Know Your Scams: Contracts for Fitted Ships

Setup

The scammer sets up a contract that appears to contain the modules and support items (e.g. Mining Crystals, Drones etc..) for an Orca in a mining support role. The contract is priced very competitively when you take into account the price of the ship, modules and any extra items.

Example contract setup

The scammer will then actively advertise the deal in Local with the contract linked with some favourable information on the contract.

Local advertisement by known scamming character 

What Happens Now

The mark clicks the link in Local, sees what appears to be a really good deal and clicks Accept.

Look closely at a scam contract and you'll see one thing is missing, the modules are present are as all additional support items but the critical item, the Orca, is no listed. 

The scammer is relying on the mark not checking the details in the contract under You Will Get, by putting often used modules and items they are hoping that they won't notice the lack of Orca.

Variations

There is another variation of this where instead of the missing Orca you will see one of the following:

• A large General Freight Container renamed to Orca
• An Orca blueprint copy

Regardless the scam is still the same, there is no Orca ship so you're overpaying for what is there under the belief that the contract is for an Orca with mining support accessories.

How Can You Protect Yourself

Spend a little time reading the details of the contract closely will help you. Verify that the green text shows you receiving what you're expecting. This type of contract implies a ship with rigs and fit, so verify not just that you can see the fit and rigs but also the ship is there.

If you see a contract make sure you block both the issuer AND the person who advertises the contract (they could be different).