The telegrab scam is another well known scam, that’s especially dangerous for players who are not yet familiar with the High Risk worlds mechanics in OSRS. As any other scam it works because of the lack of knowledge and the desire to gain something fast on the victim’s side which the scammers leverage to their advantage.
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World types in OSRS
In Old School RuneScape there are several types of worlds or servers that work slightly different than regular worlds. For example, there are dedicated servers for temporary events like Deadman mode or Leagues, or servers dedicated to permanent distinct activities like the PvP arena, or Quest Speedrunning. They are marked with stars of different colours than the regular golden star for members worlds.
While most of the regular worlds have PvP enabled only in the Wilderness and combat rings inside POHs, there are a few worlds that have PvP enabled everywhere with the exception of a few safespots like banks. They are marked with red stars.
Both the non-PvP worlds (the worlds in which PvP is possible only in the Wilderness) and the PvP worlds can be High Risk worlds. This is extremely relevant for the telegrab scam because many of its variations take place in High Risk Worlds.
High Risk Worlds
According to the wiki High Risk worlds “are worlds where players will lose all items on death due to having a special skull status over the head at all times. The Protect Item prayer does not work on these worlds”. Basically, if you die, you lose everything that’s on you without keeping the regular 3 most valuable items or 3+1 if you had the protect from item prayer on.
Telegrab scam – summary
The telegrab scam or telekinetic gram scam starts innocently days or weeks before you actually get scammed. The scammer will start by gaining your trust through repeated interactions, pretty much like any social engineering scam, and then they’ll ask you to come in a High Risk world using either false promises of GP or of anti-luring a scammer. Once in a High Risk world they either make use of a glitch, a similarly named character, or close the trade window to make your character move outside the safe area. The final step is killing you and obtaining all of the items you had on you and in your inventory. As always there are many variations of the same scam.
Telegrab Scam – Step 1 – Earning Trust
The first step for the telgrab scam is earning your trust. This can start days or weeks before the actual scam. Don’t think that just because someone texts you on discord or adds you somewhere other than OSRS they are legit. Scammers are very creative when it comes to finding ways of earning trust. They could use gifts, chat, fake friendliness, and even teach you new content to earn your trust.
Telegrab Scam – Step 2 – High Risk World
After the scammer feels they earned your trust, they will then proceed to play the “maiden in need” asking for your help. To help them you would need to hop into a PvP high risk world where you could lose all the items. But why hop to a High Risk world?
Telegrab Scam – The Pretense
This is where the scam’s name derives from, the pretense for the scam. The scammer will motivate that they need your help to telegrab some items that are being dropped in a High Risk PvP world so no one else takes them. They will reassure you that it’s safe and all that, but…
Note that they can also invoke other reasons and not this one necessarily, but their main aim will be to get you to hop in a PvP High Risk wolrd.
Telegrab Scam – Step 3 – The Plan
They will show you the tile to be on and tell you to hop to a World under their team-mate who they say is a lurer / scammer etc. They will tell you to team up with them and that they will drop items on the ground in a safe spot and that they need you to log in under the other player and telegrab the items they drop.
Telegrab Scam – Step 4 – The Blame
After you telegrab some items they will then blame you for missing some more valuable ones and then they will ask you to go again, only this time you will be the one dropping some items and they will be the ones logging in under and telegrabing.
Telegrab Scam – Step 5 – The Trade
The next step in this scam is to convince you to trade them right then and there. If they grabbed your items, they won’t need to do much convincing, but this is where the final blow of the scam goes.
Telegrab Scam – The SCAM
There are multiple know variations of the final step, but as previously mentioned, scammers are creative, so be aware at all times.
Similar name trade
They will initiate a trade from a character with a very similar name as their main. Upon clicking to trade your character will start moving towards them exiting the safe spot and then they’ll kill you.
Cancelling the trade
They will ask you to remove items from the trade and cancel the trade at the same time and you’ll click and move outside the safe spot and get killed. Again because you’re in a High Risk world you will lose all of your items.
Telegrab Scam Prevention
The prevention for this scam is pretty much as for any other, but mainly don’t hop to High Risk Worlds, don’t try anti-scamming and anti-luring, and keep your valuables safe in your bank. On top of this, keep your chat on private and stay informed.
