrader or payment methods without contacting moderators on here with a valid case. This guide does not deal with seller-buyer issues on clraik, but what to do on NEOPETS.
Forums aren’t for blame-gaming, but Neopets ticket-writing is almost entirely about blame. If you are writhing to get your account back with this information I am giving you, I am assuming you’re within your rights (depending on the terms/conditions that you and your seller established) to speak out against the account that gave you your goods on NEOPETS.
If you are not comfortable or within your transaction case rights to speak out directly against the seller account, the details of your exchange and their intentions, DO NOT PROCEED.
Knowing What You’re in For: Perhaps you’re a frequent buyer and don’t know exactly what you bought that sparked TNT’s suspicions. Regardless, you need to focus on a single transaction or instance and reference to it.
“Wait, WHAT?”: People may tell you that it’s stupid to act like you know what happened, but it usually isn't. You may not know what the cause was, but you’d better act like it: any guess is better than no guess. To be ahead of the game and account for prior suspicions of ill-intentions on behalf of the account that sent you your goods is to your benefit. Making inferences instead of yet another “i don’t know what happened help pls i didn’t do anytingg!!!!” ticket will make for an actual CASE for TNT. The more you appear to know, the better. You need to give them something to look into. Tickets full of crying and playing dumb are received by the hundreds daily by TNT, and they will not do anything for you let alone respond.
If you believe you have been iced on the account of a large and fast buildup of purchases, DO NOT attempt to explain yourself regarding twenty Swords of Skardsen sent an hour ago from boopenoop2929292. In this case, you are to play the “I’ve been compromised,” approach (see below). In other words, it wasn’t you at all. Seem ridiculous? Well, what you did in the first place was pretty ridiculous—want your tainted account back? You need to lie, and you need to lie well.
If you believe you have been iced on the account of a single pet, item or transaction, you can explain yourself using either a “I’ve had a prior exchange with the person that sent me (transaction),” approach or “I understood prior to the freezing that (my transaction) was suspicious” (see below) approach. If you have had many transactions that are spread out reasonably, you are to assume the most recent one and follow the instructions above.
Know what category you belong to? Good—skip to “General Ticket-Writing Guidelines” under the header I directed you to. If not, read below.
Chain Frozen/Other:
If you have been iced all-around (even on accounts you didn’t transact from) or by your IP address, you are to assume you’re considered a key player in the merchant/consumer world of Neopets trafficking. I have worse news: you only have viable hope if you are a recent cheater, as in being within one month of acting up. Assume that you are seen to be a source, not just a leg in the buying/selling scandals. In other words, if you want your account back, it wasn’t you.
Follow the “I’ve been compromised,” method (see below) but with an alternative twinge. There is a high chance you will never get your accounts back, but if you must try a lame excuse, you are to play victim. You must act as though you are a semi-active player who has lost access to all of their accounts due to someone who has compromised all of them (citing a potential keylogger scenario, as explained below, would be appropriate here). You are unique among all the rest of the categories I listed above: you know nothing. You didn’t even know that you had been frozen. You know nothing about the scenarios except the last time you logged in (assume a time before you started buying) and a few things from your SBD or Key Quest tokens (things that have been on your accounts a very, very long time ago and generally aren’t account aspects one can buy). You tried to access your accounts, couldn’t get in, searched them, and found them to be disabled.
Using the “I’ve been compromised” method in extreme freezing cases, if anything, might get your account names and really old preexisting stuff back at best eventually but your illegit buying money spent is as good as dust. They might just tell you to make new accounts. Sorry!
Your only hope here is to get your IP allowance back. This section may seem a bit useless, but remember that maturity and realism pertaining to your goals will allow you to be taken more seriously.
General Ticket-Writing Guidelines
Learn the Language: Short, Sweet, and Tolerable:
You must first be aware of how to approach your ticket's tone and focus. Be full of information and motive, but not fluff. The exhausted guy at the office desk doesn’t want to read your sob stories—he doesn’t have the time, he doesn’t have the patience. You cannot possibly believe that anyone will feel bad for you-- you have to work for it. You are helping the staff help you; it must be a proactive, mutual effort that is clearly voiced.
Be mature, thorough, literate, and polite. Only let them know what they need to know. If you want your account back in the first place, they will know you are dedicated in some capacity already—sweet talk is cheap, but having an approach with awareness and preparedness is good.
Bad Way to Start Your Ticket: “Hello, TNT! –gives cookies despite this seeming to be a bad time— My name is Fred. I am a 17-year-old student from Oklahoma. I just wanted to write saying how disappointed and upset I was to be frozen—I’d like to remedy the issue if possible! I don’t know what happened or how it happened but I am extremely sad and can only hope I have a chance at getting my account back! My account is ____ and I’ve been playing Neopets forever and love my pets (especially fluffers), and let me just say…”
(Citing unnecessary details such as your name, age, occupation, etc. is a waste of time and a waste of space. Don't worry about making friends. If you spend too much time talking about yourself, and you'll be seen as selfish and immature like 99% of all other tickets written. It also brings on a flavor of flakiness right off the bat: why not get down to business? You have more valuable things to say, so get right to it. Where is your proof? What is the point? Where are the details and what are the circumstances? If you make waste by introducing yourself and setting up your points, you will have already lost the staff member assigned to your case.)
Good Way to Start Your Ticket: “I appreciate your time in looking into this case. I recently found my account, _____, to be frozen due to suspicions of illegally buying/selling Neopets items. I am an eleven-year fan and player of Neopets and would like to assure that I have not intentionally partaken in such activity. I am not sure what led your team to freezing me, but I would like to assist in getting to the bottom of the issue. I am aware of and did take part in an odd exchange I would like to share that may be linked to this case when I was gifted a ______ on __/__/__. I received an item from a user on ___ by the name of ___ following an exchange regarding a ___ board. Considering the consequences my account has faced, I believe their intentions may have been to pass off trafficked items to uninvolved accounts.” (specified details/screenshots come next, and you are basically finished)
(Briefly expressing recognition/appreciation of your case being looked at can be a fine touch, especially if you feel funny without an introduction. Citing how long you've been into Neopets can also help you and add the friendly dimension rather than the other junk in the example above, but don't go into details. Dates, times, specifics are given right away-- the staff member looking into the case will not have to dig, search, and cringe through an awkward, touchy-feely ramble about pixels. You're on your way!)
Primary Methods of Ticket-Writing/Excuses:
If you want to get out of trouble for buying, there are three main cards you must choose from. Take the story and make it your own.
Approach 1: “I have had a prior exchange with the person that sent me (transaction).”
