The experience you just wrote about,
greatertater, is what started me turning down people's friend requests as well as helping people I don't know asking to go out on a crew in search of something. It's made me a lot more guarded playing the game, but it's also a learning experience for how to deal with liars and cheats.
I'd sailed with a guy (we'll call him
Jerk) before on a friend's ship and after that went ok, I accepted his friend request. Then after a period of time, he'd occasionally ask "let's go plunder." One night, I had nothing better to do and we went out with
my frigate.
Not long were we on my ship sailing when
Jerk whispered "
come to me" (which was odd given that we were both the only people on board). He got told, "
uh, we are both ON the ship, what's up?" Nothing was said in response. So I left helm and went far enough down the stairs to see where he was; he was no where near a cannon just standing around on the front upper deck.
After continued sailing and plundering, we grappled a flagship and went over and did battle. What happened when we swung back totally explained that cryptic "come to me" aboard the ship... the bugger had raced up and grabbed the helm. Needless to say, I booted him from controlling my ship, said "
Uh, I don't think so" and sailed for port.
Jerk was promptly dropped from my friend's list. Not likely that he cared. His guild name pretty much said it all too; should have read that before.
Like it says occasionally on the cut screen "be careful who you make friends with." Or something to that effect.