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FedEX quests suck in EvE...
Wickersham
Member UncommonPosts: 2,379
...and it's all YOUR fault!
My love/hate relationship with this game is back on.
Last night while mining I peeked into the contract tab for some juicy courier contracts - I figuired I might be able to explore some new areas and make a couple of bucks on the side, but what I found, depressed me:
The majority of the contracts had an insane amount of collateral attached to them, which by itself is not an issue, but if you're going to press your courier for that much up front I think you should up the reward too - 20 million collateral (and the cost of my ass) for 100k reward?
I also found that many of them involved more than 10 jumps for a very little reward, the time it takes to get out there and back could be spent mining in a safe place for more credits and with zero risk to me.
I understand that some of you don't want to waste your time hauling your crap across the universe but you should make it somewhat rewarding for those of us that are willing to try. So before you put up a contract, think! and tip generously you cheap and stingy bastards!
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
Comments
sounds like you got suckered by the scammers that put up courier contracts. Not sure exactly how the scam works but I think it involves requiring them to put down a large sum as security than cancel the contract or something.
[after rereading] nice sounds like you didnt accept any of those which is good. Had to re-reads
nope, you cant do that. he just got stuck with market competition. there are people willing to do the job for peanuts, so the market rate becomes peanuts.
this unfortunatly is the nature of eve.
The Courier Scam
Thanks to adriaans and Xelos for this
What is it?
The courier scam is not a scam so much that you're getting cheated out of your isk. The idea is that you pay the high collateral for the low reward and the party who created the contract (and receives the collateral) does everything they can, including resorting to suicide ganking to prevent the package from reaching its destination. When you fail the contract, they keep the collateral and the reward. The item in question is usually just there to be big, making you take a large ship that moves really slowly. Here's a possible Example. Unfortunately it's tough to actually see if these are a scam, but this one fit the bill that adriaans described.
What you need to look out for:
* High Volume, forcing the courier to use larger industrials that move slowly.
* High Collateral, this is what the scammer would gain when he kills you when you fail the contract.
* Low reward compared to number of jumps and volume, in case you slip by the scammer doesn't want to lose any money on the contract.
* Low time frame and long contract duration, means they will be able to predict when you'll come through a system required in the route and catch you there.
How to avoid this scam
* Don't do things without a reasonable reward for the amount of collateral, jumps, and volume involved. Create your own standard and make no exceptions.
* Don't take courier contracts with a long duration and short time frame (In our example, 13 days for the contract.. 1 day after you accept it to get it to destination)
* Someone will need to confirm this, but try handing the package off to an alt so they don't know who's got the package. If this is possible, fly an empty badger II or your racial industrial through the route and if they suicide gank you they'll only be losing isk.
* Make sure you're already planning on going the route intended. Courier contracts are very low income compared to how much you need to spend on collateral. Courier contracts are not a primary source of income. This is to prevent yourself from picking up contracts to stations where you cannot dock. Thanks to Shanur for that information.
You have 3 useful tools in helping decide "Is the contract worth taking?"
Show Info + Map + Pilot Info
Show Info on the pick-up and drop-off points
Check out the route in the map
On the map options use "colour stars by security status" (Red & Orange are bad)
Find the pick-up point, set it as Waypoint 1
Find the drop-off point, set it as Waypoint 2
Now you can visually see the route, and if/how many lo-sec systems it passes through.
Do a character search on the contract issuer, check out thier corp info. (This won't help if they are an Alt setting bait-runs)
Not ingame currently, but is it possible to search contracts history for random people ?? If so you could use this aswell to see if the issuer has a history of "failed contracts"
The majority of courier contracts are legit, BUT good courier contracts get snapped up very, very quickly, so most of what you'll see on contracts at any given time is crap and scams. You have to be on the ball and pay attention to get the good ones.