780 BILLION credits stolen in scam?

[Comstar]

There's a couple of threads about it on the Eve-O fourms.

This thread has some details and links (and here) Apperntly someone running the Eve Intersteller Bank (EIB?) did a runner with over 780 billion credits invested in it. That's a lot of real world cash (if it could be converted to time cards) and the ability to probably destroy the Eve econamy overnight.

What would you spend that amount of cash on? Me, I'd buy BoB. Or better yet, pay the rest of the galaxy to destory BoB.  It'd be a good way to use 780 dreadnoughts...

Anyone lose money in it?

From what I read the con man got severel forum "personailites" to give cred to the bank. Now the con man has got away with it, some of them are trying to explain it all by saying "I said it didn't look like a scam, not that it was not a scam". The con was professionally done with all the nice looking websites and fourm threads from satisfied customers etc.

Eve has had scams before, and I suspect CCP will love the publicty (hey you TOO can make 10000 real life dollers in our game! Just scam people!) but is this good for Eve itself? On the other hand, if he dosn't spend it all, it's a great money sink and help reduces inflation.

[Trippy]

Why would people give a random player that much money? Was he paying out an outrageous amount of interest or something?

[Comstar]

From what I read, He acted like a bank. Gave small interest amounts (4% for example) to small investers. Gave people back if they asked for it. Eventually, like all pyrmid schemes, it run out of investers, he cashed out, and made a video going BWHAHAHAHAH at the Eve Comminity (I havn't watched it, apperntly it's not very well made).

[Megrim]

Well, the compassionate part of me feels bad for all the small-time folk that got shafted, but sweet baby jesus on a pogo stick.. that's awesome.

[Comstar]

This thread has some more info. In it there are claims that it started as a legimite business but eventually the greed got to him. Also claims that some people who did work for him were not in the know and were as clueless as everyone else.

The man himself claims he "Won Eve". Some posts put him going around with a self-put 100billion bounty on his head. All very messy.

[Der Helm]

The man himself claims he "Won Eve". Some posts put him going around with a self-put 100billion bounty on his head. All very messy.

If thats true, I'll laugh my ass of when he pods himself with an alt and gets another 100 billion ISK.

People are stupid 

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, your basic Ponzi scheme, early investors paid from the income from newer ones.  The background for this is the success of the BMBE (Big Merchant Bank of Eve, essentially a pawnshop for T2 BPO's) and the EMFi (Eve Mutual Fund index, just what it says, other publicly traded stocks were bought with the cash from investors).  Both were legitimate and gave good returns, which along with a few other smaller IPO success stories whetted investor appetites and resulted in a lot of money looking for somewhere to go.

780B is a lot of isk, but ultimately it all had to come from somewhere and would have gotten spent on something, so the chlling effect on future investment scenarios is going to be more significant than the concentration of wealth.  Unless this guy pulls a Toxin and funds the purchase of a capital fleet in order to change the balance of power in 0.0, the significants parts have already happened.  Believe it or not, there is a layer to the economy where billions are casually pushed around.

--Dave

[Simond]

He should give half the money to the Goons. 

[Viin]

Or me. I'll use it for good, honest!

[Jayce]

780B is a lot of isk, but ultimately it all had to come from somewhere and would have gotten spent on something, so the chlling effect on future investment scenarios is going to be more significant than the concentration of wealth.  Unless this guy pulls a Toxin and funds the purchase of a capital fleet in order to change the balance of power in 0.0, the significants parts have already happened.  Believe it or not, there is a layer to the economy where billions are casually pushed around.

This sort of stuff makes me drool.  Not the scam itself, but the fact that someone with a lot of game money can materially affect the game world.  Also the fact that people have come up with true banking/investing schemes that actually work in an in-game economy.

It makes me want to play Eve, but it's just not in the cards for me for now.


edit: board code is hard

[Viin]

It makes me want to play Eve, but it's just not in the cards for me for now.

Oooh but if you get the new EVE CCG you'd have plenty of cards for EVE!

[dwindlehop]

Has CCP released a statement?

[Comstar]

Has CCP released a statement?

Why would they? Beyond publicity, it's perfectly legal to scam people in and out of game.

The only real part of that ecomany is the scamming part. Banks and investment oppotuinties don't really exist (unless you're in an allience), you'll either be scammed or be a scammer. There are NO rules enforced in game to allow banking or finance to work.

