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Jul-2-2016 05:35

The Shady Relief Fund (hereinafter "the Fund") is a fund organized to help provide financial assistance to detectives owing between $500,000.00 and $1,000,000 to the Shady Character due to False Accusations.

The rules are simple:

1. To receive assistance you must contribute to the Fund a set amount monthly (amount to be determined).

2. You must have 2 False Accusations on your record before the Fund will pay monies towards your Shady fee.

3. The Fund will only pay half of your total Shady fee as per Shady's associate in Delhi.

4. The Fund will only provide assistance to a detective once in a 12 month period. If you apply for assistance from the Fund and are approved, you will not be eligible to receive assistance from the Fund for the next 12 months. However, if you wish to receive assistance from the Fund at the end of that 12 month period, you will be required to continue making monthly contributions during the deferral period.

5. You must have been a member of the Fund (i.e., contributing to the Fund on a monthly basis) for six months before you can apply for financial assistance.

6. You may make your monthly contributions by wiring money to The Shady Relief Fund from your nearest financial institution.

Jul-2-2016 05:39

The monthly dues will be determined once the Fund has an idea of how many detectives are interested in becoming members.

This is not a scam. The Shady Relief Fund is backed by a detective who has been around Sleuth for a very long time but wishes to remain anonymous.

Please give us your feedback here.

Sincerely,
Puck Shady
President of the Shady Relief Fund

Jul-2-2016 09:50

That "puck" is a dead give away :)

Jul-2-2016 11:21

Yes, there is humor there; but I assure you it is a serious venture.

Jul-2-2016 12:33

There sure are a lot of "pucks" around here all of a sudden. . . . ;-)

Jul-2-2016 21:51

I suspect you'll need verification from somebody other than yourself for people to take you seriously. Come back when you have it.

B.

Jul-2-2016 23:47

What David said.

Sounds like a good thing, but we're detectives afterall. That means we tend to be a cynical bunch. We're going to need someone's word other than a 0 day old detective. It doesn't have to be the anonymous backer, but it's got to be someone other than you.

Also, while there's nothing in place to protect us from being taken advantage of by you, there's also nothing in place to prevent unscrupulous detectives from taking advantage of you. I could contribute for 6 months. Do nothing but AIs during that time period. Get two falses. Get you to give me the money for half, then send all my money to another detective, store my gear in an agency locker (even the whiskey cellar would be big enough), then retire my detective. That puts everyone else who contributed to the fund at risk.

Unless your backer is capable and willing to insure everyone's money, AND IS WILLING TO ATTEST TO THAT TO ONE OF THE POWERS THAT BE, not only are you out, but so is everyone who contributed.

I think this is a good idea, I really do. But it needs a lot of work for it to be practical and safe for everyone involved.

Jul-3-2016 02:40

Thank you so much for your post, Autumn Springs. That's exactly the type of feedback I was looking for. You raise some very salient points.

As to your first concern, a very legitimate one, I believe that Secret Squirrel could verify my connection with a well-established detective by the IP address associated with this detective. Perhaps he will be so kind?

Yes, someone could attempt to fraudulently use the Fund's money, but I think that by the time a detective has reached the point where his Shady fees are $500,000 to $1,000,000 s/he will be pretty well established in Sleuth which is not to say that that necessarily makes them honest, but it does reduce the chance (I think) of them doing anything openly dishonest (and it would be immediately obvious that was the case as a player loses his contacts when he retires, which can be seen by looking at a detective's profile.)

Again, I thank you for your post, Ms. Springs. :)

Jul-3-2016 02:45

It was neither my intention nor my expectation that people would jump in and start sending money to the Fund, but rather to open a dialogue to see if anyone would have an interest in this type of Shady "insurance."

If enough people are interested, of course I would take the steps necessary to have the Fund sanctioned by "THE POWERS THAT BE.

So, please feel free to offer your opinions, positive or negative, here.

Thank you.

Jul-3-2016 03:12

Another step toward fraud prevention would be the requirement that a detective applying for relief give his password to the Fund for 1) verification that the detective does indeed have two FAs and, 2) the Fund officer could then make the payment to Shady's Delhi associate.

Jul-3-2016 04:15

Another safeguard could be that detective Shady Relief creates an agency and puts all the contributions into the safe of that agency AND hires an agency clerk. That all contributors get the password of detective Shady Relief so they can check out the safe and all financial transactions.

Everyone who claims to have two FA's and has contributed (of course) must give their password for verification. You could create a temporary password for that purpose.