Pokemon Sword & Shield players have exposed an in-game trade scammer online, warning others not to deal with the trainer that's going around snagging rare or shiny Pokemon.

Members of the game's online community have come together to name and shame a user, interestingboi72, who has been asking others to pass a number of their rarest species in their direction, only to give them nothing meaningful in return.

However, on March 22 their tricks were exposed by those affected, as well as those who recognized such tactics, and hopefully no more players will be baited into losing out.


The scammer, who has reportedly been caught up to no good in the past, has been sending personal messages to other users on the Pokemon Sword and Shield subreddit, claiming to have spare rare Pokemon that could be swapped for some they want to add to their collection.

One trainer who had their Pokemon swiped by interestingboi72 urged the admins of the subreddit to ban the user, with WhiteGatorade69 revealing personal messages following their trade.

After completing the scam, they said: "Not my fault you dumbo idioto, pleasure doing business with you sucker."


This wasn't the only post reporting problems with the user, either, as a number of other members of the community named and shamed the cheater.

In a separate post, kgaulin showed personal messages that had the exact same "sucker" line. They said: "Nobody trade with this loser!" Exposing their tactics, they added: "Was trading two things for one, so usually on the second trade they would trade the one thing which I never have a had a problem with but he just backed out after the first trade."

Fellow trainer belljarss also flagged interestingboi72's account as one to be aware of, with messages also screenshotted. The scammer the interaction asking how many shiny Pokemon they would like to trade for their "Cherish Ball Eevee."


Another impacted by the scam was Present-Mic, who stated: "I was scammed by him and people kept calling me a liar so I'm glad he's finally being showed as the jerk he really is." Tommyd89 added: "Just got me too man! Bit pathetic. Guess we only have ourselves to blame. Annoying but at least we learnt a lesson! You’re not alone!"

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For those who don't know, shiny Pokemon are the rarest forms in the game and are rarely seen in the Galar Region. Imagine working hard to get one, only to have it snatched away in a deceiving way like this.

With that said, we would urge all Sword & Shield players – just like other members of the community have done here – to take requests of this kind with a pinch of salt, if not dismiss them entirely, just in case a scammer is typing on the other side. Nobody wants to lose their rarest Pokemon, especially not like this.