Common sense suggests the following:
First, to get credit for a valid CONTACT you must log what was sent. If you
log something different than what was sent, and if the other log was also
submitted, then you should automatically be dinged by the log checking
software. If you don't get credit for the contact, then you shouldn't get
credit for the multiplier either.
Second, to get credit for the MULTIPLIER you must have completed a valid
contact with someone who is actually in that multiplier (zone, country,
state, or whatever). If the contest committee determines conclusively that a
station has (whether deliberately or inadvertently) misrepresented the zone
in their sent exchange, the committee should remove multiplier credit for
those QSOs from other logs, without making any changes to the points credit.
In other words, if you logged what was sent and it was wrong you should get
QSO points but no multiplier; if you used ESP or some other technique to log
where they really were instead of what they sent, you should get no credit
at all because you didn't log the contact correctly.
It's true that if you think you worked someone in Zone 2 and it turns out he
was actually in Zone 5, and if that was the only Zone 2 station you worked,
then you might run a risk of losing the multiplier. That's not much
different than if you worked him and you aren't in his log due to a computer
problem or operator error at his end, except that in these cases you would
lose the points as well as the multiplier.
There's no way you can know for sure whether something like that has
happened, and not much you can do about it. Stuff happens. Life ain't fair.
If anyone promised you it would be, they lied to you.
If you're really worried about the possibility of losing a multiplier
because of some kind of error at the other end of the contact, you can
always try to work an insurance QSO with a different station from the same
zone. Whether it's worth the time taken to do so is a judgment call that
depends on your degree of certainty about the first QSO.
73,
Rich VE3KI
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