“I'd prefer you not to kill anyone with a debt. It's a bit difficult to collect on a corpse.”— Francine Garret
Debt Collector is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: Debt Collector | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Francine Garret. | |||||||||||||
| Collect Grecks' debt. | |||||||||||||
| Collect Santiago's debt. | |||||||||||||
| Coerce Lady Jane in to giving her debt through a Speech, Barter, Perception check or from Lady Killer. | Find Lady Jane's caravan and collect the caps she owes from the remains. | ||||||||||||
| Return to Francine. | |||||||||||||
| Kill Caleb McCaffery, taking his hat and caps from his corpse. | Convince Caleb McCaffery to give his stolen caps and hat through a Speech check. | ||||||||||||
| Return to Francine. | |||||||||||||
| Reward: 600 XP 150 or 300 caps Player housing at the Atomic Wrangler Casino | |||||||||||||
| Leads to: Hat's Entertainment | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
Talk to Francine Garret at the Atomic Wrangler, and ask if she needs any work done. She will inform the Courier that there are three individuals in Freeside that owe the casino caps. In total, it will be 600 caps owed, and the player character will gain 150 caps if they return the caps to Francine (300 with a Speech or Barter check of 35). The three individuals are Grecks, Santiago, and Lady Jane. It is also possible for the player character to pay off the debt themselves.
- Grecks owes 138 caps and is located behind the Old Mormon Fort.
- He will pay up the 138 caps as soon as he understands that the Courier was sent by the Garrets. Passing a Speech check of 40 will cause him to give another 41 caps, and a subsequent Speech check of 60 will cause him to give the dirty pre-War casualwear he was wearing (-25 Karma).
- Repeatedly commenting about his eye will turn him hostile, allowing the player character to kill him (Freeside Infamy) and collect the debt from his corpse (a bag of bottle caps containing 153 caps).
- Santiago owes 212 caps and is located behind the collapsed building opposite Mick & Ralph's. He will try to talk his way out of it, but the options to get the caps are ultimately unaffected.
- Punch him in the face (in dialogue) or threaten to "Collect from his corpse" will get him to pay up the 212 caps.
- Passing a Speech check of 50 saying that "Francine put a bounty on his head" will cause him to give 256 caps.
- If the quest Wang Dang Atomic Tango is currently active, one can convince him to work off his debt at the Atomic Wrangler, also completing the suave talker part of that quest. Doing this, one will only have to return to Francine with the 388 caps from the other two, but will still get the full reward for collecting the debts.
- This option will not be available if a suave talker is already found before talking to Santiago.
- Santiago does not have dialogue options to turn hostile, but one can still kill him and collect the debt from his corpse (a bag of bottle caps containing 256 caps).
- Lady Jane owes 250 caps and is located to the right of the Strip North Gate.
- With a Perception of 7 or higher, the player character will be able to tell that she is lying and get 250 caps.
- Through a Speech or Barter check of 40, one could also ask for other things to help pay off the debt. Doing this results in her handing over 156 caps, 3 sensor modules and 2 cartons of cigarettes (the items have a total base worth of 170 caps).
- With the Lady Killer perk, one could convince her to hand over the 250 caps owed, as well as giving out the location of her lost caravan.
- If one fails the Barter and/or Speech check, another option will show up which says "Just give me what you have on you and they might accept it knowing you're dead." From here, one can either accept the 156 caps she is willing to give or choose to attack. Choosing to attack will turn her hostile, allowing the player character to kill her and collect the debt from her corpse (a bag of bottle caps containing 256 caps).
- Lastly, one could offer to retrieve the caps from her lost caravan in the broc flower cave. Jane's brahmin inside the cave will have 276 caps on it.
- The brahmin will not spawn if the cave has been entered before receiving this quest.
- The brahmin also will not spawn unless one offers to retrieve the debt this way, or getting the information through Lady Killer.
Once these three are taken care of, Francine will have a fourth assignment. Her former collector, Caleb McCaffery, skipped town with a large sum of caps, and she wants him dead. His hat needs to be taken as proof of killing.
- Caleb is in the first section of the Strip, just outside Gomorrah (note that one does not simply walk into the Strip initially. See here for possible ways of entry).
- With a Speech check of 40, he will give the player character his hat and a portion of the stolen caps (57 caps).
- Any other dialogue option will turn him hostile and therefore the Courier must kill him to obtain his hat.
- On consoles, a major bug may render the game essentially unbeatable if Caleb is killed. See the Bugs section for details.
Reward[]
Bringing the hat back to Francine will finish the quest, earning 150 or 300 caps depending on the initial Barter or Speech check of 35, and Freeside Fame.
