This came up in one of my games, my shadowrun team was hired to retrieve a corpse from a Crash-Cart clinic. Part of there plan was to plant someone on the inside to switch out the body with a John Doe, and then go to claim the body, the problem that arose was that Crash-Cart, like Doc-Wagon has no obligation to treat non-clients, and sense one needs a SIN to hold a contract, which additionally should have information as to what to do in the event of the client's death there would be no reason for them to have John-Does. Though you could fill out paperwork for a client who didn't specify, wouldn't you would need some proof of association to pick it up, or am I missing something?

I've have always had the impression that Docwagon will grant service on a no questions asked basis. You pay your money you get your bracelet. Though this is not the norm I can certainly see it happening with sinless and those who are ultra paranoid.. So Docwagon might have the body of such a gold or super platinum member who valued their privacy so mucht ehy declined to give docwagon any information, That's almost run worthy right there.

The other possibility is Docwagon, at least according to one of the old scenario books, on the run i think, snags non clients and even people they have to injure to get the client to safety and gives them medical treatment as a PR move on a as able basis. Such a case if they died in craschart or docwagons care could become a John Doe.

That, or they might grab the wrong person, say in a chaotic multiple casualty situation, there's a chance of mistaken identity, which could add some more fun to your run.

Or a high-paying client might have even bribed some Docwagon administrators to not record his or her identity. And if they land in the morgue, they could get lost in the system for a while, or even cause Docwagon to try to dump the body, lest it reveal they've given services to someone SINless or worse.

Morgues - they're just FULL of fun.

There could be no "John Does" in the morgue and the players have to swap with a named target instead.

You got to stick the bodies somewhere. They might have a limited contract with a few neighborhoods to just pick up, store, and cremate any dead bodies just laying around the place, dead of natural causes. Either lonestar does it (not for free), a crash cart does it (not for free), some smaller firm does it (not for free), or it does not get done and any sinless bum just rots where he falls unless someone finds him and sells him to ghouls.

Anyway my 2 cents. But Dez384 is right that there might not be a John Doe even if there were a reason for one to exist.

What if the client's name really is John Doe, however?

Who has a perfect memory full of every piece of information known to man but also suffers from amnesia when it comes to his name, and is colorblind except for a specific shade of red?

That show was interesting.....and the actor was very badly wasted playing the Dracula knock off in the third blade movie.

Bear in mind there's also a market in corpses. Crash Cart may also pick up deceased or near-deceased people on the grounds of 'providing medical care', hold onto them long enough for someone to claim them (at which point the body is carefully presented with respects), then sell the leftovers.

I think all these ambulance services would have some sort of agreement with each other and local authorities; whoever gets there first starts saving lives (their own clients first, of course), and collecting bodies.
Then all bodies of clients of the pickup firm are kept; the rest are moved to a storage morgue until they can be extradited to whoever claims jurisdiction over them.

There's a very good reason for this: Shedim. Leaving dead bodies lying around is risky; in the morgue at least an eye can be kept on them, and emergency corpse destruction tools will be available in case of a breach in astral security.

Of course, it's also useful in case law enforcement wants to do an autopsy or some similar nonsense.

Hmm.
Didn't think of that. I guess wild ghouls have a public service niche after all.

I would also see a case where the client's name would be purposely withheld from the EMT and they would simply extract a user based upon an encrypted, valiated (but unnamed) com signal. In that case as well, John Doe might apply as a name for reference.

When you have vans who can pick up injured/dead people with no records and no questions asked by anyone that matters, there a lot of money to be made in the Soy-Like meal replacement market.

Soylent Green HappyBurgers, inc., part of the Docwagon group.

Or he stands back up and starts trying to kill people. Lets not forget about the Shedim.

Cremation services are very popular amongst those in the know...

I was under the impression that Shedim, and Bugs for that matter, were common knowledge. Perhaps not a lot of specific information but at least knowledge that they exist and some generalities.

Bugs certainly are. The cover story of Chicago fell like a house of cards in no time flat.

Shedim, I don't see as likely. Even with all the weirdness going on, people are likely to go: "Zombies? Really? George A. Romero must be generating torque in his grave."

Also, the mass witch hunt that would happen with them... Not good in a lot of ways. I bet folks don't know about Bugs that look like other people, either.

I'll have to go looking but after all the troubles down in new orleans and with the caliphate i'm pretty sure the existance of Shedim is an open secret if not common knowledge.

Yeah, voodoo magicians got blamed for it, resulting in several lynchings.

Your runners don't need a John Doe. They need any old Crash Cart customer of appropriate height and build with sufficient facial trauma and an inside man that can cast Mask.