You’re essentially throwing your seller’s sending Neopets account under the bus (read my disclaimer) therefore you need to make sure you are within your rights. If they are already frozen, however, it doesn’t matter (they cannot and will not get their account back, period). You are creating a fake but known persona on their behalf and blatantly lying about it, which may bring on outside trouble if you aren’t careful.
The scenario you need to paint: you and a newly obtained acquaintance had a recent conversation about gifting items/NPs/pets over a Neopets-certified/recommended forum that offers a private messaging system (NOT Neopets itself, since TNT has archives). Your acquaintance agreed to send you the item/pet/NP as a nice gesture to help you out. (scapegoating TDN is best. Non-Neopets related or certified sites are almost always useless- I mean, who randomly meets people and gifts items on Tumblr?) Consider citing the offsite username that sent you the items and the username on the fansite as well as yours. Screenshots will do you well—how do you get them, you ask? You create two accounts on the offsite medium and forge an exchange via private message. Visually change minor details such as date and time and send the screenshots off.
Describe the exchange you and the offsite acquaintance you had as “odd” or “random”, but treat it as though you simply thought of it as an act of kindness between yourself and a rich stranger on the boards. In the ticket, admit that you now realize that this individual seemed sketchy and may have had the intentions to pass off ill-gained Neopets merchandise to innocent users. Make your concern for the future of other users known! Your job as buyers is to make it seem as though “naughty-gifter/trafficking recruiter” types run rampant in order for this unfreezing approach to be continually bought.
If you are uncomfortable or completely inexperienced, your best bet is to follow the directions above but simply say “a Neopets-related forum” instead of attributing specific certified websites and including screenshots. It’s vague, but can be passable with the right amount of good talk. I have personally gotten away with such ambiguity.
Approach 2: “I understood prior to the freezing that (my transaction) was suspicious."
“That guy sending me the Royal PB WAS weird, wasn’t it?”
This is a much simpler yet inferior approach to “I’ve had a prior exchange,”. Why? Because there was no "exchange". Lame, right?
It seems silly, but this approach can be useful. This can be done if you are not within your rights to create a fake seller persona/send your seller’s transacting account under the bus. It's completely fair.
The scenario you need to paint is as follows: you are essentially doing nothing but simply acknowledging that you received an item/pet/extremely generous junk-trade offer randomly without any prior contact and presumed that it was a random act of kindness. Acknowledge that it was random and a little weird, but you decided not to take action. Now that you have been frozen, you are worried that whatever was sent to you was the cause of your demise. You are banking off of your honesty and awareness of the suspiciousness—you happily accepted and used the item, but felt uneasy in doing so due to hearing things about Neopets traffickers sending off ill-gotten items to innocent users in order to shift blame or get others frozen.
You are to apologize in your ticket for not reporting the suspicious exchange beforehand/not asking the sender their intentions or if the sent item was all a big mistake. You got excited about receiving the free stuff and decided not to take action. (You need not apologize if your user-lookup has a Wish List [a smart thing to have as a buyer] and there’s a bonus—the ‘random act of kindness’ seems much more buyable in this case, and may even bail your seller’s account.)
All lip, no screenshots. It’s risky, but it can work.
(By the way, if you bought a single measly “legit” ETS item for the first time, didn't act out on the NeoBoards and you still got iced, the seller’s ass needs to be kicked. It’s downright unlikely unless you’ve been buying lies.)
Approach 3: “I’ve been compromised!”
Well, it’s hard to act like you’ve been compromised without being compromised. Playing the “my account has been hacked!” card is pretty lame and risky, explaining yourself honestly as an illegal buyer won’t get you anywhere.
The scenario you need to paint: you haven’t necessarily lost access to your account (that would be redundant; your password hasn’t changed, remember?) but you fear that someone has entered it and performed business that you weren’t aware of on your offline hours. Don’t try playing the “someone has hacked my e-mail” card with this—the first thing an e-mail hacker would do isn’t get into your Neopets account. Furthermore, knowing your e-mail’s information wouldn’t allow someone to get automatic access into your account—they would need to resend your information to said e-mail, which TNT would have accounted for. While it’s unlikely that an account hacker would mess with your stuff and buy/sell/transfer illicit items without changing your login information, you’ll simply have to go with it. Basically, this: “I had noticed some suspicious activity going on in and around my account (cite your transactions here, an incomplete and inaccurate list will do best), and I kept being logged out (presumably due to the conflict of being logged in another computer). I found that I was frozen the next time I tried logging in a few days later, before I could send a ticket explaining rhe details. I wanted to assure that I am not the one that has been transferring potentially bought/sold Neopets ____. I believe I’ve been compromised.”
It is helpful to cite potentially sketchy webpages that you may have visited (don’t do any linking). A cookie grabber or outside keylogger (attributed to some weird Freewebs page or something) that you potentially visited may have allegedly done you in—you tried visiting a Neopets-related offsite page and weird browser activity ensued. I’ll leave you to do the BS’ing from here, but you get the idea. Be careful if you wish to incorporate any screenshots—it may help you or hurt you depending on your skill level.
This will only have a true shot at working if your bad deed that sealed the deal was recent enough to believe you logged in, found suspicious activity, was repeatedly being kicked out by the IP conflicts and didn’t have enough time to ticket the issue before being frozen—sorry.
The above method probably will not help you get your account in question back (if it does, it’ll take a very long time and you will get very lucky) especially if it’s been compromised. However, it MAY save you from an IP ban or being chain frozen through all of your accounts (depending on how you cite the way you suspect being compromised, if at all).
Getting a Faster Response from TNT
Ticket status: Keep an eye on your ticket’s status. It can take weeks to be processed/investigated thoroughly, and it probably will. If it says “Closed,” and you didn’t get a response, it means your ticket didn’t have enough information or was complete garbage. Send another with an apologetic acknowledgement of any faults that you see in your last ticket- if you get snubbed, send a PM to me with your submission and scenario or another willing member as a second pair of eyes to see what might have went wrong.
Emailing the support team: Hop on the e-mail that owns your account (or an e-mail that owns one of your side accounts) and send a message to support neopets.com (without space, I don’t wanna link people) for what can be a potentially faster response. You won’t get something immediate or super-personalized: it’ll be like the ticket system in e-mail form. In order to have a valid excuse to e-mail them and warrant a response, first cite that you are having trouble viewing the tickets system onsite. Say that you use Google Chrome but still can't see it, as the tickets system is avidly advertised to work best while using Chrome—they now can’t say no to you.
