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It was one big PONZI scheme

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cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:29:00 - [1] So as most of you have now realized with the public audit, the Cosmoray house of cards has imploded. It was, and always has been a massive ponzi scheme right from the start. So yeah, I am a big fat SCAMMER!! The cons started in 2007, and some are even still running today. I have had help, there are still some active accomplices out there. I doubt you will find them though. Why did I stop, boredom mainly. I tried to give the game away but it took some pushing to get caught. Here is a link to the whole story if you want to read it: Cosmoray's Ponzi Life The link is a bit of a wall of text, because I probably screwed up the transfer making it public somehow. You can read it and flame me, or you can just flame me. I'll even answer your questions if you want. Have fun. note: I haven't changed the API, so you can look through the account as much as you like.
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:31:00 - [2] Originally by: cosmoray So as most of you have now realized with the public audit, the Cosmoray house of cards has imploded. It was, and always has been a massive ponzi scheme right from the start. So yeah, I am a big fat SCAMMER!! The cons started in 2007, and some are even still running today. I have had help, there are still some active accomplices out there. I doubt you will find them though. Why did I stop, boredom mainly. I tried to give the game away but it took some pushing to get caught. Here is a link to the whole story if you want to read it: Cosmoray's Ponzi Life The link is a bit of a wall of text, because I probably screwed up the transfer making it public somehow. You can read it and flame me, or you can just flame me. I'll even answer your questions if you want. Have fun. note: I haven't changed the API, so you can look through the account as much as you like. I'll get the popcorn. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Drealar Caldari Heroes. Insidious.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:31:00 - [3] in on the ground floor
Breaker77 Gallente Reclamation Industries	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:32:00 - [4] Originally by: Kalrand I'll get the popcorn. I've got the butter!
Lauren Hellfury Full Pocket Aggro	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:32:00 - [5] what was your take?
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:32:00 - [6] 4 years? --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
Brock Nelson Caldari T2 Technologies Unlimited SRS.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:32:00 - [7] Hah...third party Hah...trustee Hah...i was right How was that for a haiku? IPO coming soon
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:33:00 - [8] Just as an FYI: KalBonds has ZERO exposure to Cosmoray. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:34:00 - [9] Originally by: cosmoray So as most of you have now realized with the public audit, the Cosmoray house of cards has imploded. It was, and always has been a massive ponzi scheme right from the start. So yeah, I am a big fat SCAMMER!! The cons started in 2007, and some are even still running today. I have had help, there are still some active accomplices out there. I doubt you will find them though. Why did I stop, boredom mainly. I tried to give the game away but it took some pushing to get caught. Here is a link to the whole story if you want to read it: Cosmoray's Ponzi Life The link is a bit of a wall of text, because I probably screwed up the transfer making it public somehow. You can read it and flame me, or you can just flame me. I'll even answer your questions if you want. Have fun. note: I haven't changed the API, so you can look through the account as much as you like. This is why it's important to audit people.
Brock Nelson Caldari T2 Technologies Unlimited SRS.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:36:00 - [10] On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. I don't give a **** if you say you're a honest person, you're a trustworthy third party, either way you're going to scam. Everyone has a price, its just a matter of figuring out what it is. I know Grendell's got a price. I know Chribba's got a price. Whats yours? IPO coming soon

Phey Onat Sigillum Militum Xpisti	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:36:00 - [11] Getting in the ground floor of this. A toast to all!
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:37:00 - [12] Cosmo, you have broken my heart I will never love again --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
egola Amarr	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:37:00 - [13] awesome....got my popcorn ready. someone post this on C&P everyone needs to know more! give him more exposure!
Breaker77 Gallente Reclamation Industries	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:38:00 - [14] Quote: An audit was conducted by VV Goes to show you, audits are useless.
Phey Onat Sigillum Militum Xpisti	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:39:00 - [15] I actually don't think Chribba has a price. At least not one measured through ISK.
Hexxx Minmatar	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:39:00 - [16] Originally by: Liberty Eternal This is why it's important to audit people. I think his writeup should be saved, we're getting some very valuable examples of potential fraudulent behavior and a detailed outline of what patterns to look for.
Drealar Caldari Heroes. Insidious.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:40:00 - [17] gief stuffs cosmo? :D
Zea Aestria	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:41:00 - [18] bleah
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:41:00 - [19] So, in Signatures last night, were you actually going to pay Godsmack back x 5, if he sent you the isk? Inquiring minds would like to know --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
Kei Darker	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:42:00 - [20] I think everyone just says a collective lol and moves on.

