Okay, so, a while ago I was farming nodes in Craglorn and a random person approached me and initiated a trade. This happens to me occasionally, especially when I was at a lower level, where someone will randomly give me some mats just to be nice to a newb, I guess. It's cool. I accepted his trade and he put a bunch of random stuff in -- some alchemy mats, daedra husks, and a couple useless low level weapons -- and I hit "submit" without offering anything. Then he cancelled the trade and whispered to me "I need money." I was like LOL what? No thank you.

I ran away thinking to myself how bizarre that interaction was and then it left my mind... UNTIL last night, months later, the same thing happened again. A different person approached me in Craglorn, initiated a trade, dropped in a bunch of junk from their inventory, and cancelled the trade when I hit "submit" without offering anything. This guy was a little more aggressive (and weird) and started whispering me saying "Muster please need gold" and "Please help Muster." The first time it happened I didn't notice the account, but this time it was a level 4 toon with an account name that was a just a random string of letters.

So... what is this? Are they trying to scam me somehow? Are they bots that really need money? Random coincidental encounters with two people down on their luck? Anyone have any idea?

Also, I have no idea why he kept calling me "Muster." A bastardization of "Mister" I guess? Which also makes me thing it is definitely a bot.


Edit to add redacted screenshot of him whispering me after cancelling the trade lol