ScamsA scam is when somebody knowingly tricks you into buying, selling or doing something that is bad for you or good for them(i.e. getting all of your armour or wepons ect.), scams can be very easy to spot but hard to get out of, or can be very subtle although you can pull out at any time, the most abundant scam is probably the free smithing one, in which somebody would hang around a mining spot or anvil, and beg people to make them something, saying they died or they were scammed by someone else, these are the hardest scams to spot, because if the scammer is good enough, he or she can sound honest when doing it, sometimes when someone does this, the person refuses or says(truthfully)that you are trying to scam him/her.
The second way that some people scam others is with an iron/steel swap, because iron is so similar in coloring to steel, many people can not tell the difference and when they pay for their steel armour, they later find out that it is made of iron, iron being inferior to steel is also easier to smith so people can smith it before steel. The easiest way to make sure you are not being scammed during this type of trade is to put your mouse cursor over the armour/wepon being sold to you, down in the bottom left of the trading window, it will tell you what it is,(i.e. steel plate armour or steel two handed sword) so you can make