Drealar Caldari Heroes. Insidious.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:43:00 - [21] Originally by: Hexxx Originally by: Liberty Eternal This is why it's important to audit people. I think his writeup should be saved, we're getting some very valuable examples of potential fraudulent behavior and a detailed outline of what patterns to look for. It was quoted in the very first reply...
cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:43:00 - [22] Originally by: Breaker77 Quote: An audit was conducted by VV Goes to show you, audits are useless. Anyone can get past an audit. The two best ways: 1. BPC vs. BPO 2. Transfer of assets via station trade. My total take is close to zero, as I have given 99% of it away. I didn't even take the 10-20B offered in the Hegel bond. That bond was mainly to try and show up in an audit anyway
Bumblefck Kerensky Initiatives	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:46:00 - [23] This just in: MD is as full of rabidly greedy people as the rest of the game. Anyone who mentions the words "trusted", "respected", "third party" and "MDer" in the same sentence should be shot (in game) ?
Phey Onat Sigillum Militum Xpisti	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:46:00 - [24] You gave99% away, how much was that though.
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:47:00 - [25] Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 03/03/2011 23:48:58 Originally by: cosmoray Anyone can get past an audit. The two best ways: 1. BPC vs. BPO 2. Transfer of assets via station trade. My total take is close to zero, as I have given 99% of it away. I didn't even take the 10-20B offered in the Hegel bond. That bond was mainly to try and show up in an audit anyway Another scammer saying audits are useless I think the Hegel Angel case was an attempt to get 62 bil and that you would have taken it if you could.
Brock Nelson Caldari T2 Technologies Unlimited SRS.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:49:00 - [26] Liberty, as a former auditor, I can safely say that audit is indeed useless and serves only as a fact checker, nothing more. IPO coming soon
Wyke Mossari Gallente	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:50:00 - [27] Ringside seat booked.
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:50:00 - [28] Originally by: Brock Nelson Liberty, as a former auditor, I can safely say that audit is indeed useless and serves only as a fact checker, nothing more. As a from time to time fact checker, I completely concur. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:52:00 - [29] Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 03/03/2011 23:52:41 So with the Hegel Angel 62 bil bond, the investors should have gone ahead and put their money in? And I was wrong to insist on an audit? An audit would have made no difference? Edit: Is it so difficult to understand that we are better off knowing what we can know, than not knowing it?
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:53:00 - [30] Seal of approval! Black Sun Empire

cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:54:00 - [31] Originally by: Liberty Eternal Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 03/03/2011 23:48:58 Originally by: cosmoray Anyone can get past an audit. The two best ways: 1. BPC vs. BPO 2. Transfer of assets via station trade. My total take is close to zero, as I have given 99% of it away. I didn't even take the 10-20B offered in the Hegel bond. That bond was mainly to try and show up in an audit anyway Another scammer saying audits are useless I think the Hegel Angel case was an attempt to get 62 bil and that you would have taken it if you could. Wasn't interested in the cash from that, as I practically don't play anyway. I wanted to set up the audit to see if people would see the 100M ISK money transfer in the wallet journal. I couldn't have collected either, as I was actually out of the country with no game access on work laptop. The plan was to always end it in March. I could have earnt the 15B or so offered, and I could have taken Billions in the signature channel with people practically throwing money at me. Any that did was returned. This was SCAM burnout, I didn't want anymore. I gambled the last 3B at EOH by playing Heads Up until I lost it.
Kei Darker	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:56:00 - [32] soo... someone has to ask... Can I haz your stuffs?
Drealar Caldari Heroes. Insidious.	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:57:00 - [33] Originally by: Drealar gief stuffs cosmo? :D
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:57:00 - [34] Originally by: cosmoray This was SCAM burnout, I didn't want anymore. I gambled the last 3B at EOH by playing Heads Up until I lost it. Aw cosmo, it's almost sad. So bored with EVE you can't even bother scamming the billions anymore. GL to you --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
Cista2 Hydra Investment Fund	Posted - 2011.03.03 23:59:00 - [35] I'll be d*mned, that's disappointing. Anyway, I'll give myself credit for crying wolf on the previous thread - it was obvious that something had cracked. ----------------------- "Signatures" trade chatroom / Universal Railways
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:00:00 - [36] Originally by: Breaker77 Quote: An audit was conducted by VV Goes to show you, audits are useless. No **** sherlock lol. imo VV is in on it. so are alot of you other nerds. posting in an epic thread.
