More, half and occasionally all the money requests work in FE2 once you have a good reputation. Fail a few missions and people would stop trusting you again. The ones who say "I can't pay anything now, my brother, (or someone), will pay at the other end" are at it, they never pay!
After a little play, Uplink seems to be basically FFE in cyberspace. More or less the same rank and reputation system, lots of upgrades and bigger spaceships, (gateway computers), and an optional set of story missions. Almost like a total conversion mod
I think it's fair to say the creators of this game are Elite fans, lifting the BBS format, in game company called Frontier, Elite in the game title . . . I wonder if any of them are here?