EVE General Discussion

Cuz Red Frog do it quick, dont ***** about high collatteral and they do it well?


No sitting there waiting for weeks hoping that a freelancer like the OP decides to take up the contract.


So, quick summary.


You lazy bastard freelancers brought this on yourself.


Teach you to QQ about collatteral and payments

I agree. While there are scam contracts that forms part of the PvP experience for a hauler. You learn to identify them, to manage what collateral you can afford and to check that you're flying the best routes for the most ISK per jump.

2009, when I was like 2 weeks old in this game, I decided I was going to try out the Contract system and Haul for cash. Grabed my ship, accepted a contract, loaded it up and proceeded to deliver package. Of course it was in 0.0 and of course a group of like 5 people were waiting for me on the other side of the gate and blew my ass up.

I havent accepted a public courier contract since.

Public contracts are garbage. If you want to haul FOR REAL, join a freight corporation like Red Frog or Push. No shortage of contracts, make good isk and because of the good reputation and infrastructure of said corps, you dont have stupid contracts like 900 mil collateral for 100,000 isk.

I personally stopped putting up public contracts because the muppets that took the jobs on kept getting themselves blown up. I'd rather do it myself or pass it onto a competent group than leave it at the mercy of the high-sec plebs that seemed to accept them in the past.



If the stuff I need hauling is valued at about 850m I'd put a 900m collateral on it. The delivery fee really has more to do with the difficulty of having the items moved. 6 million could be a decent payout if the haul is only a few short jumps.

Then go to Jita and complain about the people doing PLEX scams. Or contract scams. Or go harass can flippers. Contract scams is just another part of EVE Online. You learn to spot them, you ignore the contractor and move on. It's a part of the game.

Not to put too fine a point on it, a contract to haul that says "Jita" on it should be viewed as bait. I can't imagine legitimate (or, intelligent) enterprise on that scale having anything to do with Jita.

Red Frog recently hired a lot of pilots and our contract times are incredibly fast. Perhaps the public contracts have dropped somewhat due to that.

BTW it's not possible to "corner the market" for couriers. Nothing stops anyone from putting up more contracts on teh public side. I think what's more likely is that there is a marked decrease in the number of bots operating in hisec and, in turn, less hauling to hubs.

For those haulers who handle public contracts, I highly recommend 2 things: never accept the contract with the hauler alt; never fly industrials.



Our hauling stats show that Jita accounts for something on the order of 50% or more if our total hauling volume, which is in excess of 30k contracts per year. If haulers don't want to work Jita, we're cool with that.


edit: I hate this ******* forum software so ******* much. It won't accept the exact same link I put into another post, even when I copy it from the other post. very annoying.

Or undock in a supertanked hauler with a small gun and grab the killmail from them suiciding you. You can even use an afterburner-fit hauling frigate.

I have run several courier contracts in and out of Jita for profit on this and other toons. It isn't a matter so much an instant 'scam' as it is you must be far more careful. Some of the steps I take with a solo toon

-Never take a fresh contract (10 minutes or less old) or one that is going to expire in the next hour or two.
-Always check the route for popped ships and sec status
-Always verify that you can go to the place they want you to.
-Make sure you can fit the cargo (duh)
-Keep track of people/corps you've had luck with in the past and find their contracts first (I was hired directly by one corp once for two weeks because they were wardecced and I had a good history with their public contracts)
-Expect to die and be willing to accept that loss, never haul what you can't afford to lose.
-If it is an 'iffy' contract and you can't ship it with an alt, don't grab it and then go right away, the contract will flash on their list and they will be primed to look for you. I would sometimes hours before moving out of Jita just to reduce the chance of an attentive ambusher.
-Never finish a courier contract in the last hour of its life, they'll be waiting for you.
-Never fly the direct path, 2-3 more jumps is worth the extra time to go around.
-The first two and the last two jumps are the most dangerous.
-Be wary of dead end systems and bottle necks.
-If it looks too good to be true, it probably is, move on.
-Private hauling firms are doing (and taking) a lot of business.

A once a year you receive a Concord "ticket" that you can file on a scammer. The ticketed party gets their sec hit. If their sec gets below empire standings they get kicked out of empire stations and can't get back in until they fix their sec.

Could cure all sorts of problems... say Jita local for one