Tasko Pal Spallated Garniferous Schist	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:00:00 - [37] Quote: It was, and always has been a massive ponzi scheme right from the start. I made several investments in 2008-2009, most which failed hard. The funny thing is that Cosmoray was still one of the best. When I came back after a long spell last September, I decided to stay away from the MD investment scene. I have yet to regret that decision. MD is good for information and (cough) spreading disinformation, such as talking about the latest scams (this thread for example ), hot markets, latest CCP patch churn, etc. Past that? I don't know. Long term commitments with other players just don't work very often.
Tutskii	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:07:00 - [38] can I haz some stuffz plz?
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:11:00 - [39] Quote: Stepping Up My Presence In November 2007 I setup Cosmoray as my main identity on the forums. I continued to be an active part of the forums (which I enjoyed), but when I played the game it was with my PVP toon on another account. Things continued smoothly into the middle of 2008, when I started to run out funds again. At this time I actively worked on a plan to run a long term ponzi scheme where I could earn money, improve reputation with interest payments, refinance and continue until money ran out all whilst siphoning money for my PVP activities. The bold part highlights WHY AUDITS ARE USELESS. Quote: Second Audited Scam Around this time I came up with a plan to beat the audit system run by certain players. This was achieved by launching a 32B ISK IPO with an ALT. Using Cosmoray I would station trade assets over to look good. The ALT was also heavily into IER (see further down) so it looked like a large business was occurring. An audit was conducted by VV, easily passed and a holding corp was set up with Cosmoray and VV to hold 18B of the collateral. The investment quickly sold out and the 32B ISK was raised. implying VV was in on it :D lol ahh much lulz, epic thread :D
Zea Aestria	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:12:00 - [40] Real question: Who lost ISK, and how much?

Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:15:00 - [41] Far from being useless, audits are very effective, particularly when deployed against their natural prey - the ponzi scheme. The nature of a ponzi scheme is that the ponzi runner does not have the cash he says he does. This is why an audit is the best method of eliminating the ponzi. Whatever he may be saying now, Cosmonaut did try to take 62 bil for his empty ponzi. He had no way of getting over the audit hurdle, which is why it remains a powerful weapon that every ponzi-scammer detests.
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:15:00 - [42] Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. I don't give a **** if you say you're a honest person, you're a trustworthy third party, either way you're going to scam. Everyone has a price, its just a matter of figuring out what it is. I know Grendell's got a price. I know Chribba's got a price. Whats yours? "Only you have ever understood me. à And you got it wrong." Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Black Sun Empire
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:18:00 - [43] Originally by: Liberty Eternal Far from being useless, audits are very effective, particularly when deployed against their natural prey - the ponzi scheme. The nature of a ponzi scheme is that the ponzi runner does not have the cash he says he does. This is why an audit is the best method of eliminating the ponzi. Whatever he may be saying now, Cosmonaut did try to take 62 bil for his empty ponzi. He had no way of getting over the audit hurdle, which is why it remains a powerful weapon that every ponzi-scammer detests. re-read my quoted paragraph #2. he got an "lolaudit" & raised 32b for his ponzi. ITT: lol Audits & lolAuditors OWNED.
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:22:00 - [44] Originally by: Misty McGinnity re-read my quoted paragraph #2. he got an "lolaudit" & raised 32b for his ponzi. ITT: lol Audits & lolAuditors OWNED. He got that 2 years ago. The information pictured changed a bit since then. With no audit system, he could have carried on coasting effortlessly from one scam to the next without friction. Like BSAC, he had no ability to get over the audit hurdle. It's not true to say that audits have no use.