[Wolf]

here's a good link about the whole thing

[Trippy]

Interesting. Given all the withdrawl restrictions it's even more surprising people were showering him with money.

[Simond]

The same reason people fall for pyramid scams IRL - "something for nothing" is appealing, especially when the "something" is money.

[Toast]

I still have problems with the Eve world. The balance is shifted too far in the favor of the scammers and the criminals in the world.

There is no way for those who are victimized to get retribution.

In the real world, victims have recourse via government authorities and legal systems. In a lawless environment, victims can exact their own revenge.

In Eve, the criminal just blinks off forever or rolls up an alt. Even if they do stay in the game nothing of consequence can happen to them.

Scamming and brutish behavior should have real consequence. It certainly does for the victims.

[Wolf]

I was thinking the same thing that Toast is. Would you still feel the same way if the guy was announced as an outlaw from Concord and his standing set to -10.00?

[Comstar]

That's fine. He can go hide in an allience somewhere and pay for protectrion. BoB for example, be right up thier ally.

[Roac]

I was thinking the same thing that Toast is. Would you still feel the same way if the guy was announced as an outlaw from Concord and his standing set to -10.00?

What would it matter if he were?  With that much Isk, you could trade for a new character and still fly Titans made of money.

In the real world, there are two main factors that help keep criminal activity low.  One, once you are convicted of something there is generally no escape from it.  You are marked forever, and it has a number of consequences such as having to spend time in jail, difficulty in getting a job, social issues, etc.  You don't get an alt.  Two, you often have to repay damages done, so that the victim is compensated for their loss.  These two things don't always work, but they often do, and are enough to keep most people happy.  You don't have this in Eve, or most any other MMOG.  No one seems interested in building justice systems, and only incidentally interested in building checks on power.  

Some things that CCP could do if they were interested in protecting the players would be to include limitations on withdrawl from corp assets.  For example, if my intent was to form an investment corp, it would be nice to set the corp policy such that even the highest ranked members can only withdraw 1bil/mo or 10% of corp assets, whichever is lower (or whatever figure).  Spending say, 10b/20% requires a vote of the board.  Access to anything higher requires a general vote.  Or do something sort of like what real businesses do, and have voting stock and non-voting stock.  Dividends pay out the same, but only one type can vote.  You can't stop thieves, but you can limit their damage.  Likewise, removing anything from the corp hanger requires either that item to be deducted from your monthly allowance, or for it to be held against a deposit.

"Guilt" in any sort of "crime" such as assault, ship destruction, podding, corp thieft (maybe allow for manipulation via a skill?) or whatever could be determined automatically, randomly, based on a few factors, or after some detective mini-game.  If guilty, you (1) pay some fine and (2) get a criminal record that never goes away.  Have your murder count show in your profile like your history, and have it affect standing.  If you ever do manage to get to -10, even life in lowsec should be exceedingly difficult, such as by being banned from docking at any empire station and announcements on local whenever you enter/leave a system (and from/to where).  Let PC stations allow/disallow people based on CONCORD status, and let that be public or semi-public knowledge.  Let status slide up or down based on a mix of criminal activity, agreeability to work with the justice system (e.g., if you 'go to court' you are viewed with less hostility than if you stay on the run) as well as rats.  However, any unpaid reparations should have hard values built in, so that no amount of rat grinding or connection skill training will keep your standing up if you're a mass killer.  Lastly, let status be somewhat affected by status grants by past corps, with the weight given based on their factional standing and size.  If a 500 strong corp with +8 faction standing black lists someone, the faction should take notice.

[Krakrok]

I saw that "bank"'s website maybe a month ago. I thought about investing but yeah it seemed scammy. Additionally the interest rate sucked. Same with a recent Outpost drive that an alliance was doing. Why would you invest 50 million and then only make 5% a month. In the context of the game that investment seems pointless.

[Roac]

The main motive for an alliance isn't any interest, it's that you're supporting the alliance.  Team player and all that.  The point of the bank is greed; invest 10b and you're making enough to buy a fitted BS every week.  But yeah, if you have that much, what's the point?

[Der Helm]

In Eve, the criminal just blinks off forever or rolls up an alt. Even if they do stay in the game nothing of consequence can happen to them.

Scamming and brutish behavior should have real consequence. It certainly does for the victims.

