I think you are missing the point. This is not the normal hauling scam, whether a nullsec no access contract or a lowsec gank one. This is a nonsense, no make any sense, exploit, which seems to have just entered the game in a very recent patch.

The contract in question was clearly a dodgy one. I checked out the location to see if I could dock. Then I planned an odd route to best avoid any gate camp or ambush of any kind. And then finally I paid particular attention all along the route to MWD cloak warp off any gates which had suspicious activity. In the end none of this mattered, as completely unbeknownst to me, the contract issuer was able to literally just flick a switch mid contract and win the collateral.

I do dodgy contracts all the time, whats different about this one? Its a citadel, hmm, better check that I can dock first before excepting, nothing else really came to mind. IMO the idea that access could be blocked after accepting would be so far from my mind. Even if somone had of warned me I would have dismissed the idea as nonsense.

Ive been hauling for years in and out of null and have taken way bigger losses than this, but they were all in good fun, either a mistake I made or outsmarted or ganked in an excellently timed attack. Thats all fine. This isnt any of those things though, this is nonsense on the part of the people who make the game. People who are paid well to keep the game functional with decent parameters and a reasonably understandable rule set.

I hold no bad will toward the scammer, he/she is just playing the game. The game makers though, putting in a trapdoor like this, where somone can put up fraud contracts which are 100% doomed to fail and can then flick a switch and rob the victim blind of any amount of ISK. Its not even about the ISK, its the principle!

I keep reading that this issue will be fixed soon to allow delivery of the package via teathering or some sort. But really, its shoddy to have allowed it to be possible even in an intermediate period. Making citadel contracts private or corp/alliance only during this period would have been an easy way to avoid it.

Its a game breaking cheat. People wouldnt know about it if they didnt study the forums or read the patch notes with a magnyfying glass. In a game where so much is at stake, where so much thought has to be put into every step, to have the rug pulled out from under you like this, its totally unacceptable. As a paying customer who is leaving the game because of this, I feel its well within my right to have a ***** about it.

And ***** I will ;)