Screenshots and Their Benefits:
If you’re playing the “I’ve been compromised,” card, true screenshots taken of your account in the past (before purchasing/when you’ve been “hacked”) are always good—it doesn’t look like it’ll help you right off the bat (especially since you haven’t been compromised) but it will show that you are truly concerned for “getting back” your account and maintaining full access to it.
Fake screenshots can work only if you are skilled and know when and where to use them. Be cautious and smart about it; hire outside help if needed. Here are some tips:
DON’T:
-Fake a screenshot of a Neomail, board post, or anything that TNT can possibly have an archive of.
-Fake a screenshot of any website such as Facebook or any non-Neopets related forum. Showing off your fake conversation with Johnny on MySpace isn’t going to help you—TNT knows how common fake screenies are. Why would you need to show them off-site screenshots when you should be able to prove yourself with on-site screenshots and real account details?
-Fake a screenshot of personal browsing pages (such as Quick Refs or Pet Descriptions, the easiest to fake) when you aren’t absolutely positive of its accuracy.
-EVER fake a past screenshot of the Neopets homepage—it is constantly changing, and you will never get it right. Using the few caches available online is quite risky, and Neopets is usually excluded from Internet archiving websites. Plus, why would you have needed to screenshot your homepage exactly three years ago? What your screenshot shows, if possible, should have a tinge of motive.
-Reference another website’s message/exchange logs (if Neopets-related) with fake usernames. Create them yourself if you have to.
-Make any fake screenshots if you suck. It is a risky business, and something bad will kiss your accounts goodbye. Sorry; maybe you can pay someone to do it.
DO:
-Make fake screenshots (or pay someone to do it) of message logs that pertain to Neopets-recommended or certified fan-sites such as TDN. Making deals and friendships on such forums is commonplace, and can explain the onsite communication gaps suspected of ill transactions. It isn’t Neopets, but it’ll come off as more close-to-home, as if it occurred naturally, and honest moreso than whatever sketchy sports forum a random guy contacted you on. Make and customize a fake account or two on your Neopets-certified cite to forge an exchange to paint a you-versus-sketchy account scene. Will TNT and TDN mods talk? Perhaps, but it is highly unlikely. Don’t worry about the small details, just get the job done.
-Include any screenshots of your past accounts. In this case, a screenie’d homepage for whatever reason does help if it is genuine.
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I’ve been called out on an item/Neopet/account by another user! What now?
Sometimes, to prosper in Neopia and get exactly what you want lies in the hands of your fellow Neopian—in order to get that, one might have to engage in talking to others in order to partake in trading, buying and selling, and exchanging Neopts. We get that. Consequentially, “laying low” might not be an option. But what if someone calls you out on your “up for trade” board saying that your UC pet’s cache reveals it might be a stolen or bought pet? What if someone on the BD chat or trading/shop chat asks incredulously of you suddenly popping up on the boards rich, famous and well-equipped with amazing pets and items? What if you log into a shell or abandoned main and an old Neofriend or board members call you out?
DON’T RUN. Don’t hide, don’t leave the board or feel compelled to ignore every single Neomail. Don’t let people report you and allow TNT to invest the situation without you, the subject of the drama, getting a single word in. Remember how we talked about being proactive?
Here’s what you do for each scenario:
Someone called me out on a bought/stolen pet.
-If you have bought a legit pet from your seller and someone asks where the hell you got it from all of a sudden, simply tell them something along the lines of “It was a gift from my friend ______ so I could trade him and achieve my dream pet, which is _______.” In this case, being verbose and fluffy to explain yourself on the NeoBoards is to your benefit (remember, this isn’t business anymore, it’s social appearances)—the more dedicated you seem, the more likely they will be to leave you alone. If you do not remember the seller’s name that “gifted” you, check the pet’s cache (type cache:[pet-lookup link] on Google) and reference the last account you see freely. You can also try asking your seller via the forums to vouch for you or perhaps even make a board in your defense if the Pound Chat jumps you; trust me, it’ll help save their ass too. Legit pets aren’t much to worry about, however. NEVER act as though you don’t know who gifted you. If the cache isn’t telling you, make something up. Playing dumb in this situation will not get you anywhere.
-If you have bought a taken pet from an inactive account and your pet’s cache reveals that it’s been recently nabbed illegally, you have a 99% chance of being called out on the boards or via Neomail these days if you make appearances. This is ESPECIALLY true if it is an unconverted or high-BD pet. If you’re following my advice in this case, you probably didn’t know that. Express immediate alarm and concern in this situation and create a spectacle of finding the rightful owner. In terms of the cache issue, you simply didn’t know about it. Here’s the thing: if you’re called out with an obviously stolen pet and Neopians notice, that pet is as good as garbage. You have lost your money. In order to save your account from being frozen in this case due to being a link in the dirty trafficking, however, you must now write a ticket of your own to TNT expressing that you are worried (your fellow Neopians expressed to you) that your gifted/traded-for pet might be stolen. Yes, you heard me right. Write a ticket that rats yourself out BEFORE the real rats rat you out. Beat them at their own game. Tell on yourself before the PC'ers do because hey!-- you didn't know you had a stolen pet. TNT doesn't like Neoboard-talk of how to snoop pet caches anyway, so you had absolutely no idea. You need to send a report saying something along the lines of, "Folks on the Neoboard warned me that my recently adopted pet, ____, may be somehow stolen. My pet was given to me through ____ means by this individual. (gifting,trade, etc. Use the "I've had a prior exchange," approach here). Can you please look into this?" If you play your cards right and experience the best-case scenario, the pet will be taken from your account and frozen. However, your account will not be.
-If you have bought a taken pet from an inactive or semi-active account and the old owner or someone sketchy comes along and says it’s been taken from them, your money is also likely gone. Even if the so-called “old owner” or “old friend” who wants their pet back isn’t genuine, you musn’t take your chances. The sketchy individual likely somehow knows that you’ve bought the pet or have gotten it through ill-means, and they are trying to bank off of your fear. Your money may be good as gone. If the old owner proves that the pet used to be theirs, give it back to them and write a ticket. If someone cannot prove prior ownership, write a ticket as instructed in the above paragraph expressing your concern and tell the sketchy individual to coordinate in writing a ticket as well.
Someone accused me of buying or stealing my items (super BD, ETS that you’re trading, etc.)
There's no difficulty to this: they're jealous and hoping to call your bluff.