If your aply consequences to a game like the "real world" (tm) does, very few individuals would join the "dark side" (tm).

Would make for a very boring game.

And it IS a game, right ? :-D

[Comstar]

Hardly. The bad guyas can go make thier own Evil Empire.

[JoeTF]

Der Helm: It would make it more interesting, since beside scamming stories you would also have retribution ones. Double the fun, basically.



Anyway, ToA states that scams involving Trade forum are not allowed.
Can you imagine poor GM who have to send all those transfers back? 

[Soln]

I'm not even going to try -- this is fucking stupid.  I'm blogging about it.

How the fuck can players have this much money in a game where money is the key advancement metric?  Because it's not skills -- they can be earned AFK.  This is the third or fourth major scam in Eve, but it feels like a slippery slope. 

It just feels gross.  Since you gotta log back in and hope you can earn a little more towards another million.  What level is this guy at equivalently then?

Edit: and HOW can people claim the economy in Eve is balanced if players <1 year in are still grinding towards their first BS's or HAC's and other guys like these can collect without retribution?  There game world should tax this stuff or put bounties on the guy.  There's just a lack of immersion that makes the whole thing ugly.  Not for a moral reason, but just out of balance.

[Der Helm]

Der Helm: It would make it more interesting, since beside scamming stories you would also have retribution ones. Double the fun, basically.

I agree that the "transfer money to alt X" scam is lame. The only thing CCP needs to enforce would be disallowing the ISK transfer to another account/character. It can't be too difficult to filter the transaction of one single individual.

This would give the "victims" enough possibilities to have their retribution.

[JoeTF]

He could clean it by market or escrow.
Nah, what I want is strict assigment of characters to person who play them. You either commit credit card fraud, or all your alts and second accounts are linked.
Generally, some framework where through missions and grinding you could discover connections between accounts would be nice.

[schild]

Personally, I liked the blueprint Eve scam a lot more. I think it might've been posted in the SA forums first. Anyway, was good stuff.

[Vedi]

Personally, I liked the blueprint Eve scam a lot more. I think it might've been posted in the SA forums first. Anyway, was good stuff.

That was quite well written (if it is this one), but it was fairly small time. It was for around 300-500 million ISK, so less than a 0.1 % of the value of this scam. Granted, this was a while back so there was probably less money floating around, but it should also be said that there has been very little inflation in Eve (measured in the price of T1 items, at least). To put it in perspective 300-500 million isk is what a small-medium sized corp might have to pay as a monthly fee to a greedy 0.0 alliance. I've spent less than six months in Eve, and have 130ish million in my account right now, as well as ships worth about the same.

[Kamen]

Unlurk

1)  If you nose around the Eve forums and Dev blogs you will find that the prevailing opinion is that this scam was more along the lines of 100-200 billion.  Still a sizable sum to be sure, but nowhere near what the scammer claimed.  CCP has all but flat out stated that the guy was posting bogus screen shots.

2)  Many believe that the Eve Investment Bank wasn't set up with the intention of being a scam.  The guy was running a "bank" of sorts but when people started asking questions and demanding answers he folded up his tent, emptied the corp wallet, and left.  Basically some people believe that the Peter Principle kicked in when he reached the level of being a heavyweight in Eve and shutting the operation down and becoming a rich person who could say "Lo0kz atz me I hab WTFPWnED joose all noobs!" became a more appealing option than being exposed as an incompetent business owner who was doing some small time skimming.  He’ll launder his money into another character and do whatever.  He’ll never make a real life cent off his isk as CCP is watching his account like a hawk.

3)  Scam or not, this particular incident is generally regarded as lacking in style.  Eve has had many scams.  Some are regarded and respected for having been conducted with a certain amount of style or class.  This is not one of them.  As far as I am concerned the Guiding Hand Social Club scam is still hands down the "best" scam we've had.

4)  Although it's great PR, totally legal in Eve, and regarded with almost awe like wonder by many, scamming is thin soup IMO.  It's not exactly tough to build trust up and then break it.  I personally know dozens of people who could walk off with hundreds of billions of other people’s money and blueprints if they were so inclined.  Those silent industrialists in the background don't get headlines or want them.