Jack Mortu	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:23:00 - [45] Well, I thought your account of everything was an interesting read. Particularly useful to me, because I am considering this business of auditing. (I have a Bachelor's in accounting & auditing in real life is why.) As such, nothing is more useful than learning how scammers scam. Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. No, there's honest people in eve who are honest for sake of being so. You likely wont find them on this forum, or at least they're a rarity. It all comes down to: Honesty > Any amount of ISK
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:26:00 - [46] I am of two minds .. one says "cosmoray smelled fishy for a while now, did people actually still trust him?" I know he paid out on shares for a while, people still trusted that, but the issue with ebank looked slippery. We saw in that Hegel/hengel/whatever it was thread that people were a bit cautious even with cosmoray's name attached, so I am a LITTLE optimistic in that most people around here have a nose for a scammer .. I mean, most of those offering the isk were not the regular scam-spotter types like liberty, raw, (qube and breaker were offering to help secure it further even) .. yet at the same time, the scammers keep getting isk. So obviously they trick some people, and some people take a gamble (lookin at you deth) now and then and it doesn't pay off .. hmm. An audit, proving cosmoray had the NAV he claimed, would have helped later in his life .. as clearly when he gave out his key it showed he did NOT have it, and thus an audit can spot it .. but then, if a guy is running a ponzi he wont allow an audit in the first place would he, at least not on the character that is running the ponzi. Using an alt to get X billion isk, and topping their NAV up with a character that has even more, is a fairly easy way to get round a NAV count but you would still have to have activity on the account to show where the stuff came from or it'd look suspiscious, right? So now I wonder why VV failed to spot anything on that audit he did. So this is where my second mind comes in .. the one that says "MD investment should die off, unless you physically hold the collateral yourself then keep the isk in your own wallet" .. I think at this point, unless CCP do something ANYTHING to help us run these little game-businesses, some sort of tools .. and we all know they wont do that .. then you are gambling unnecessary. You want your billions of isk to 'work for you' ? Then either research some BPOs, cause they don't generally drop in value, or invest in some goods you have a 50/50 shot of the price going up for in the next X months. That would be a much safer and profitable way to keep your isk at work. Bit of a ramble, perhaps. I don't much care for cosmoray or that he scammed, he can have his glorious 5pages of MD scam fame, at the end of the day all the scammers do the same thing and say the same things. I am much more interested in how MD will move from here. The atmosphere in this place has begun to stink lately, with the C&P level of trolling and the number of ****ty offerings on the field, tbh I would go with mind #2 - hold collateral yourself, or do something else with the isk.
Jita Bloodtear	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:31:00 - [47] So is there a TLDR version of events? You built up a ponzi scheme reputation for X months to get out 100bil or so and distribute it to friends? Seems rather small time. This thread needs more numbers, and more back peddlers claiming they didn't trust you from the start - but still invested anyways --------------------------- Full Explanation of the Industry Index System
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:36:00 - [48] Originally by: Jita Bloodtear So is there a TLDR version of events? You built up a ponzi scheme reputation for X months to get out 100bil or so and distribute it to friends? Seems rather small time. This thread needs more numbers, and more back peddlers claiming they didn't trust you from the start - but still invested anyways Don't worry its early days, butthurt VV hasn't made an appearance yet.
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:39:00 - [49] Well I'll be... Look mommy another one!! He is already on "The Thieves of EVE" list anyway so it's not like anything changed. Another day another ISK sucked away by those smarter then the people who watch over them. Amarr for Life
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:39:00 - [50] Originally by: Misty McGinnity Don't worry its early days, butthurt VV hasn't made an appearance yet. As my alt, you are really disappointing me, Misty. Calling someone "butthurt" or a "nerd" on the MD forums is like --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba

Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:49:00 - [51] Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 04/03/2011 00:54:57
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:53:00 - [52] Edited by: Block Ukx on 04/03/2011 00:54:05 "Second Audited Scam Around this time I came up with a plan to beat the audit system run by certain players. This was achieved by launching a 32B ISK IPO with an ALT. Using Cosmoray I would station trade assets over to look good. The ALT was also heavily into IER (see further down) so it looked like a large business was occurring. An audit was conducted by VV, easily passed and a holding corp was set up with Cosmoray and VV to hold 18B of the collateral. The investment quickly sold out and the 32B ISK was raised." - Cosmoray PRICELESS! PS CRCH has been de-listed EDIT: This is one of the many ways to by pass audits. BSAC Stock Exchange - EVE's only real-time stock exchange
