ROBLOX Rewards Scam

The ROBLOX reward scam is the biggest scam in ROBLOX history. Launched initially on May 29, 2012, it was a partially automated scamming device created using the programming language PHP. It featured the most advanced scamming technique ROBLOX has seen. The scam was created by Uuvinu's former account Bannana97, but he has since stated that he was not personally involved.

The scamming device was developed in under 12 hours, and placed on a public website "www.roblox.co.cc" to mislead users into believing that it was a ROBLOX website. There were also 9 mirrors, in case ROBLOX had taken down another, each labeled roblox-1, roblox-2, and beyond.

As the scam made its first move in comments throughout ROBLOXia, it was unknown as to who created it and why. But as the scam moved, it became clear to many ROBLOX officials as to who created it, and that it needed to be stopped.

Within the first 24 hours, over 2,500 users had been scammed. This outstanding rate was due to the fact that the system was partially automated. When a user was tricked into entering their username and password, the server would attempt to login remotely, and if successful, it would record the cookie and the number of Tickets/ROBUX the user had. Is it believed this data was then used to determine if the user was worth scamming.

The scam toll reached 6,500 users two days after the launch. The scam was specifically started on a weekend, and thus ROBLOX administrators were not available to fix the problem. But the day finally turned to Monday, and websites began getting taken down. However, as fast as they were taken down, new mirrors were put up automatically by the website's advanced code. ROBLOX could not take down the servers because the servers had been owned specifically by the scammer.

ROBLOX former administrator and current moderator MrDoomBringer sent in a DMCA complaint to the server's host regarding the ROBLOX logo on the webpage in hopes of getting the website suspended. The scammer then created a technique that removed the logo for all visitors who had been on the website before the DMCA complaint was submitted, thus the ROBLOX admin would not see the logo, but new users would.

ROBLOX eventually found out the user (Bannana97) who had been responsible for the account thefts. Within another few weeks it would become clear that another person was involved in the scam, however it is still not known as of 2013 who that person was. Bannana emptied the money into an "ad domination" group, which successfully took over the ad system for 15 hours before he was terminated.

Before closing the website, Bannana created a new side to the site which made available usernames and passwords of random accounts which had been collected through the scam. The link to the page where those were available became public and was spread on the forums. This resulted in a lot of accounts being stolen.

Another user, Boronia, had posted a thread, containing the password to Bannana97's account. The thread used to contain the username and password to it until the moderators took action and deleted the content. Boronia was also terminated.

The ban reason provided on Bannana97's account requests a survey to be taken down, however it is known that this website was created using PHP on dedicated servers, and was not a survey. Bannana disputed the ban with this reason as an attempt to irritate the administrator who responded. Since the website was closed by the scammer himself, his alternate accounts have been deleted. He waited until November 2012 to use Uuvinu, his secret alt. John Shedletsky and Alan Fackler, unaware of who he was, accepted him into ROBLOX and provided him with popularity, traffic and resources that could have potentially harmed ROBLOX even further.

In a chat with Uuvinu (which only lasted about a minute) he made it clear he was trying to "make up for what he did by providing entertainment and advances", but he also included that he did not have the time to continue.

After further investigation, a few possible reasons could be determined why he scammed.
 * In 2009, admin Telamon signed onto his account and deleted his games, items and money. This was proven while talking to customer support via email. The reason was for copyright infringment, which was unintended. Bannana97 said "a warning would be nice" and included "stop acting like a child".
 * In May 2012, Bannana97 was "falsely" banned for scamming, which caused him to be irritated.
 * Bannana97's alternate account, HolyBanana (founder of RoWindows and Roblosoft) had been banned for 14 days for an accidental forum thread after purchasing either TBC or OBC.