Cards, checks and returns

Cloned cards and ATMs

A conversation that works gets the victim's card details, kept in the burner phone's Cards app for skimmer.keep minutes.

1. To the laptop. Nearby share in the Cards app sends the card to a laptop close by (tr_laptop's share range) as a text file in its Downloads. Whoever is using that laptop is asked first; one the sender is logged in to takes it straight away. Each card opens on one laptop only.
2. Loading a blank card. With the card skimmer plugged in and a blank card on them, the player opens the file in Skimmr, and the blank card is loaded with the details.
3. Swiping. They close the laptop, use the third eye on the skimmer and swipe the card through its slot: a close-up where they hold the left mouse button and drag the card through. It only takes at a steady speed, not too fast or too slow (skimmer.swipe). A bad swipe says why and can be tried again as often as it takes. A good one makes it a cloned card.
4. At an ATM. The card pays once, into atm.account (dirty money as it ships). atm.fail percent of cards are kept by the ATM instead, which alerts the police.

What a card pays is drawn when the victim sends it (atm.payout, times the victim's personality payout in dialogue/personalities.lua), so nobody sees it before the ATM does. Every card is a row in tr_fraud_cards from the moment it's loaded: a cloned card item only works if its row says it hasn't been used.

Money orders

A cloned card can also be spent a little at a time, more safely than at an ATM. What's on a card is its balance: an ATM pays out all that's left on it at once, but catches 40% of cards.

1. Buying. The third eye on the card terminal beside a store's register has "Buy a money order" for players carrying a cloned card. They pick the card, then the amount (moneyOrders.amounts), and tap the card on the terminal. Each costs its amount plus the store's fee (moneyOrders.fee percent) off the card. If the card can't cover it, it's declined. Otherwise the clerk's card check flags it by that amount's chance: the card is kept and the police are alerted.
2. The owner cancelling it. Each money order bought has moneyOrders.cancel.chance percent of the card's owner noticing and cancelling the card 10 to 30 minutes later. Players aren't told. After that the next register or ATM refuses the card and keeps it (no police). Money orders already bought still cash, so the trick is to stop while it's still good.
3. Filling it in. A money order is bought blank. Using it has the player put it down on a counter or a table, with a pen. They type who it's paid to, and the pen writes it on the line in their character's own handwriting. Then they sign it with the mouse. What's written stays: a payee can't be changed once it's written.
4. Cashing. Bank tellers have "Cash a money order". The player stands still while a bar fills (X takes it back). The teller won't cash one that isn't made out to anyone or isn't signed, and only the character it's made out to can cash it, so one can be filled in for someone else and handed to them. A player who cashes more than moneyOrders.limit dollars in moneyOrders.window hours is flagged: that money order is kept, the police are alerted, and the bank won't cash money orders for them for moneyOrders.ban hours.

Card terminals

Money orders and electronics are paid for by tapping the cloned card on a card terminal: a close-up where the player holds the card over the reader while its four lights come on. One terminal stands on the counter beside every register of terminals.models near the player, on the customer's side, so it is there in any store's interior, whoever made it.

Where a counter has no such register, or the terminal lands wrong on it, place one by hand:

1. Type /fraud_terminal in game, as an admin. The terminal follows where you look, and the mouse wheel turns it.
2. Place it. Its line is printed in your F8 console.
3. Add the line to terminals.spots in config.lua. A spot within 1.5 m of a register stands in for that register's own.

With terminals.enabled = false there are none, and the card is handed to the clerk.

Check fraud

1. Mailboxes. The third eye on a mailbox has "Go through the mail". checks.mailbox.chance percent of mailboxes have a check in them, and a mailbox stays empty for checks.mailbox.empty minutes once it's been gone through. A neighbour may call it in. Each check is from a random person to a random payee, for a random amount, in a random handwriting (the names are in checks/names.lua).
2. Scanning. With Fotoshop installed and the check printer set up next to the laptop, the third eye on the printer scans a stolen check in: close up, the player drags it onto the scanner, and it has to go in straight or it jams. Then the check opens in Fotoshop. Everyone nearby sees it on the scanner, with its own names, amount and handwriting.
3. Forging. Fotoshop's Guide walks the player through it. They drag the Remove tool over the payee's name until it's gone, write a new name and pick its handwriting. Fotoshop prints once checks.bank.clean percent of the old name is gone. It doesn't say which handwriting is the right one: that is for the player to match by eye. A blank check loaded into the printer is what it prints on.
4. Cashing. The third eye at a bank teller counter has "Cash a check". The player stands still while a bar fills (X takes it back), then the teller pays or keeps the check and calls the police. A check that isn't perfect is always caught: the new payee in a different handwriting, a payee that isn't the player's character, or the old name not all painted out. A perfect check is caught checks.bank.perThousand percent of the time for every $1,000 it's for.

Store returns

The riskiest way to turn a cloned card into clean cash, and the slowest: every step can go wrong, and the more a player does it, the likelier it does.

1. Buying. The card terminal beside a store's register has "Buy electronics" for players carrying a cloned card. They pick the card, then what to buy (returns.goods, with returns.tax percent tax). The clerk's card check may flag it by that item's chance. Bought, the player gets the box and a receipt that says it was paid by card. Each purchase has returns.cancel.chance percent of the card's owner cancelling the card 15 to 45 minutes later.
2. Forging the receipt. A store only refunds cash for a cash sale, so the receipt is scanned on the check printer and opens in Fotoshop. The player removes the card payment, writes the cash handed over and the change, picks the register's print, loads receipt paper and prints it. Getting the cash and the change right, and matching the print, is the player's job.
3. Returning. At another store, the card terminal has "Return an item" for players carrying a box and its forged receipt. The clerk refunds it or keeps both and calls the police.

A return is always caught when it's at the store that sold it (returns.sameStore metres), under returns.wait minutes since it was bought, after the card was cancelled (a chargeback), or when the receipt isn't right: the card payment not all painted out, CASH in a different print, or the cash and the change not adding up. A perfect return is still a gamble: as it ships about 22% for the first, 47% for the second and 72% for the third in a day.