Just because you’re a new kid on the block of riches and trading like an elite doesn’t mean they have the grounds to report you. Items are quite easy to deal with (unless they have been stolen and are rare/recognizable), and damage control in this realm is primarily meant to be between you and TNT—jealous board fiends cannot prove anything whatsoever. Don’t act overtly defensive or suspicious. The best way to defend yourself in this case is to ignore it and partake in private exchanges (Neomailing advertisements on the boards to buyers/traders) instead of making spectacles. If you’re pulling ridiculous stunts, TNT will take care of it first. Yes, that is a warning.
Someone accused me of stealing/buying an account that I bought.
(If this happens to you, you are quite unlucky.)
-If you have an account via unregistered e-mail, your best bet is to ignore old Neofriends of the account (what can they possibly do to you for not responding?)—you’re likely to be just fine so long as you don’t open your mouth. However, be very careful in making drastic moves with the account’s pets, items, NP, user lookup and preferences, etc. Try to carry on trends and habits visibly left behind by the old owner and fade them out. An “I’m back,” message (if the unreg account was socially active and can be reasonably personified by what’s left behind) is optional.
-If you do not have access to the account’s e-mail and someone accuses you of stealing or buying the shell/inactive account (which is quite rare in itself), you may have to drop the act. Making a small “coming back from hiatus” spectacle may work in your favor however. Drop/ignore old Neofriends, and consider making a preventative ticket expressing concern regarding changing IP because of a different computer/location (an “I’m just making sure that I’ll be okay.” ticket, which will probably get closed right away meaning you’re in the clear).
If nobody even accuses you with messing with accounts in the first place, don’t do squat!
I haven’t been frozen, but I’m scared to buy! Give me tips!
-Always, always, ALWAYS remember and save the Neopets usernames that give you goods you bought. You can always use a vouch or at least know what you’re talking about.
-If you are buying a Neopet and planning to trade it around on the Neoboards ALWAYS buy legit or secondhand legit (someone bought a legit pet, and is now selling it to you). Under no circumstances does anything else reach the same caliber of safety. If you absolutely must trade around a pet that is illegit by any means, use Neomail instead of the boards: people who you want nothing to do with will be nosy and get in your business, and you have better chances of laying low with a one-on-one exchange.
-If you must make public appearances or fear drawing attention with your fancy new trades, pets, etc…put some effort into your account, simply said. Go public, become accomplished (or at least create the guise that you are accomplished). Make friends on the PC, put effort into your User Lookup. Wish Lists help ease item buying and pet-buying suspicions even if with illegit origins. TNT WILL overlook minor suspicions if your account looks as though it’s been worked on. It will not excuse you, but it cannot hurt you. A shell that’s been sitting for 86 months with no pets, no avatars, no games played and 150,000,000 in mysteriously-earned ETS will hurt you, though.
And Finally…Introducing the Bunny System!
Secrecy and staying hidden, in my experience, is where many traffickers find their downfall. Keeping up appearances, working hard, and being known as a legit player is to your benefit as a high-profile yet infrequent, reasonable buyer. Though many will disagree with me, my methods have worked many times. Hatching purposeful, considerate plans with your seller to make Neomail or Neoboard exchanges onsite in order to legitimize your transactions and leave TNT with a case if ever needed: I call it the Bunny System (no, not the Buddy System. You're not making buddies, you're having a quick, mutual, and highly productive encounter like bunnies. You're also doing it to make appearances and to look legit and "cute". Bunny System.)
The idea is to cover your tracks by openly communicating with your seller (posing as real-life friends, Neofriends, merchants of your trade, etc.). This way, TNT will have a basis to look upon suspicious transactions that aren’t random. Making legit, open communications and appearances on Neopets amongst you and your seller’s buying and selling accounts adds an extra dimension of safety for you.
Buying a pet? Your seller’s transacting account can make a board describing a dream pet giveaway. With some smart timing, you and your seller can consensually coordinate an on-site appearance whereas a trade is occurring.
Imagine this: your seller poses as a legit-playing Neopian with a UC Mutant Scorchio. Your seller also happens to be looking to buy the perfect masculine basic name. A UFT board may ensue and your “offer” of one of your VWN basics may be just the trick as the seller replies with a cheery “Neomail me, I may consider!”. A Neomail exchange with the details of this trade happens and the trade is completed! Is it a bit risky? Sure it is! Is the trade a bit unrealistic and surprising? Yep. But who the hell is to say that it’s an illegal, inadequate, or suspicious trade? TNT never liked trading or putting “value” on pets, and it won’t be looked into. Just like that, you have a story and proof.
Buyers and sellers staying involved in the Neopets community and burdening themselves to go the extra mile a bit can keep the trafficking world a bit safer one day at a time. Even a seller sending a “I hope you enjoy the PB! Heard you were looking for one but didn’t have the NP.” Neomail doesn’t hurt you. It helps everyone keep track of things.
Try it! Offer a seller a few extra bucks if you have to in order to play along.
Note: If you adopt the Bunny System, don’t make permanent circles of buying/selling friends and open cliques of friends on the Neoboards who all take turns buying, selling, and trading with one another. One slip-up, and you’re all fried. One-on-one, often-fleeting acquaintanceships are most common in the Neopian social world, so stick with that! Anonymity and short relationships are good in the realm of sketchiness and skeeves.
Final Notes:
No, this stuff doesn’t always work. In fact, it doesn’t work even half the time. Escape artists are few in number, and even the most deserving of legit Neopians can’t get out of pickles (half the time caused by folks like us). Don’t take this guide too seriously, but there is no loss in attempting to save your accounts.
Thanks for your time!
Like many illegitimate buyers are afraid to admit, particularly as first-timers, you may secretly suffer from an extreme case of ‘give-a-damn’. Nobody wants to get themselves or others frozen.
You’re smart enough to avoid scammers and ill transactions on the forums—-the real problem at hand is fearing that your account will be frozen or coping with the fact that your account has been frozen! Regaining your rights to play safely and freely on Neopets can be a difficult journey with dicey success rates.
If you have been frozen or you believe you’re at-risk due to buying something over the forums, I have (in my clumsy experiences) discovered a few methods to help YOU in both prevention and recovery. Want your good ol’ main back? Made a bad move and want to wriggle out of getting hit by TNT? Just want to be careful? Read on!
First Thing’s First:
1. By buying Neopets items, points, NeoCash or NeoCash items, accounts, pets, trophies, etc. in the first place, you ARE taking a risk. No method is impeccably going to keep you out of trouble, and sellers are NOT responsible for what you do with your purchases.
2. Your risk and acceptance of the risk increases significantly if you choose to buy anything blatantly illegit or stolen (from AutoBuying, hacking, scamming, Score-Sending, etc.). My guide primarily is most effective when used in buying the safest merchandise possible. Buying legit is often more expensive, but will decrease your risk of being caught.