Quest stages[]
Bugs[]
If the player character has finished the first part of the quest and returned with the caps to Francine Garret, they may be able to get double the caps. When one gets to Santiago, ask about the free VIP and his discount with Ralph's brother. Later on, one will find out it was a fake but will be unable to bring it up again to Santiago if the player character has collected the caps. Before killing the twins' old bounty hunter, do James Garret's quest on more hookers. Upon returning to Santiago, one will have the option to tell him about his fake discount. After that, one can now chase after their old bounty hunter. Get his hat and return to Francine Garret. She will bring about the old quest you already finished and give the player character the reward again. [已验证]
If one has already completed the quest Wang Dang Atomic Tango and hired Santiago as the suave talker, there is a possible bug that the player character will not be able to talk to Santiago to collect his caps. It is still possible to complete the quest by pickpocketing the bag of bottle caps off of him. [已验证]- Upon completing this quest and killing McCaffery, any attempts on re-entering the Strip will result in a black screen crash and the autosave corrupting (some users have reported the Strip door also requiring a key). To fix the black screen crash, wear the old cowboy hat (or even Caleb McCaffery's hat) that can be found at Crimson Caravan's store (it is near a bunch of first aid boxes). Wearing it before entering the Strip from Freeside will stop the game from crashing. The key-requirement for the Strip gate can easily be solved by taking the NCR monorail in Camp McCarran to the Strip, and then opening the gate from the inside. If one cannot use the monorail, kill one of the securitron guards near the gate and loot the key from its corpse. [已验证]
- To avoid the black screen crash, try not to decapitate Caleb; if McCaffery's body is intact when removing the hat and other items from it, the visual of the hat disappears from the corpse. The image of the hat on McCaffery's head remained, even when his corpse was looted, causing the bug above.
- When asked to kill McCaffery, there is a possible bug where one is unable to select any dialogue options (pressing Start when this happens will fix it). [已验证]
- Following closure of the dialogue when asked to kill McCaffery, he may be involved in a firefight inside the Atomic Wrangler. He will appear friendly in V.A.T.S. and be fighting with Wrangler staff. One can kill him here and get the reward before entering the Strip. [已验证]
- If Caleb McCaffery is the first bounty one gets and completes by passing a Speech check, returning to Francine Garret will complete the quest without having to find Grecks and Lady Jane. [已验证]
- If the player character goes after Caleb McCaffery before Lady Jane, they complete the quest. However, his room does not become the player character's, despite Francine awarding it to them; all items in it are still 'owned' by someone else and one cannot sleep in the bed. [已验证]
- In some cases, there is a bug where if one kills Caleb McCaffery before starting this quest, one will not be able to complete it or if McCaffery's hat is picked up, one will not be able to drop it, as it will still be marked as a quest item. [已验证]
- The player character may be unable to ever open dialogue with Lady Jane (attempting to simply triggered a passive statement about ED-E). Repeated attempts will cause her to repeat the statement. This makes it impossible to collect her debt without killing or pickpocketing her. There is no known fix. [已验证]
- It is possible to turn in the quest with Francine before it is finished and thereby adding Caleb McCaffery to the existing quest line but at the same time making it impossible to talk to Lady Jane. [已验证]
- The player character should not do this quest and Wang Dang Atomic Tango at the same time. Otherwise, they can only return 388 caps to Francine, it is 250 from Lady Jane and 138 from Grecks. The game will assume that the player character did not collect caps from Santiago. [已验证]
- This bug does not always happen, or perhaps it was fixed in a more recent patch.
- Even if one has finished the quest, the items in the room are still owned by another person. One can only sleep in the bed for free. [已验证]
- Santiago will sometimes disappear and is nowhere to be found, or he will be found dead and his bottle caps will not be on his body. [已验证]
- If the player character gets the caps from Lady Jane with the Lady Killer perk after talking about her caravan, finding Jane's caravan will be still an optional objective. However, sometimes the brahmin will not spawn, thus leaving one without the extra caps. The side-quest can be still completed without the optional objective. [已验证]
- If one kills Santiago after receiving his debt, the objective 'Collect 212 caps from Santiago' will uncheck, and a quest marker will appear on his body. One can, however, still complete the quest normally by turning in 600 caps to Francine and dealing with McCaffery afterwards. [已验证]
- Sometimes, Jane's brahmin does not spawn. To fix this with the console, type player.placeatme 00116af4 1. This will spawn the brahmin alive, which can then be killed and have its body looted. It is not necessary to kill the brahmin; it can be looted alive. [已验证]
- There might be a chance of finishing this quest twice and getting the reward twice by returning the 388 caps (250 from Lady Jane and 138 from Grecks) and then returning 600 caps to Francine by getting all caps plus going to Lady Jane's caravan and getting the caps from there, the player character will first give the 300 caps and get the reward, then give the 600 caps and get the reward once more, after giving the caps the first time, the option to say one completed the debt collecting will still be available and will give the player character the opportunity to return the next pack of caps. [已验证]
Gallery[]
Jane's caravan, complete with Lincoln's head, in broc flower cave
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