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Courier Contracts

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Mr Chili Palmer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-01-27 12:49:56 UTC
i have a question about courier contracts that are available in the contract ui, my question revolves round the ones that ask for example 150mil collateral and offer a reward of 500k.
Using the above scenario how do you know you will not be ripped off?

thanks

"If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried"

"If your boss is getting you down, look at him through the prongs of a fork and imagine him in jail"
Jarnis McPieksu
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2012-01-27 13:01:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Jarnis McPieksu
Mr Chili Palmer wrote:
i have a question about courier contracts that are available in the contract ui, my question revolves round the ones that ask for example 150mil collateral and offer a reward of 500k.
Using the above scenario how do you know you will not be ripped off?

thanks


You cannot be ripped off if you get the goods to the destination. The return of collateral and the payment of reward is automated.

However, you *could* be ganked on the way and the cargo destroyed. In such case you lose the collateral. Consider the difficulty of suicide ganking your hauler vs. the collateral and reward. There have been cases where a hauling contract was set up specifically for this, usually from a system with single gate. Someone comes to pick the job up and ends up facing a "hauling accident" when jumping out of the system. Ganker loses the ship(s) he used, gains the collateral (and in such cases the actual cargo was probably worthless).

IMHO 500k for short hauling trip with 150M collateral sounds about normal. I would be worried only for collateral requests that go well north of 1 billion ISK. Most contracts get hauled in a freighter and it takes quite a number of Tornadoes to suicide gank a freighter. Granted, if it is physically a very small load, I would probably think twice before hauling it in a T1 hauler as the "value of cargo" exceeds the "ISK value of ships needed to suicide gank"

(Edit: this assumes you play rationally and refuse to do hauling contracts to lowsec/nullsec destinations... both have their own kinks, including the fact that there is no guarantee you can even dock at the contract destination)
Kahega Amielden
Rifterlings
#3 - 2012-01-27 13:20:33 UTC
Other than ganking the hauler, one common contract scam is to set the destination to a 0.0 station owned by an alliance that only lets allies dock - it is physically impossible for a neutral to complete the contract.



Aside from that, there are a few ways to detect these scams. One is to transfer the package to a hauling alt so the owner doesn't know who to look for if he does intend to gank. Another is to use a deep space transport or blockade runner (t2 transports) to make them impossible to gank or impossible to catch respectively.

You can usually detect a hauling scam by "looking inside" the package when you get the contract, to see what is being hauled. If the contractor wants you to haul a bunch of shuttles, it probably isn't legit.



In general though, courier contracts are pretty legit as long as you pay attention. They're widely used by traders who can't be assed to haul stuff themselves.
Ruvin
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2012-01-27 13:28:27 UTC
sometimes collateral is to small for the goods you will transport in that case you can keep it and lose collateral .

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
Jarnis McPieksu
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-01-27 13:34:19 UTC
Kahega Amielden wrote:

Aside from that, there are a few ways to detect these scams. One is to transfer the package to a hauling alt so the owner doesn't know who to look for if he does intend to gank. Another is to use a deep space transport or blockade runner (t2 transports) to make them impossible to gank or impossible to catch respectively.


You could even bait such a scammer if you have two characters/accounts.

Accept contract with character 1, trade package on station to character 2, fly a cheap and insured T1 hauler with no cargo or mods out of the station while 2nd char with the real cargo waits inside. If it was designed as a contract to be ganked, your first character will get his hauler blown up (with the scammer losing his ganking ship). You then proceed with the haul with the 2nd character and collect the reward.

This is probably too much :effort: over potential 500k reward but could work on small volume, big collateral, big reward cases where you suspect foul play.
Mr Chili Palmer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#6 - 2012-01-27 14:05:51 UTC
ok thank you

"If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried"

"If your boss is getting you down, look at him through the prongs of a fork and imagine him in jail"