Crime & Punishment

As a public service announcement I wanted to let people know that Sundering, who as of posting have a recruitment ad in the in-game Corporatiions/Recruitment, are running a recruitment scam. They interview you. Make positive noises. And give you a sponsor key to apply on http://www.goonfleet.net/. There you enter your api key and get back an application ID that looks straight up.

The site includes the information that 'Most applications will require some form of security deposit, as calculated by the risk of your account being a spy. This deposit (if any) will be refunded in 30 days of non-spy behavior, or if you choose to leave us earlier' I'd guess this site is in some way a tolerated fake.

Sundering's recruiter then asks you for a hefty deposit (1 bil in my case) to be paid to the corporation. And starts discussing things like getting your stuff to 0.0... fishing for you to contract it all to them. Till here they seem straight up.

Upon your despositing they produce a problem or additional condition. In my case to kill someone in high sec. If you question this they'll likely quit out of the channel and not respond to a convo request. Or they'll lead you on further as they'd obviously like you to contract them your stuff and send them more ISK.

I didn't expect a corp like Sundering could need ISK this badly. Live and learn. I hope others eager to get back into 0.0 will be more cautious than I was.

Some productive tips from my learning experience

1. Research corps you plan to join carefully. If I had I've have seen info about most Goons recruitment being scams (although I'm puzzled that it is tolerated in the in-game formal recruitment area: that really suckered me).

2. A corp that honestly wants you to join probably won't ask for a hefty deposit (they might ask for a small amount to prevent being spammed by join requests). Take note that scammers won't ask you to 'pay to join' which you'd likely turn down, they'll ask for a 'deposit' which they pretend will be returned to you.

3. Don't pack up your expensive ships and gear for shipment right away (I didn't, thankfully). Take something cheap down and if all is going well bring more down later.

Hope that helps.

Clearly this is all a big misunderstanding

I don't think you're allowed to put up a thread in the recruit forum if you're scamming? Not certain and too lazy to look.
But I know for certain that you're not allowed to recruitment scam in the recruitment channel, so somebody go slap them on the hand.


Anyhow, a corp in GSF recruitment scamming? Must be a day that ends with y. Anybody know which website Sundering is?

I agree with you OP, you shouldn't trust anything at face value in this game. Which means I don't entirely trust your side of the story either. We haven't heard the Sundering side of the story, maybe you are leaving out some crucial details. Now, it's a well known fact that goons have run recruitment scams, but in your case, perhaps you did exhibit "spy like behavior" and therefore forfeited the ISK under terms you agreed upon? I mean you did refuse to kill the person the recruiter ordered you to, that would be enough to mark you a spy in my corporation. Alternatively, you may be someone upset at goons (HBC alt?), sullying their good name.

Until we have more information, I don't think there is enough reason to write off the usefulness of security deposits in weeding out spies, or the good repute of Sundering and other GSF corporations.

the proof is goons were on the other end of the transaction

Goonfleet.net is a scam?? Whodathunkit

Only players that are less then 6 months old should get any sympathy for this oldie scam .... if you're playing any longer and still don't know about goonrep you are really playing a single player game here .



And even then , paying 1B to get into a corp ? Really ? .......

The site includes the information that 'Most applications will require some form of security deposit, as calculated by the risk of your account being a spy. This deposit (if any) will be refunded in 30 days of non-spy behavior, or if you choose to leave us earlier' I'd guess this site is in some way a tolerated fake.


Probably should change that to "will be refunded to 30 days of non-MORON behaviour"

You failed that when you handed over the 1Bil.....

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As an experiment I just typed "joining goonswarm federation" into Google.

I then clicked on the first link.

Now, let me pause a second here, up to now this has taken me about 3 seconds..... yes I know it's tough and hard work, but stick with me.

Guess what popped up on my screen, in bright red text so even morons can't miss it.....

Joining GoonWaffe
If you gave isk to join GoonWaffe then you were scammed and you're **** out of luck.

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OP is obviously role playing an idiot.

Total misunderstanding here. If you wish, I will help you out resolve this issue. Please contact me.