PlayStation scam warning issued as users told how they can avoid it
A classic gaming scam is back up and running, with PlayStation owners being told to keep their wits about them for fear of losing their PlayStation Network account, or worse, maybe their bank accounts.
While we're always hearing about various ‘quishing’ scams, people hacking your phones with a charging cable, or someone falling for AI versions of Brad Pitt, the gaming world is equally full of bad actors who are ready and raring to get into your personal information.
We recently covered how a group of YouTubers managed to bring an organized crime ring to justice after it had scammed people out of $65 million, and now, internet vigilantes are telling gaming fans to look out for people offering to buy their PSN names.
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It's not the first PlayStation scam we've heard of, but over on Reddit, u/redonculous correctly guessed that an invite from someone asking to join their PlayStation Network family was a scam.
The OP notes that they're asking for you to follow them on Telegram, but questions why someone would want to buy their account because there's nothing special about the name, and they only have about three games downloaded.
Down in the comments, others explained what's likely going on.
Someone said they'll likely offer you a ridiculous amount of money and then direct you to a scam site to 'claim' your money. When entering your financials in hopes of getting the agreed amount, you've then inadvertently handed over your financial details.
One person said: "Standard family share scam for your games. Just delete it."
Another warned: "If I receive such a message through mail, I look deeper in what the html body is of that message and actually check the link(s) provided in it to see where it leads. Last time I did something similar, I found out that the trail led to some Indonesian scammers that were active in credential harvesting.
“Best advice is that if you don't trust it, just ignore and delete the message, perhaps even report and block it."
A third person chuckled: "Seen a few posts like this. One of them the scammer responded trying to say it was legit. Was quite funny."
A fourth pointed out that if you accept someone into your PSN family, they'll get access to all the games in your library and might try to sell it to someone else. They reiterate that while it won't immediately affect you because the games remain yours, Sony is known to ban accounts that it suspects have added strangers to its family network.
Unless it's someone you actually know from your family sending you an invite like this, you're best ignoring or reporting it to Sony.
It's not just PlayStation fans who face problems like this, with a similar scam affecting Steam users. That method involved scammers being added to a family plan, then changing the legitimate owner's status to child and locking them out of most features.
Either way, someone offering $5,000 for your PSN sounds too good to be true, and that's because it almost always is.