Originally by: Opus Dai

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Reimbursement petitions have always been hillariously corrupt.

CCP's logging has remained unchanged since 2003, for example it's not possible for CCP to tell if your client ever loaded. They can see you logged in but from that point on they have no idea if your client hung or anything, all they can see from logging point of view is that you didn't activate or do anything. This is a real shame as they could probably remove 95% of reimbursement petitions by simply not putting a ship in space until the client has loaded, why they've never done this rather simple step is best described as :ccp logic:

GMs also have zero communication with each other. Quite often a server problem can affect a number of players resulting in multiple petitions. Some maybe successful while others will get a reply stating the GM was unable to find evidence of server instability - this highlights how stupid the system is. If you mention that others have been reimbursed successfully your GM is more likely to ask you who rather than their colleagues. The inconsistencies are astronomical, it basically boils down to how you make your petition.

1. Be polite
2. Never mention lag or server crash. GMs will take the easy route and paste you a generic reply about their reimbursement policy. Instead don't make any conclusions and don't say it's CCPs fault. Just say what happened from your clients point of view.
3. Never mention fleet fights. GMs don't talk to each other or know anything about the game, so they aren't going to know what happened in a particular system at a particular time. Mention a fleet fight they'll say its lag, take the easy route and paste you something about their reimbursement policy. If you've got 600 players on your killmail, don't worry, say you were probably killed by NPCs as at no point will the GM ever actually check
4. If it's at all possible say you died to NPCs while rebooting your client after it became unresponsive and then closed itself - even if you blatantly didn't, GMs like NPCs as they're easy and NPCs don't lodge complaints

It's a terrible system with no peer review, so it is possible to make it work for you. It also helps to be associated with a group with a positive reputation in CCPs eyes or at least, being in one with a negative reputation will go against you. But then there's no way of anyone finding out so it's pretty safe for them.

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