This is a complex topic, bear with me!
Scamming
My view is that bait-and-switch trade scams are against the rules - “item scamming” is rule 2 after all.
Here I’m referring to scams that are performed by surreptitiously switching stack amounts away from agreed-upon values, and hoping the other player doesn’t notice the change on the second screen.
For example:
- Alice is selling airs for 5ea and Bob approaches her to buy 1k airs
- Alice puts up 1k airs and Bob puts up 5k coins and then waits for Alice to accept on the first screen
- Bob then switches his coin stack to 500gp and quickly accepts both screens
- Alice accepts on the second screen, not realizing a zero is now missing from Bob’s stack.
This can also be done with different items (noted rune platebody vs noted mithril platebody for example) but the logic is the same: because Bob has maliciously subverted a game mechanic intended to protect both players, he has broken the item scamming rule.
Alice did not necessarily fail to understand the trade screen mechanics – she might have been able to prevent the scam if she had been paying closer attention to the second screen, but Bob intentionally abused the trade mechanics to make it as unlikely as possible for Alice to notice.
Bob’s malice is against the rules, Alice’s inattentiveness is not, nor does it excuse Bob.
This isn’t to say we’d punish everybody who does this but it’s not a good look and if you’re a consistent offender or you happen to make off with high value items via bait-and-switch item scamming, consider yourself more likely than not to receive a punishment.
Trust trades
Trust trades are a different matter entirely. Again my logic hinges on what game mechanics are available and whether both players are intended to be protected from loss.
The trade screen warns about receiving “Absolutely nothing!” when engaging in a one-sided trade. Even before that, players entering into a trust trade are aware, by the very nature of the trade, that they have no guarantee of a return on their investment.
Players who willingly divest themselves of the trade screen’s protection are not entitled to that protection after the fact. Breaching another player’s trust is not against the rules, neither is trusting an untrustworthy player.
This is not to say that lying through your teeth to other players and scamming them via trust trade is always allowed. These types of things are often approached on a case-by-case basis.
Luring
Generally, luring is not against the rules as long as no other rules are being broken.
Same logic: what mechanics exist, and are they intended to protect from loss? It’s a player’s responsibility to understand dangerous game mechanics, especially in areas like the wilderness or dungeons with traps/high-level NPCs.
RuneScape is an open world game and there exist no game mechanics intended to prevent players from entering dangerous areas (with the sole exception of the wilderness warning in our version). This is contrary to player trade mechanics which exist to protect both players and must be knowingly and maliciously subverted to pull off an item scam.
Convincing other players to die to a lure is not against the rules because there exists no game mechanic explicitly intended to prevent this.
Even in the case of the wilderness warning, it is a single-player game mechanic. It always appears and cannot be manipulated maliciously by other players as in the case of the trade screen. Everybody who crosses gets the same fair warning. If you die in the wilderness it’s on you!