3.If you must buy anything illegit for Neopets, first try to learn the importance of “securing”, letting things “sit”, and being unknown to the public eye (via the Neoboards). Examples of being a smart buyer: Don’t buy fifteen items in ETS in an hour; buying one or two more expensive items instead is the smarter option, and you can trade them off on your own. Don’t give Neopians reason to report you or shift blame. Though no methods of securing and laying low will completely keep you out of trouble, be sensible; maybe it’s better to keep your main account anonymous from sellers by having them send that Royal PB to your side account instead.
4. Man up: crying about your lost account, panicking and hiding, or shedding blame unto others on the forums won’t do you any good. To stay safe and have a shot at what you want on Neopets requires being proactive. Only you can get yourself out of trouble.
We ready to move on? Good.
Writing a Ticket if You’ve Been Frozen for Buying/Selling
DISCLAIMER: If you have been frozen for (presumably) buying Neopets stuff illegally, then there is an extremely high chance that the seller and his/her other consumers have been iced as well en masse. Forum-wise it is best to communicate with the seller first to know what exactly happened—do NOT make moves with iTrader or payment methods without contacting moderators on here with a valid case. This guide does not deal with seller-buyer issues on clraik, but what to do on NEOPETS.
Forums aren’t for blame-gaming, but Neopets ticket-writing is almost entirely about blame. If you are writhing to get your account back with this information I am giving you, I am assuming you’re within your rights (depending on the terms/conditions that you and your seller established) to speak out against the account that gave you your goods on NEOPETS.
If you are not comfortable or within your transaction case rights to speak out directly against the seller account, the details of your exchange and their intentions, DO NOT PROCEED.
Knowing What You’re in For: Perhaps you’re a frequent buyer and don’t know exactly what you bought that sparked TNT’s suspicions. Regardless, you need to focus on a single transaction or instance and reference to it.
“Wait, WHAT?”: People may tell you that it’s stupid to act like you know what happened, but it usually isn't. You may not know what the cause was, but you’d better act like it: any guess is better than no guess. To be ahead of the game and account for prior suspicions of ill-intentions on behalf of the account that sent you your goods is to your benefit. Making inferences instead of yet another “i don’t know what happened help pls i didn’t do anytingg!!!!” ticket will make for an actual CASE for TNT. The more you appear to know, the better. You need to give them something to look into. Tickets full of crying and playing dumb are received by the hundreds daily by TNT, and they will not do anything for you let alone respond.
If you believe you have been iced on the account of a large and fast buildup of purchases, DO NOT attempt to explain yourself regarding twenty Swords of Skardsen sent an hour ago from boopenoop2929292. In this case, you are to play the “I’ve been compromised,” approach (see below). In other words, it wasn’t you at all. Seem ridiculous? Well, what you did in the first place was pretty ridiculous—want your tainted account back? You need to lie, and you need to lie well.
If you believe you have been iced on the account of a single pet, item or transaction, you can explain yourself using either a “I’ve had a prior exchange with the person that sent me (transaction),” approach or “I understood prior to the freezing that (my transaction) was suspicious” (see below) approach. If you have had many transactions that are spread out reasonably, you are to assume the most recent one and follow the instructions above.
Know what category you belong to? Good—skip to “General Ticket-Writing Guidelines” under the header I directed you to. If not, read below.
Chain Frozen/Other:
If you have been iced all-around (even on accounts you didn’t transact from) or by your IP address, you are to assume you’re considered a key player in the merchant/consumer world of Neopets trafficking. I have worse news: you only have viable hope if you are a recent cheater, as in being within one month of acting up. Assume that you are seen to be a source, not just a leg in the buying/selling scandals. In other words, if you want your account back, it wasn’t you.
Follow the “I’ve been compromised,” method (see below) but with an alternative twinge. There is a high chance you will never get your accounts back, but if you must try a lame excuse, you are to play victim. You must act as though you are a semi-active player who has lost access to all of their accounts due to someone who has compromised all of them (citing a potential keylogger scenario, as explained below, would be appropriate here). You are unique among all the rest of the categories I listed above: you know nothing. You didn’t even know that you had been frozen. You know nothing about the scenarios except the last time you logged in (assume a time before you started buying) and a few things from your SBD or Key Quest tokens (things that have been on your accounts a very, very long time ago and generally aren’t account aspects one can buy). You tried to access your accounts, couldn’t get in, searched them, and found them to be disabled.
Using the “I’ve been compromised” method in extreme freezing cases, if anything, might get your account names and really old preexisting stuff back at best eventually but your illegit buying money spent is as good as dust. They might just tell you to make new accounts. Sorry!
Your only hope here is to get your IP allowance back. This section may seem a bit useless, but remember that maturity and realism pertaining to your goals will allow you to be taken more seriously.
General Ticket-Writing Guidelines
Learn the Language: Short, Sweet, and Tolerable:
You must first be aware of how to approach your ticket's tone and focus. Be full of information and motive, but not fluff. The exhausted guy at the office desk doesn’t want to read your sob stories—he doesn’t have the time, he doesn’t have the patience. You cannot possibly believe that anyone will feel bad for you-- you have to work for it. You are helping the staff help you; it must be a proactive, mutual effort that is clearly voiced.
Be mature, thorough, literate, and polite. Only let them know what they need to know. If you want your account back in the first place, they will know you are dedicated in some capacity already—sweet talk is cheap, but having an approach with awareness and preparedness is good.
Bad Way to Start Your Ticket: “Hello, TNT! –gives cookies despite this seeming to be a bad time— My name is Fred. I am a 17-year-old student from Oklahoma. I just wanted to write saying how disappointed and upset I was to be frozen—I’d like to remedy the issue if possible! I don’t know what happened or how it happened but I am extremely sad and can only hope I have a chance at getting my account back! My account is ____ and I’ve been playing Neopets forever and love my pets (especially fluffers), and let me just say…”
(Citing unnecessary details such as your name, age, occupation, etc. is a waste of time and a waste of space. Don't worry about making friends. If you spend too much time talking about yourself, and you'll be seen as selfish and immature like 99% of all other tickets written. It also brings on a flavor of flakiness right off the bat: why not get down to business? You have more valuable things to say, so get right to it. Where is your proof? What is the point? Where are the details and what are the circumstances? If you make waste by introducing yourself and setting up your points, you will have already lost the staff member assigned to your case.)