5)  There is an amazing amount of money (isk) out there that is looking to be put to use making more money.  I know that I have a few investments, and still have billions more than I can constructively use for my industrial operations.  My time allows me to only conduct so many trades, operations, etc.  I have more money than I can usefully employ.  MANY other people are in this horrifying predicament.  Whenever a credible, respected member of the community takes his company public and sells stock in an IPO it is sold out very quickly.  Whenever my wallet bulges too much I usually buy another BPO or waste it on something to amuse me.  Others blow their money on wars or whatever.  Investing just gives us another option on how to spend the money we don’t need.

Damn I love Eve.

Lurk

[MahrinSkel]

Edit: and HOW can people claim the economy in Eve is balanced if players <1 year in are still grinding towards their first BS's or HAC's and other guys like these can collect without retribution?  There game world should tax this stuff or put bounties on the guy.  There's just a lack of immersion that makes the whole thing ugly.  Not for a moral reason, but just out of balance.

Simple: The Eve economic game is hard-core PvP.  I made my first billion after three months in Eve, after playing the game at the "penny stocks" level, BPC arbitrage and opportunistic sniping of the modules market for practice, then serious T2 reselling for the killing.  At this point, a year in, probably 8-10B isk has moved through my hands, although most of my profit from it got burned on the CODA war.  I put another billion into a corp POS project that gives me a steady trickle of passive income (roughly a 5% weekly return).  I made 300M or so on stock speculation, would have been considerably more but I wound up liquidating in a hurry.  Right now, even though I have moved 1000 miles and attended AGC over the last 2 weeks, I have probably made 500M profit from my buy and sell orders (between my two accounts I can maintain over 500 of them), although I won't know for sure until my new house has internet and I can make pickup and move stuff for resale and recycling (I'm leaching from a neighbor's wireless, but it isn't reliable enough to play on).

If you want to make real bank in Eve, you don't need umpteen million SP, or hit lucky on the T2 lottery.  You just have to realize that most players have no idea what the ebb and flow of the market is, or what the differences in prices are between regions, and find ways to exploit it.  The Eve market game is PvP. 

I didn't get burned by the EIB scam, but I know people who were.  Most of them have the same reaction: "Damn that sucks.  But ain't it cool?"

--Dave

[Kamen]

If you want to make real bank in Eve, you don't need umpteen million SP, or hit lucky on the T2 lottery.  You just have to realize that most players have no idea what the ebb and flow of the market is, or what the differences in prices are between regions, and find ways to exploit it.  The Eve market game is PvP. 

I didn't get burned by the EIB scam, but I know people who were.  Most of them have the same reaction: "Damn that sucks.  But ain't it cool?"

--Dave

Very well said sir.

It took me a couple of days of mindless mining in a frigate before I realized that you could actually use your brain instead of your avatar skills to make serious money by trading in Eve.  I made my first billion by doing cross regional implant trading, because frankly most people are to lazy to travel or look around even within their own region to save money.  With many people it seems that once they have made a buy decision in a game they seem to want it NOW, and the cost be damned.  This shocked me a bit, and at first I lost out on potential profit by trying to be to cute with my margins by keeping them thinner than needed.   Frankly, economic PvP is far more interesting to me than figuring out a tank and then hitting F1-F8 when I meet someone.

I also did not lose anything in the EIB scam but don't regard this particular scam as all that awe inspiring compared to some of the others.

Regards

[Krakrok]

With many people it seems that once they have made a buy decision in a game they seem to want it NOW, and the cost be damned.  This shocked me a bit

Time > ISK. It may be cheaper 8 systems away but if I don't want to waste the travel time I'm going to buy it locally for more.

[Kamen]

Time > ISK. It may be cheaper 8 systems away but if I don't want to waste the travel time I'm going to buy it locally for more.

Instead of saying Time > ISK I think it might be more accurate to say that our game time has a certain value in isk with all of us having a different valuation for our time.  The isk value of our game time is primarily based upon the size of our wallet, but is determined by other factors also.  Like you, I won't spend my game time to travel 8 systems in order to save 300k on some mod's, but a noob with 5 mil in his wallet sure might.

What surprised me the most was the high valuation that non-noob players placed on their time.  I have sold ships for 21 million that others were selling for 20 million within the same system.  This shocked me, as even I with my fat wallet would do a in system station jump to save a million isk.

People will travel to save money only when the savings is larger than the value they place on their time.  Mid level people place a higher value on their time than I initially thought, which is why I said my margins were to thin at first.

Regards