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:57:00 - [53] Quote: An audit was conducted by VV I don't recall being the one who did that one. Did I even play back then? I did an audit on a supposed-to-be other player that was kept separated from the OP account in order to not show up as suspicious API entry (at the time API covered 1 week only). Quote: Anyone can get past an audit. The two best ways: 1. BPC vs. BPO These were not BPCs: Nor these: Originally by: Brock Nelson Liberty, as a former auditor, I can safely say that audit is indeed useless and serves only as a fact checker, nothing more. Which is actually what they are meant to do... Quote: re-read my quoted paragraph #2. he got an "lolaudit" & raised 32b for his ponzi. Audit link He setup an alt for a quite perfect operation that the API could not discern from a legit one. He even produced a complete T2 manufacturing sheet with possible profits and all. He did the work a real investee would do. He presented real BPOS, he had real BPOs being copied or researched at a POS. It had full collateral, as the screenshots can show. There has never been anyone complaining about not having had their money back on it as well afaik. I don't feel I have neglected what I had available via EvE technological means. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:57:00 - [54] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 04/03/2011 01:00:02 Originally by: Block Ukx Edited by: Block Ukx on 04/03/2011 00:54:05 "Second Audited Scam Around this time I came up with a plan to beat the audit system run by certain players. This was achieved by launching a 32B ISK IPO with an ALT. Using Cosmoray I would station trade assets over to look good. The ALT was also heavily into IER (see further down) so it looked like a large business was occurring. An audit was conducted by VV, easily passed and a holding corp was set up with Cosmoray and VV to hold 18B of the collateral. The investment quickly sold out and the 32B ISK was raised." - Cosmoray PRICELESS! PS CRCH has been de-listed EDIT: This is one of the many ways to by pass audits. Yup, it is. If you are claiming a NAV under what you actually have you can easily fuel a ponzi by using alts ie you have 100billion, launch an IPO with a stated NAV of 4billion and just funnel 4billion into that alt so that it shows up. What you cannot do, however, is say "I have 700billion isk" and pass an audit without actually having 700billion isk, which would be a lot harder to achieve unless you have a 'main' that actually has >700billion isk already. edit: and lol VV comes in and stomps over everyone's fun "lol@audits!" ;) Good job VV. I am still curious how you were not able to spot the BPOs and things being transferred through? Not as a criticism, more just wondering why that is not able to be spotted - can't you see "station trading with cosmoray" in wallet journal, or anything like that? What technology is missing to help you get past this in the future?
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.04 00:59:00 - [55] Originally by: Liberty Eternal Originally by: Misty McGinnity re-read my quoted paragraph #2. he got an "lolaudit" & raised 32b for his ponzi. ITT: lol Audits & lolAuditors OWNED. He got that 2 years ago. The information pictured changed a bit since then. With no audit system, he could have carried on coasting effortlessly from one scam to the next without friction. Like BSAC, he had no ability to get over the audit hurdle. It's not true to say that audits have no use. YouÆve been proven wrong, and yet wonÆt admit it. Not only that, you have the guts to continue your defamation campaign. IÆm not surprise. BSAC Stock Exchange - EVE's only real-time stock exchange
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:01:00 - [56] Originally by: Block Ukx Originally by: Liberty Eternal Originally by: Misty McGinnity re-read my quoted paragraph #2. he got an "lolaudit" & raised 32b for his ponzi. ITT: lol Audits & lolAuditors OWNED. He got that 2 years ago. The information pictured changed a bit since then. With no audit system, he could have carried on coasting effortlessly from one scam to the next without friction. Like BSAC, he had no ability to get over the audit hurdle. It's not true to say that audits have no use. YouÆve been proven wrong, and yet wonÆt admit it. Not only that, you have the guts to continue your defamation campaign. IÆm not surprise. You're an idiot who didn't read what he posted. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:05:00 - [57] Originally by: Block Ukx YouÆve been proven wrong, and yet wonÆt admit it. Not only that, you have the guts to continue your defamation campaign. IÆm not surprise What did I tell you via mail about the forum? Don't you see that the next natural target of ANY troll + flaming as the "Last Big Unaudited Thing" is exactly you? - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:05:00 - [58] Originally by: Block Ukx YouÆve been proven wrong, and yet wonÆt admit it. Not only that, you have the guts to continue your defamation campaign. IÆm not surprise. It's a special kind of pleasure to cross swords with you Block. Like me, you are a man who does not know when to quit - I can respect that. However you need to understand two things - one, mind-games don't work on me. Two, I'm taking you and your scam down.