Good Way to Start Your Ticket: “I appreciate your time in looking into this case. I recently found my account, _____, to be frozen due to suspicions of illegally buying/selling Neopets items. I am an eleven-year fan and player of Neopets and would like to assure that I have not intentionally partaken in such activity. I am not sure what led your team to freezing me, but I would like to assist in getting to the bottom of the issue. I am aware of and did take part in an odd exchange I would like to share that may be linked to this case when I was gifted a ______ on __/__/__. I received an item from a user on ___ by the name of ___ following an exchange regarding a ___ board. Considering the consequences my account has faced, I believe their intentions may have been to pass off trafficked items to uninvolved accounts.” (specified details/screenshots come next, and you are basically finished)
(Briefly expressing recognition/appreciation of your case being looked at can be a fine touch, especially if you feel funny without an introduction. Citing how long you've been into Neopets can also help you and add the friendly dimension rather than the other junk in the example above, but don't go into details. Dates, times, specifics are given right away-- the staff member looking into the case will not have to dig, search, and cringe through an awkward, touchy-feely ramble about pixels. You're on your way!)
Primary Methods of Ticket-Writing/Excuses:
If you want to get out of trouble for buying, there are three main cards you must choose from. Take the story and make it your own.
Approach 1: “I have had a prior exchange with the person that sent me (transaction).”
You’re essentially throwing your seller’s sending Neopets account under the bus (read my disclaimer) therefore you need to make sure you are within your rights. If they are already frozen, however, it doesn’t matter (they cannot and will not get their account back, period). You are creating a fake but known persona on their behalf and blatantly lying about it, which may bring on outside trouble if you aren’t careful.
The scenario you need to paint: you and a newly obtained acquaintance had a recent conversation about gifting items/NPs/pets over a Neopets-certified/recommended forum that offers a private messaging system (NOT Neopets itself, since TNT has archives). Your acquaintance agreed to send you the item/pet/NP as a nice gesture to help you out. (scapegoating TDN is best. Non-Neopets related or certified sites are almost always useless- I mean, who randomly meets people and gifts items on Tumblr?) Consider citing the offsite username that sent you the items and the username on the fansite as well as yours. Screenshots will do you well—how do you get them, you ask? You create two accounts on the offsite medium and forge an exchange via private message. Visually change minor details such as date and time and send the screenshots off.
Describe the exchange you and the offsite acquaintance you had as “odd” or “random”, but treat it as though you simply thought of it as an act of kindness between yourself and a rich stranger on the boards. In the ticket, admit that you now realize that this individual seemed sketchy and may have had the intentions to pass off ill-gained Neopets merchandise to innocent users. Make your concern for the future of other users known! Your job as buyers is to make it seem as though “naughty-gifter/trafficking recruiter” types run rampant in order for this unfreezing approach to be continually bought.
If you are uncomfortable or completely inexperienced, your best bet is to follow the directions above but simply say “a Neopets-related forum” instead of attributing specific certified websites and including screenshots. It’s vague, but can be passable with the right amount of good talk. I have personally gotten away with such ambiguity.
Approach 2: “I understood prior to the freezing that (my transaction) was suspicious."
“That guy sending me the Royal PB WAS weird, wasn’t it?”
This is a much simpler yet inferior approach to “I’ve had a prior exchange,”. Why? Because there was no "exchange". Lame, right?
It seems silly, but this approach can be useful. This can be done if you are not within your rights to create a fake seller persona/send your seller’s transacting account under the bus. It's completely fair.
The scenario you need to paint is as follows: you are essentially doing nothing but simply acknowledging that you received an item/pet/extremely generous junk-trade offer randomly without any prior contact and presumed that it was a random act of kindness. Acknowledge that it was random and a little weird, but you decided not to take action. Now that you have been frozen, you are worried that whatever was sent to you was the cause of your demise. You are banking off of your honesty and awareness of the suspiciousness—you happily accepted and used the item, but felt uneasy in doing so due to hearing things about Neopets traffickers sending off ill-gotten items to innocent users in order to shift blame or get others frozen.
You are to apologize in your ticket for not reporting the suspicious exchange beforehand/not asking the sender their intentions or if the sent item was all a big mistake. You got excited about receiving the free stuff and decided not to take action. (You need not apologize if your user-lookup has a Wish List [a smart thing to have as a buyer] and there’s a bonus—the ‘random act of kindness’ seems much more buyable in this case, and may even bail your seller’s account.)
All lip, no screenshots. It’s risky, but it can work.
(By the way, if you bought a single measly “legit” ETS item for the first time, didn't act out on the NeoBoards and you still got iced, the seller’s ass needs to be kicked. It’s downright unlikely unless you’ve been buying lies.)
Approach 3: “I’ve been compromised!”
Well, it’s hard to act like you’ve been compromised without being compromised. Playing the “my account has been hacked!” card is pretty lame and risky, explaining yourself honestly as an illegal buyer won’t get you anywhere.
The scenario you need to paint: you haven’t necessarily lost access to your account (that would be redundant; your password hasn’t changed, remember?) but you fear that someone has entered it and performed business that you weren’t aware of on your offline hours. Don’t try playing the “someone has hacked my e-mail” card with this—the first thing an e-mail hacker would do isn’t get into your Neopets account. Furthermore, knowing your e-mail’s information wouldn’t allow someone to get automatic access into your account—they would need to resend your information to said e-mail, which TNT would have accounted for. While it’s unlikely that an account hacker would mess with your stuff and buy/sell/transfer illicit items without changing your login information, you’ll simply have to go with it. Basically, this: “I had noticed some suspicious activity going on in and around my account (cite your transactions here, an incomplete and inaccurate list will do best), and I kept being logged out (presumably due to the conflict of being logged in another computer). I found that I was frozen the next time I tried logging in a few days later, before I could send a ticket explaining rhe details. I wanted to assure that I am not the one that has been transferring potentially bought/sold Neopets ____. I believe I’ve been compromised.”
It is helpful to cite potentially sketchy webpages that you may have visited (don’t do any linking). A cookie grabber or outside keylogger (attributed to some weird Freewebs page or something) that you potentially visited may have allegedly done you in—you tried visiting a Neopets-related offsite page and weird browser activity ensued. I’ll leave you to do the BS’ing from here, but you get the idea. Be careful if you wish to incorporate any screenshots—it may help you or hurt you depending on your skill level.
This will only have a true shot at working if your bad deed that sealed the deal was recent enough to believe you logged in, found suspicious activity, was repeatedly being kicked out by the IP conflicts and didn’t have enough time to ticket the issue before being frozen—sorry.
