Hatching by proxy: legal?

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

I asked on the HC about this, but only one person seemed to understand what I meant, and the board was pretty much dead.

So I'm waiting to recreate a pet-- what I believe is known as name-stalking. Let's call her Little One. I have no idea when her name is going to be cleared.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I am up to my ears in fosters. All except one are painted (and that one is waiting for me to save enough money), and most have new owners chosen or finalised. Dropping any of them off at the Pound until Reopening Day, therefore, is not an option. Even from a completely material and human-centred point of view, since I don't know when the Pound is going to reopen, there's no guarantee I would be the one to be there first and get them back, and that would be fair on neither me nor the new owner.

So the fact is that if Little One's name clears before Reopening Day, I will have no room for her.

My question, then. Would it be legal and OK, in that eventuality, to get someone else to hatch Little One for me, and to care for her until I could pick her up? I would pay for all her hotel bills, toys and petpet, as well as the disownment fee when the time came. My worry is that TNT would take this as a sign that the two of us were the same person. Fostering is one thing-- TNT can clearly see the exchange of Neomails and so forth involved in an application if they so desire-- but in this case there'd be no obvious explanation of what we were doing that made it clear we were two separate people.

I know that you people do a lot more shifting around of created/permie pets, in general, than I do, so I came to ask if you had any experience of a similar situation. What, if anything, came of it?

Thanks in advance. I don't know what I'll do if this turns out to be impossible, but hopefully I'll have time to think of *something*.

[EofS]

I think the wisest course of action would be to involve absolutely no payment of any type. Even if it is in good faith (which of course it is) and you're just providing compensation for costs incurred to look after her, if TNT spotted it it could appear to be paying for a pet. And that's very against the rules.

I'd offer to look after her myself, but I'm afraid my pet care will definitely not live up to your admirable standards.

[daisybell]

I agree with EofS- it would be better not to give any payment to the person who has created the pet and is looking after it. Sending some cheap toys and possibly a petpet couldn't hurt, I think, because there's no problem with sending gifts to people. But more than that is probably risky because it might equate to neositting, which is definitely against the rules.

I don't think there are any problems with the plan to get someone else to create and hold the pet until the pound reopens; but of course there is the risk that they get frozen or disappear or even keep the pet themselves and there isn't much you can do about that since they are the pet's owner in the eyes of TNT.

I do have a space on my main account, and I'm not short of np to look after another pet if you need someone to do that part- of course, you won't know exactly when the name is freed up and if someone else is also waiting for it then you'll want to get the pet created quickly. It would be pretty useless to have someone lined up, but then when the name becomes free the person is away on holiday with no internet...

[Bif]

It would be pretty useless to have someone lined up, but then when the name becomes free the person is away on holiday with no internet...

To solve this problem you could line up a few willing people to help. Thus increasing your chances of someone being around when the time comes.

I would be happy to help, though probablly on a side account if you don't mind that. Just let me know if you want me to help.


Also, I think that sending items etc would probablly make TNT suspicous(sp?). I have a few petpets in my SDB - unless you wanted a specific one? That I would be happy to give to Little One when he/she was created.

[Wingsrising]

I'm sure it's quite legal to ask someone to do this for you (though probably not to pay them for it.)

My only concern would be when the Pound will be open (it'll be approaching a year in a few months, won't it?) and whether the Pound would still work the same way after it re-opens. Assuming pet transfer is still possible, though, I can't see the issue.

[daisybell]

Yes, the Pound might work in a different way, though I think TNT have always known about people using it to transfer pets- for avatars and so on. It isn't totally disallowed to transfer pets using it, it's just risky... I doubt they'd remove the ability to attempt to transfer pets to a specific person (by including time delays etc.).

It would just have to be a risk you took, I guess, because otherwise you'd never get the pet anyway- at least this way you'd have a chance.

[yvonne_l_d]

I'd be glad to help you without compensation, if you haven't found anybody else. I like to see people get their dream pets. I'm a fairly unfrequent poster here, especially in the last little while, but I log into neopets daily. Any new pets would be on a side account, but it's also one I log into daily, so it would be easy to keep it bloated and delighted. As for a petpet, you can simply send it over. Let me know if you need my help.