Contracts

Flashing Lights Eventing · December 2012

I don't know about anyone else, but I, myself, am slightly frustrated with the way contracts work. So I'll send my pup to go get trained, right. Sometimes, trainers have the tendency to log off while in the middle of training my dog. Sometimes, I end of needing that dog before they log back in, while is usually the next day. It would be nice to either have shorter times on the contracts (ex: 30 Minutes, 1 Hour, Anything Below 1 Whole Day) or the ability for the owner of the dog to reclaim their dog at any time.

poppomgirl · December 2012

I definitely agree with this, and would love for that to be an option. Sometimes I may only have a certain time to get something done, and When the trainer goes and logs off with my dog still in there possession, its very frustrating.

Para Darkwater · December 2012

I also think an option for shorter times on contracts would be nice. Especially if its been agreed that something will only take x amount of time to complete.

JadeM · December 2012

I love this idea, would be great if we could have those options.

Baseballboi355 · December 2012

From what I remember this has been suggested multiple times before. (See <a href="http://virtualpups.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=75375"; target="_blank" class="bb-url">this</a> topic) This doesnt bother me much since I do all my training myself now a days, however, I still have the same concerns as before. I am an extremely fast trainer, I dont say I can do a contract unless I can swiftly; however, what happens if there is an emergency for a trainer? Then the person sending the contract gets impatient and insists a refund after pulling their own dog back. I would still be for custom contracts(that way the trainers could negotiate by saying "I wont accept a contract under ___ length"). I am not totally against this feature I just think that the people that would use it to make "zero hour contracts" should be well aware that if they get impatient and pull back my contract before I am finished with their dog, I will not be refunding their payment. I only give money back if I take more than 24 hours or I mess up. Thats it. So I am mostly for this feature, but not without my reservations.

Flashing Lights Eventing · December 2012

Thanks, guys! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't like the arrangement. Another reason I dislike the current situation is because a lot of my dogs get ruined that way. I'll use an inexperienced trainer who doesn't really know what they're doing, and next thing I know, my dog is being ruined because of the poor training, and the Trainer won't reply because, well, they're training. It would be nice if I could just cancel the contract. Brutis, I agree with you there. I am, also, a trainer. But I, unlike many other trainers (not you, of course

) do not accept a contract unless I know I can finish it without logging off for a period of time. I get very frustrated when that happens, especially when somebody tells me they should be finished within the hour, and it ends up taking a lot longer than that. Edit: If I am training somebody else's dog, and a situation comes up where I have to log off, I ALWAYS send the dog back with an apolagy to the owner, claiming I'll give a refund for the work that I didn't do. Usually, a lot of trainers don't do that. So, instead of waiting a whole day, it would be nice to be able to pull the dog out of contract after an hour or so.

lovefrompaige · December 2012

I totally agree with what Brutis said. This feature would be nice, especially if you send your dog off to be bred and the breeder logs off, ect. That being said, people must be aware and probably should put somewhere on there kennel where everyone can read what they will accept and what they'll refund money for. Say like Brutis's rule about a 24 hour period, that should probably be mentioned on the trainer/breeder's kennel. If that can be met, I don't see why we couldn't add this feature. (:

Flashing Lights Eventing · December 2012

Glad you think so, Bobby.

This has actually been bugging me for awhile. Honestly, I'm more for shorter time periods than being able to cancel contracts at any time. It's irritating when I send my dog off to be trained, and the trainer, before hand, assures me that I'll have my dog back within an hour or two, then logs off, and I can't do anything about it. After a couple hours, I wish I could yank my dog back and just do the training myself!

Troglin · December 2012

Keep in mind that "player rules" do not get enforced, so if you take money for a job and do not complete the job, it is you who will get in trouble. It's classified as scamming as you promised to do a job that you did not fulfill. It doesn't matter that the player pulled the contract back when you failed to complete it. If you don't do the job, you owe a refund. Another point brought up is concerns for using new trainers, and being able to pull a dog back if you see an issue. While I think this is always possible, you should always double check examples and references of trainers that you've never used before. If you're still hesitating, perhaps you shouldn't be trying them out with a dog that actually matters. Send them a trash dog first and see how that one turns out. If all else fails, ask your friends who they would recommend. I only have a list of maybe 5 trainers that I actually want to use, simply because I know what stats should look like, and I've had bad experiences with others. I know it can be frustrating to be stuck in a delayed contract, but perhaps you can use the time to do something else? When I get bored, I clean or read. Recently I had a contract sitting, waiting to be finished for nearly a month. I could have easily pulled him back, but I trust the trainer and I knew she was too busy to train him. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I understand that people have lives outside of the game and something could have easily come up. I don't know how many times I've had to dash off really quick because one of my animals was getting attacked or one of my family members got hurt. In all honesty, 24 hours isn't a long wait to pull a contract back. I don't know about anyone else, but it's really quite damaging when I see a contract get pulled within 30 minutes of being sent, due to impatience alone. It makes me question whether the player is worth my time at all. At the end of the day, this is a game and patience is a virtue. That said, I would actually love to see shorter time options sometime in the future, as it would be nice to be able to pull a dog back if you've changed your mind. I don't believe any changes will be done until the beta merge is completely done and secured though. For the time being, I just recommend a) having additional patience and b) using trainers that you have only had positive experience with.

Baseballboi355 · December 2012

That was a very well said post Ana. I agree with most of what you said, the first part is my biggest concern with the implementation of something like this. I shouldn't be charged with scamming because someone pulled back my contract after 30 minutes. I always train quickly simply because I want people to have a reason to come back to me. If you think a trainer is taking too long, just dont use them again, simple as that. We dont need a flood of tickets complaining about who wont give a refund and who pulled a contract too early. If you dont like waiting for your training to be done, than either find a trainer you know is quick(and pay him handsomely lol jkjk

) or do the training yourself.

Alabama · December 2012

I can understand what everyone is saying, however there are two sides to every story. Say a person agrees to train a dog, accepts the contract and the money and then the dog is pulled before they get a chance to train? Ops don't know how long a dog has been with the trainer. Who do they believe? Trainer says they've only had the dog 20 minutes, owner says they had the dog 20 days. Who broke the contract? That determines who keeps the money. What if you're a trainer and someone pulls a dog from you while you're actively training it? Do you want to refund the money? You were doing your part of the contract, it wasn't your decision to stop training. I've actually had this happen a couple times when I was an Op. The owner purposely pulled the contract on a dog and got a refund exactly because Ops couldn't determine who was telling the truth. The second time they did it, they tried to scam how much of a refund they should receive, luckily, the amount was discussed ahead of time and Nef was able to confirm through code how much was received. They were subsequently banned and money paid back to the first trainer. Imagine how easy this would be to pull several times in a 24 hour period. Of course, in the end it's all settled and players are satisfied, but in the mean time, what a mess. Having a 24 hour period means hopefully trainers have a chance to actually finish training, so it's not usually an issue. Maybe don't set your expectations so high and when you send a contract, don't depend on getting the dog back until the next day. Then you can be pleased when it's done ahead of time.

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