The above method probably will not help you get your account in question back (if it does, it’ll take a very long time and you will get very lucky) especially if it’s been compromised. However, it MAY save you from an IP ban or being chain frozen through all of your accounts (depending on how you cite the way you suspect being compromised, if at all).
Getting a Faster Response from TNT
Ticket status: Keep an eye on your ticket’s status. It can take weeks to be processed/investigated thoroughly, and it probably will. If it says “Closed,” and you didn’t get a response, it means your ticket didn’t have enough information or was complete garbage. Send another with an apologetic acknowledgement of any faults that you see in your last ticket- if you get snubbed, send a PM to me with your submission and scenario or another willing member as a second pair of eyes to see what might have went wrong.
Emailing the support team: Hop on the e-mail that owns your account (or an e-mail that owns one of your side accounts) and send a message to support neopets.com (without space, I don’t wanna link people) for what can be a potentially faster response. You won’t get something immediate or super-personalized: it’ll be like the ticket system in e-mail form. In order to have a valid excuse to e-mail them and warrant a response, first cite that you are having trouble viewing the tickets system onsite. Say that you use Google Chrome but still can't see it, as the tickets system is avidly advertised to work best while using Chrome—they now can’t say no to you.
Screenshots and Their Benefits:
If you’re playing the “I’ve been compromised,” card, true screenshots taken of your account in the past (before purchasing/when you’ve been “hacked”) are always good—it doesn’t look like it’ll help you right off the bat (especially since you haven’t been compromised) but it will show that you are truly concerned for “getting back” your account and maintaining full access to it.
Fake screenshots can work only if you are skilled and know when and where to use them. Be cautious and smart about it; hire outside help if needed. Here are some tips:
DON’T:
-Fake a screenshot of a Neomail, board post, or anything that TNT can possibly have an archive of.
-Fake a screenshot of any website such as Facebook or any non-Neopets related forum. Showing off your fake conversation with Johnny on MySpace isn’t going to help you—TNT knows how common fake screenies are. Why would you need to show them off-site screenshots when you should be able to prove yourself with on-site screenshots and real account details?
-Fake a screenshot of personal browsing pages (such as Quick Refs or Pet Descriptions, the easiest to fake) when you aren’t absolutely positive of its accuracy.
-EVER fake a past screenshot of the Neopets homepage—it is constantly changing, and you will never get it right. Using the few caches available online is quite risky, and Neopets is usually excluded from Internet archiving websites. Plus, why would you have needed to screenshot your homepage exactly three years ago? What your screenshot shows, if possible, should have a tinge of motive.
-Reference another website’s message/exchange logs (if Neopets-related) with fake usernames. Create them yourself if you have to.
-Make any fake screenshots if you suck. It is a risky business, and something bad will kiss your accounts goodbye. Sorry; maybe you can pay someone to do it.
DO:
-Make fake screenshots (or pay someone to do it) of message logs that pertain to Neopets-recommended or certified fan-sites such as TDN. Making deals and friendships on such forums is commonplace, and can explain the onsite communication gaps suspected of ill transactions. It isn’t Neopets, but it’ll come off as more close-to-home, as if it occurred naturally, and honest moreso than whatever sketchy sports forum a random guy contacted you on. Make and customize a fake account or two on your Neopets-certified cite to forge an exchange to paint a you-versus-sketchy account scene. Will TNT and TDN mods talk? Perhaps, but it is highly unlikely. Don’t worry about the small details, just get the job done.
-Include any screenshots of your past accounts. In this case, a screenie’d homepage for whatever reason does help if it is genuine.
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I’ve been called out on an item/Neopet/account by another user! What now?
Sometimes, to prosper in Neopia and get exactly what you want lies in the hands of your fellow Neopian—in order to get that, one might have to engage in talking to others in order to partake in trading, buying and selling, and exchanging Neopts. We get that. Consequentially, “laying low” might not be an option. But what if someone calls you out on your “up for trade” board saying that your UC pet’s cache reveals it might be a stolen or bought pet? What if someone on the BD chat or trading/shop chat asks incredulously of you suddenly popping up on the boards rich, famous and well-equipped with amazing pets and items? What if you log into a shell or abandoned main and an old Neofriend or board members call you out?
DON’T RUN. Don’t hide, don’t leave the board or feel compelled to ignore every single Neomail. Don’t let people report you and allow TNT to invest the situation without you, the subject of the drama, getting a single word in. Remember how we talked about being proactive?
Here’s what you do for each scenario:
Someone called me out on a bought/stolen pet.
-If you have bought a legit pet from your seller and someone asks where the hell you got it from all of a sudden, simply tell them something along the lines of “It was a gift from my friend ______ so I could trade him and achieve my dream pet, which is _______.” In this case, being verbose and fluffy to explain yourself on the NeoBoards is to your benefit (remember, this isn’t business anymore, it’s social appearances)—the more dedicated you seem, the more likely they will be to leave you alone. If you do not remember the seller’s name that “gifted” you, check the pet’s cache (type cache:[pet-lookup link] on Google) and reference the last account you see freely. You can also try asking your seller via the forums to vouch for you or perhaps even make a board in your defense if the Pound Chat jumps you; trust me, it’ll help save their ass too. Legit pets aren’t much to worry about, however. NEVER act as though you don’t know who gifted you. If the cache isn’t telling you, make something up. Playing dumb in this situation will not get you anywhere.
-If you have bought a taken pet from an inactive account and your pet’s cache reveals that it’s been recently nabbed illegally, you have a 99% chance of being called out on the boards or via Neomail these days if you make appearances. This is ESPECIALLY true if it is an unconverted or high-BD pet. If you’re following my advice in this case, you probably didn’t know that. Express immediate alarm and concern in this situation and create a spectacle of finding the rightful owner. In terms of the cache issue, you simply didn’t know about it. Here’s the thing: if you’re called out with an obviously stolen pet and Neopians notice, that pet is as good as garbage. You have lost your money. In order to save your account from being frozen in this case due to being a link in the dirty trafficking, however, you must now write a ticket of your own to TNT expressing that you are worried (your fellow Neopians expressed to you) that your gifted/traded-for pet might be stolen. Yes, you heard me right. Write a ticket that rats yourself out BEFORE the real rats rat you out. Beat them at their own game. Tell on yourself before the PC'ers do because hey!-- you didn't know you had a stolen pet. TNT doesn't like Neoboard-talk of how to snoop pet caches anyway, so you had absolutely no idea. You need to send a report saying something along the lines of, "Folks on the Neoboard warned me that my recently adopted pet, ____, may be somehow stolen. My pet was given to me through ____ means by this individual. (gifting,trade, etc. Use the "I've had a prior exchange," approach here). Can you please look into this?" If you play your cards right and experience the best-case scenario, the pet will be taken from your account and frozen. However, your account will not be.
