What are the typical scams we should be aware of ?

Then there's the Charon/Carbon scam. A Multiple Items contract is created to sell a Charon and a few cheap modules. What is actually in the list of items rather than 1 unit of Charon is 1 unit of Carbon. Given that a sadly high percentage of players have sickeningly bad spelling skills (then/than, loose/lose, etc) I'm sure this one is probably fairly successful.

How come nobody has mentioned can flipping?

Someone announces in local that they are selling/giving away any amount of ore (but usually a big one so you need an industrial or freighter). They then tell you to come to the asteroid belt to pick the ore up, but will "forget" to contract it to you. When you have gotten your industrial/freighter you will notice that their ship is not a mining ship, but a pvp one. When you pick up the ore, you will be marked for aggression, and the player owning the ore will destroy your ship and (sometimes) your pod.

The player scamming you will not really take your money, but take any modules and cargo that survived the explosion, and force you to buy a new ship and new fittings.

There are some variations on scams with mis-quoting items on contract.

1. Seller's bio shows several contracts for a certain item - for example several CNRs. Of those contracts few are real CNRs, while the rest are usual Ravens. The price is the same for all, but you can notice that contracts for real CNRs are closed the same moment as they were issued.

2. A harder to notice way of replacing a cheaper item with more expensive one. For example selling CN kinetic shield hardener in a contract named CN invulnerability field.

3. The extra/missing 0's in the contract price are easier to notice since there is a textual description of that price. However it's harder to notice missing 0's in quantities. So you'll see scammers selling "cheap" minerals or missiles.

4. Yet another way of hiding cheap item among expensive ones - contracts of fitted ships or sets of modules. You might see 5 expensive "real" items, but the most expensive one replaced with cheaper one. An example here would be a "set" of faction implants with one implant replaced with a non-faction one.

5. A way to make an item seem cheaper then it is in reality - let's assume a certain faction item costs N isk. An auction for that item is created with starting price significantly lower then N. But the very first bet is placed already and it is way higher then N. The possible buyer can see rather low "starting bid" and hurry up to place his own bid. At this moment scammer won - he is getting lots of isk, no matter who will actually win that auction.

There was also a variation of "send me X, get 2X" scam which is no longer possible since it required freeform contracts.

Ah, yet another scam that came from UO I think. This uses direct station trading. Scammer first shows you the rare item, then closes the trade window and asks you for some extra money or something. In any case when you open the trade screen again you're getting a cheaper version. Good thing here is if you're prepared, you can actually do the opposite way by placing a lot less isk on your second trade - since scammer tries to confirm the trade as fast as possible, he might not notice that you're cheating him now.

One common scam that seems to happen a lot in high population systems starts with the scammer spamming local with posts like: "Leaving game, giving away all my ISK, send me any ISK amount and I'll send you double the amount back." Gullible players send ISK to the scammer, which had no intention of ever quitting the game or sending any ISK back.