I'm no master of tutorials, but several screen reader users have reached out to me asking how to make sense of scamming.
So, I'm going to do my best here to explain what I know of the crime so far, 'screen reader version'.
This is no replacement for a proper tutorial, I am only trying to bridge the understanding between the visual descriptions and what is being read out by screen readers.
Please see Emforus' [Crimes 2.0] Scamming: An In-Depth Guide for a much more in-depth explanation and mechanics.
See also: Hustling - Screen Reader Style
I use NVDA and Edge/Chrome on Windows 11. Your results might be slightly different with other readers, browsers, OS.
Note: I divided this into five sections, indicated by level 3 headings for easier navigation.
Getting Started
The first part of this crime is straight-forward, farming emails.
Just below the banner section, your crime skill is read out. Arrow down and you will hear something like this:
Crime skill: 20 (12%), No demoralization
Farm Email Addresses13,837 email addresses
This is your current pool of email addresses.
If you have the 'Web Design and Development' course (Computer Science), farming emails will have a chance to activate the Website Phisher.
With both the 'Web Security and Penetration Testing' and 'Automated Data Mining & Processing' courses (Computer Science)
completed, farming will also sometimes result in activating the Scraper.
When they are active, the example above will read out like this instead:
Crime skill: 53 (15%), No demoralization
Farm Email Addresses
Scraper active
Phisher active
86,446 email addresses
From time to time the Website Fisher and Scraper will be deactivated, and you will need to farm a bit to reactivate them.
Farming and Spamming
There are two buttons in the main section of this crime, and a drop-down section, for selecting different categories.
Navigating to the farm button should read: Farm, 8 nerve button
Tabbing past the farm button, you will find a drop-down menu.
Similar to other crimes such as Card Skimming, Burglary, and Forgery, clicking on this and using the up and down arrows will allow you to select from the available categories, such as delivery, family, and prize.
The second button in this section is the spam emails button. It will be read out as: Spam, 8 nerve button.
When spamming emails, sending out too many spam waves of the same type, will cause them to become less effective.
Visual players get a visual indicator, a red arrow, to let them know that spamming this type or category will result in diminished returns.
For screen readers, it will be read out as, 'Diminished spam, 8 nerve button '.
Once you have farmed some emails and sent out a couple of crime waves, there will be a message to let you know that your spam waves are working. It reads out as: Awaiting responses
This message will show up at the very end of the crime section. I usually jump to the bottom of the page and arrow up to check for it.
If the message is not there, it means you need to start another spam wave to collect anymore responses.
Reading Emails
Once responses start coming in, new buttons will appear. They are read out as: Read, 0 nerve.
Arrowing up from this button will read out the address of the sender, and scam type.
Example: Delivery scam, jessicaabram, @oscorp.trn
New responses will always come in with the newest being positioned closest to the spam button.
Responses disappear after 72 hours, so I navigate to the bottom of the page and work my way up, from oldest to newest.
The Bars
Once you read an email, a new set of information and options become available.
Visual players will see a colored bar.
There are 50 potential statuses on the bar, all indicated by various colors.
For screen readers, the bar is read out at the top of the email you are currently working on.
For example:
Senior Male abandon Delivery scam, fweddle, @msginc.trn
Neutral 1 through 5, current state Medium reward 33
Low reward 6 7 and 8
Neutral 9 and 10
Concern 11 and 12
Failure 13 and 14
Neutral 15 and 16
Low reward 17 18 and 19
Neutral 20 21 and 22
Low reward 23 24 and 25
Neutral 26
Low reward 27
Medium reward 28 and 29
Low reward 30
Neutral 31
Low reward 32
Current state Medium reward 33 34 and 35 at 33
High reward 36 through 47
Medium reward 48
Low reward 49
Failure 50, current state Medium reward 33
Responding
When someone mentions colors on the bar, they are referring to the different states in the above example.
Each line indicates a colored section of the bar, with 1 being on the far left and 50 on the far right.
You will always start at 1.
Current state indicates your current position on the bar, sighted players refer to this as 'the slider'.
Below this information, you will have several options. Later sub crimes may have more options, but for the early types, delivery, family, and prize, you will have 5.
The first option will move your slider to the right, the second option will move it slightly to the right, the third option will move it slightly to the left.
The fourth option will boost the effectiveness of the first 3 options. The boosts do stack, so using this option 2 times will boost it slightly more than using it only once.
Capitalize will allow you to attempt to collect a reward, if you have landed on a reward section.
Prior to completing Interpersonal Dynamics (Psychology), clicking on the first 3 options will read out something like:
Professional lands between 1 and 50 with states neutral 3 times low reward 5 times neutral 4 times High reward 5 times Medium reward Low reward Failure toggle button pressed Professional
Once you complete the course, the information is much more meaningful, and will read something like this:
Professional lands between 43 and 50 with states High reward 5 times Medium reward Low reward Failure toggle button pressed Professional
For visual players, the above shows as arrows on the bar.
It all seems like an overload of information at first, but after you tackle a few of them, it can be quite fun. :)
Hope this helps.
Mentions: [Crimes 2.0] Scamming: An In-Depth Guide · Hustling - Screen Reader Style