-If you have bought a taken pet from an inactive or semi-active account and the old owner or someone sketchy comes along and says it’s been taken from them, your money is also likely gone. Even if the so-called “old owner” or “old friend” who wants their pet back isn’t genuine, you musn’t take your chances. The sketchy individual likely somehow knows that you’ve bought the pet or have gotten it through ill-means, and they are trying to bank off of your fear. Your money may be good as gone. If the old owner proves that the pet used to be theirs, give it back to them and write a ticket. If someone cannot prove prior ownership, write a ticket as instructed in the above paragraph expressing your concern and tell the sketchy individual to coordinate in writing a ticket as well.
Someone accused me of buying or stealing my items (super BD, ETS that you’re trading, etc.)
There's no difficulty to this: they're jealous and hoping to call your bluff.
Just because you’re a new kid on the block of riches and trading like an elite doesn’t mean they have the grounds to report you. Items are quite easy to deal with (unless they have been stolen and are rare/recognizable), and damage control in this realm is primarily meant to be between you and TNT—jealous board fiends cannot prove anything whatsoever. Don’t act overtly defensive or suspicious. The best way to defend yourself in this case is to ignore it and partake in private exchanges (Neomailing advertisements on the boards to buyers/traders) instead of making spectacles. If you’re pulling ridiculous stunts, TNT will take care of it first. Yes, that is a warning.
Someone accused me of stealing/buying an account that I bought.
(If this happens to you, you are quite unlucky.)
-If you have an account via unregistered e-mail, your best bet is to ignore old Neofriends of the account (what can they possibly do to you for not responding?)—you’re likely to be just fine so long as you don’t open your mouth. However, be very careful in making drastic moves with the account’s pets, items, NP, user lookup and preferences, etc. Try to carry on trends and habits visibly left behind by the old owner and fade them out. An “I’m back,” message (if the unreg account was socially active and can be reasonably personified by what’s left behind) is optional.
-If you do not have access to the account’s e-mail and someone accuses you of stealing or buying the shell/inactive account (which is quite rare in itself), you may have to drop the act. Making a small “coming back from hiatus” spectacle may work in your favor however. Drop/ignore old Neofriends, and consider making a preventative ticket expressing concern regarding changing IP because of a different computer/location (an “I’m just making sure that I’ll be okay.” ticket, which will probably get closed right away meaning you’re in the clear).
If nobody even accuses you with messing with accounts in the first place, don’t do squat!
I haven’t been frozen, but I’m scared to buy! Give me tips!
-Always, always, ALWAYS remember and save the Neopets usernames that give you goods you bought. You can always use a vouch or at least know what you’re talking about.
-If you are buying a Neopet and planning to trade it around on the Neoboards ALWAYS buy legit or secondhand legit (someone bought a legit pet, and is now selling it to you). Under no circumstances does anything else reach the same caliber of safety. If you absolutely must trade around a pet that is illegit by any means, use Neomail instead of the boards: people who you want nothing to do with will be nosy and get in your business, and you have better chances of laying low with a one-on-one exchange.
-If you must make public appearances or fear drawing attention with your fancy new trades, pets, etc…put some effort into your account, simply said. Go public, become accomplished (or at least create the guise that you are accomplished). Make friends on the PC, put effort into your User Lookup. Wish Lists help ease item buying and pet-buying suspicions even if with illegit origins. TNT WILL overlook minor suspicions if your account looks as though it’s been worked on. It will not excuse you, but it cannot hurt you. A shell that’s been sitting for 86 months with no pets, no avatars, no games played and 150,000,000 in mysteriously-earned ETS will hurt you, though.
And Finally…Introducing the Bunny System!
Secrecy and staying hidden, in my experience, is where many traffickers find their downfall. Keeping up appearances, working hard, and being known as a legit player is to your benefit as a high-profile yet infrequent, reasonable buyer. Though many will disagree with me, my methods have worked many times. Hatching purposeful, considerate plans with your seller to make Neomail or Neoboard exchanges onsite in order to legitimize your transactions and leave TNT with a case if ever needed: I call it the Bunny System (no, not the Buddy System. You're not making buddies, you're having a quick, mutual, and highly productive encounter like bunnies. You're also doing it to make appearances and to look legit and "cute". Bunny System.)
The idea is to cover your tracks by openly communicating with your seller (posing as real-life friends, Neofriends, merchants of your trade, etc.). This way, TNT will have a basis to look upon suspicious transactions that aren’t random. Making legit, open communications and appearances on Neopets amongst you and your seller’s buying and selling accounts adds an extra dimension of safety for you.
Buying a pet? Your seller’s transacting account can make a board describing a dream pet giveaway. With some smart timing, you and your seller can consensually coordinate an on-site appearance whereas a trade is occurring.
Imagine this: your seller poses as a legit-playing Neopian with a UC Mutant Scorchio. Your seller also happens to be looking to buy the perfect masculine basic name. A UFT board may ensue and your “offer” of one of your VWN basics may be just the trick as the seller replies with a cheery “Neomail me, I may consider!”. A Neomail exchange with the details of this trade happens and the trade is completed! Is it a bit risky? Sure it is! Is the trade a bit unrealistic and surprising? Yep. But who the hell is to say that it’s an illegal, inadequate, or suspicious trade? TNT never liked trading or putting “value” on pets, and it won’t be looked into. Just like that, you have a story and proof.
Buyers and sellers staying involved in the Neopets community and burdening themselves to go the extra mile a bit can keep the trafficking world a bit safer one day at a time. Even a seller sending a “I hope you enjoy the PB! Heard you were looking for one but didn’t have the NP.” Neomail doesn’t hurt you. It helps everyone keep track of things.
Try it! Offer a seller a few extra bucks if you have to in order to play along.
Note: If you adopt the Bunny System, don’t make permanent circles of buying/selling friends and open cliques of friends on the Neoboards who all take turns buying, selling, and trading with one another. One slip-up, and you’re all fried. One-on-one, often-fleeting acquaintanceships are most common in the Neopian social world, so stick with that! Anonymity and short relationships are good in the realm of sketchiness and skeeves.
Final Notes:
No, this stuff doesn’t always work. In fact, it doesn’t work even half the time. Escape artists are few in number, and even the most deserving of legit Neopians can’t get out of pickles (half the time caused by folks like us). Don’t take this guide too seriously, but there is no loss in attempting to save your accounts.
Thanks for your time!