Crime & Punishment

In my experience, anyone claiming to be honorable and loyal and what not, is just throwing sand in your eyes.

My suggestion is to join the in-game channel "Merc Contracts." The MOTD includes a list of merc corp/alliances based on the areas of space they operate in. Anyone on that list adhere to a set of rules, chief among them honoring their contracts. They value their reputations and will honor any agreement you make with them. As for how to check them out, many of them will have threads in this section advertising their services, and you may gleam some knowledge from them, especially if they include testimonials.

Most importantly, though, review their killboard. See how active they are, what types of targets they've destroyed, etc. How you interpret their killboard will depend a great deal on what it is you want done. If you want them to wardec someone, I don't look for a perfect killboard. I look to see if they've sustained any of their own losses, because it tells me they're willing to do what it takes to get a job done by taking some risks. If they only have kills against industrial ships, or it's the vast majority of their kills, I will probably not consider them either, as this tells me they seek out soft targets to pad their killboard, and they do not engage tougher targets regularly.

Beyond that, I suppose it comes down to talking to them. See how they respond to your request, ask them any questions you have and see if they are patient with you, and settle on the one you feel most comfortable with. I have heard of two of the groups on your list, but I have no practical knowledge of. Hope this helps.

This.

A couple of guys (2 at least i m aware of) decides who gets listed and who not.

**Lol mode on**

It all doesnt matter that much which channels you use, kills, color of your ships, etc etc.... Just hire Marmites and you'll be ok.

**Lol mode off**

Look at their war history ingame.

Best merc to hire is the one who finished a deck with you.

Then I can ask you a question -

How do we know you aren't leading us into a trap ???

And

How do we know you will pay once we finish the job with you?

Considering you want 6 POCO's destroyed, theres nothing stopping you not paying once the job is finished, or if we cyno in our ****, for you to be a countercyno.

Balance the risk vs reward.

Nothing in eve is free besides rookie ships

The channel does not say anything about ability, only their integrity. The Merc Contracts Channel is a scam free environment legit mercs can be listed in so potential employers can hire without worrying about the OP's concerns. Being listed is free and doesnt really have any requirements an active merc unit would not meet. I'd be wary of "mercs" that aren't in there because there's really only one reason they wouldn't be.

We're booked for a bit but if the OP or anyone else has questions about our record, we're Merc Contract mercs and both our kb and contract history are public.

A lot of good advice in here.

If you need your targets put under constant pressure then use a small Merc Corporation that will use its full Corp focus to kill or ensure your targets are docked up and have no freedom of movement for a week or two.

If you hire a large Merc Alliance then they may not necessarily commit their entire forces to your cause because they will be pursuing multiple targets due to multiple wars.