With the new launch of 2014 Huddle and Kick, many of you likely play more than one app at any given time. At the same point, its also a great situation to be able to trade across the apps for cards that you have built up on Bunt for new cards on Huddle and Kick. This is a VERY risky business, and here is how I approach it.

Making Offers

If you are looking to trade across apps, its your prerogative to set the ground rules when you are the one posting. When you post in the fan feed, make sure to explain exactly what you are looking to do. Scammers will prey on the uninformed, and by making the correct demands, you can scare them off.

• Post that the other person must accept the cross app trade first
• Post that the person must have the same user name on both apps (or close to it)
• Post that the person should be established

You may not get as many offers based on making more rules, but it will save you the headache of replacing cards you lose through scamming.

Setting Up the Trade

When trading across apps, its likely done through 1:1 same card trade messages, and make sure you dont offer your big card for nothing of theirs while you work something out. I saw someone lose a nice card because they offered it with a message for a common, and the person just accepted the trade and that was it. Send a same card trade and wait for them to respond.

Secondly, it is ESSENTIAL to ensure that they will lose something big if they get banned from the game. Scamming through cross app trades will get you banned, as it is against the rules. But, if the account you trade the card to has nothing in it, they wont lose anything if that account gets banned. Make sure they have a really nice collection with a lot of nice cards, or just walk away.

The scam is to have you trade the card to a dummy account, then use the dummy account to trade to the main account. Then when you walk away from the scam, the only accounts that get banned are the ones involved in the trade. Its like card laundering.

I would say if they have a collection score below 65 on either app, be very cautious of the way you go about trading. Sure, there are people who will have no problems trading with newbies across apps, but that is asking for issues.

Also, make sure you see the card they are offering in the account that they are trading from. If they dont have the card in their account and say they will send it later from another account, walk away.

Red Flags

There are a million red flags to be aware of, and I want to make sure you know what they are. Bottom line, I might be giving people ideas by writing this out, but I also know that education is a virus to scams.

• TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE TRADES – If its too good to be true, its likely too good to be true. Dont fall for someone offering a Trout sig for a few new huddle cards. Its too good to be true.
• LANGUAGE – Its hard to trust people who message like they are a 12 year old girl talking to their BFFs. There are a lot of younger users who might actually be 12 years old, and they may not understand the true consequences of their actions. Similarly, people who can message in well thought out sentences usually dont fit the profile of a scammer. Again, im generalizing, but this is just my experience.
• LOW COLLECTION SCORE – If they have a low collection score it means they dont have much invested in the account they are trading from. This could be a matter of tenure in the game, but also that they are using a dummy.
• LOW TRADE COUNT – See above, it takes time to build up a trade count, and scammers are not in the business of spending time to cover up a mark that they can win without investing anything.
• USER NAMES – Another generalization, but check out the user names of the people you are trading with. Because of how many people had up to 100 dummy accounts last year, there are a lot of user names that seem like variations on a common theme. Just worth paying attention to, especially if its like TROUTRULES123456 instead of just TROUTRULES1.

Reporting Scams

If you get taken, and I hope you dont, please report it to the app twitter accounts and flag the messages for the mods to see. You can also send a report by touching their username and clicking on “Report Fan” from the menu. If you report them, its not necessarily going to keep them from scamming other people, but its a start.

Overall, the only person you can trust is yourself, and the more you go by that rule the better. I hate to say that its not all rainbows and butterfly kisses out there, but it isnt. Better to prepare for the worst than end up in a bad situation.