Roblox is especially popular among young players. However, a new investigation digs into how these underage users are being swindled out of thousands of dollars by other children, some as young as 13.
The investigation was published on IGN by journalist Luke Winkie. He visited different forums, Discord servers, and subreddits dedicated to Roblox scams or as they call it, “beams”. Here are the key takeaways from the article.
Who is scamming underage Roblox players?
- It turned out that many scammers are children themselves. For example, one of them said he was only 13 years old and claimed to make around €2,000 a week.
- When Winkie didn’t belive it, the hacker agreed to make a voice call to confirm his age and even asked the journalist to share a link to his Discord name, so he could “get more buyers.”
- This scammer also bragged about spending money on his friends and buying an expensive gaming PC for €2,600.
- And it seems that parents still have no idea what their kid does: “They ask where I get the money for everything. I just make excuses and they believe me.”
- Another 13-year-old scammer claimed to be making about $10,000 a week. To prove his words, he showed Winkie his recent “trophies” — two rare items worth about $11,000.
What schemes do Roblox scammers use?
- One scammer said to have scripted a tool called “pin cracker”, which auto-unverifies other users’ emails and gives them access to passwords, IP addresses, and other user data.
- Others use basic phishing schemes. They find young players who wear rare, expensive in-game items and then trick them into handing over those virtual stuff.
- “You just have to be good with your words,” one scammer said, noting that it is not that hard to convince underage players to click a phishing link and enter their personal info.
- For example, a young girl spent 240 AUD she received for her 11th birthday on Roblox cosmetics. She then wanted to sell some of those items to get rarer ones, but was tricked into clicking on a phishing link that gave a scammer access to her inventory.
- There are even money laundering schemes that help clean up stolen stuff. Hackers use the RBXFlip website, aka “The Original Roblox Casino”, where two players bet on their rare items, with a special algorithm flipping a coin to determine the winner.
- The thing is that it is impossible to track a stolen item once it goes through RBXFlip. So two scammers play against each other and then sell the cleaned items.
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Roblox is a constant subject of controversy. Quintin Smith of People Make Games released two investigations: one about the ways the platform is exploiting young developers and another about black markets that trick kids into gambling real money.