Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Issue: 1   Editor: Nyxxie


A Nice Vault, But You Received None of It Mika
They say that everyone gets what they deserve, but to make sure you actually get what you deserve when you do an Organized Crime (OC) you do need to stay sharp and pay attention. There is nothing more frustrating this early in the round than receiving a message telling you your OC was a success and finding out you did not receive your share of the vault. Be careful in your OCs and prevent getting scammed, it is really not that difficult. Everyone can do it.

Scamming is old, it has happened in the past and we can be certain that players will attempt to scam in the future as well. In short, OC scamming means that a player, by either misusing trust or a mistake on the part of the victim, manages to keep money that was initially promised to the victim(s). The downside of getting scammed is obvious, especially this early in the round it can be a major setback to lose the money you worked for because your OC leader chose to scam you and possibly all other team members as well.

Luckily, Bootleggers provides means that allow players to prevent getting scammed. Of course the mistake of a player can still result in getting scammed, but if you play your cards well, there is no way you can possibly be scammed. In the case of OCs, the leader has the option to finalize the payment percents. By finalizing percents, all members can see what percent of the total vault content they will receive after the OC has been completed. Once the percents have been set there is no way to change them, thus getting scammed becomes impossible.

The rule of thumb is to wait with buying your equipment and not to report ready until the leader has finalized the payment percents. As the OC cannot be completed if the team is not ready you can easily leave it if the leader has set all percents to 0% except for his or her own share. A player who tries to scam will be reluctant to finalize the percents before you are ready and may refuse to do so or persuade you to buy equipment and report ready. However, if you consider the fact that a leader who intends to pay everyone has nothing to hide, it should not be problem to finalize the percents once the team is complete.

Of course, if the leader states that the percents are not certain yet as they depend on rank you will actually have to wait for the team to be there, but this does not have to be a problem. Play it smart. Do OCs with people you know you can trust so you will not get scammed, or only get ready when all the percents are finalized. The means are there, it is up to the players to use them. Happy OCing, hopefully you will make some nice profit.