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:06:00 - [59] While one time audits are useless when faced with someone smart enough to exploit them. I wonder how he could have faired with an ongoing constant financial reporting on his API. Its one thing to create an environment in which can clearly trick a one time audit, it's another to maintain the illusion without anything unusual coming up. The longer it runs the possibility of being tripped by up a financial audit would be. Interesting read none the less, it's saved for reference material and is has some new unique insight into what to look for to determine a scam at least. Amarr for Life
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:08:00 - [60] Originally by: Liberty Eternal Originally by: Block Ukx YouÆve been proven wrong, and yet wonÆt admit it. Not only that, you have the guts to continue your defamation campaign. IÆm not surprise. It's a special kind of pleasure to cross swords with you Block. Like me, you are a man who does not know when to quit - I can respect that. However you need to understand two things - one, mind-games don't work on me. Two, I'm taking you and your scam down. That's ok. I'll continue to prevent you and Karland to run the next "Super Secured Audit Enabled" scam. BSAC Stock Exchange - EVE's only real-time stock exchange

Akita T Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:08:00 - [61] So... wannabe scammer turns into industrialist and then capitalist, is unable to keep it from gobbling up all his ingame time, that burns him out, he wastes a load of ISK on silly things and stops generally giving a fudge, posts about how he masterplanned it all or somesuch (when he could have paid most or all of it back instead of wasting it on crap). Not so much a story of a hugely successful scammer, but rather the story of a burnout/washout that happened to start out by trying to be a big-time scammer. Final verdict : meh. _ Make ISK\|\|Build\|\|React\|\|1k papercuts _
Babyface Eighteen	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:10:00 - [62] Cosmo who?
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:10:00 - [63] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: Block Ukx YouÆve been proven wrong, and yet wonÆt admit it. Not only that, you have the guts to continue your defamation campaign. IÆm not surprise What did I tell you via mail about the forum? Don't you see that the next natural target of ANY troll + flaming as the "Last Big Unaudited Thing" is exactly you? Yes you did. I wonÆt post again in this thread. I just couldnÆt help it! BSAC Stock Exchange - EVE's only real-time stock exchange
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:10:00 - [64] Originally by: Block Ukx That's ok. I'll continue to prevent you and Karland to run the next "Super Secured Audit Enabled" scam. Karland doesn't post on this forum. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:12:00 - [65] Quote: While one time audits are useless when faced with someone smart enough to exploit them. Performance audits work well. One time audits - as said many times even in recently - act as entry barrier for the large number of low level scammer. Sadly high level scammers can circumvent or just bypass them (using their "rep" to avoid them). This is a further proof of that, and also a further proof that when the audits state that "the investee shows the potential to honor the bond" they are true to the bone. Potential <> act, since Aristotile times. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:13:00 - [66] lol so much hate, please continue. p.s. block can i my plex early? im going away next week for a holiday :3
Liang Nuren	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:17:00 - [67] Cosmoray, IIRC you were the dude that blew up thousands of battleships with "insurance scamming". Did you really do this? -Liang -- Eve Forum ***** Extraordinaire On Twitter
Roguehalo Caldari Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:18:00 - [68] When people realise that anybody who 'needs' capital is by defintion incompetent then they'll stop providing it and stop getting scammed. By all means borrow 2-3b when you are getting started but if anybody needs more financing after that then they're doing something wrong. Cosmoray wasn't a scammer at the start..........It's his incompetence and inability that just didn't give him any other option. Major fail really.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:18:00 - [69] Originally by: Liang Nuren Cosmoray, IIRC you were the dude that blew up thousands of battleships with "insurance scamming". Did you really do this? -Liang Get out, this thread is now about audits/bsac but yeah according to his story he did do that, I think it said 13000 battleships in the end.
Akita T Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:20:00 - [70] Originally by: Liang Nuren Cosmoray, IIRC you were the dude that blew up thousands of battleships with "insurance scamming". Did you really do this? "Insurance Exchange Rate (IER) [...]In 4Q 2009 the IER profit on each of the above listed ships was over 10M ISK per ship. Using the 32B ISK raised above and using ALTS and characters purchased with previously raised funds I ran a huge IER operation at Paara (2 jumps from Jita). I was able to make 13,000 BSÆs (profit per ship went down after as people jumped on this) in about 6 weeks, and turned the 32B ISK into 132B ISK. Have to say a word to red Frog Freight who moved over 100B ISK in minerals per week from Jita to my base. This would be the last time I would spend any time playing industrial tycoon. I got so bored with the production I stopped early when I could have made much more. Bored with the Money Entering 2010 I was suddenly sitting on a pile of ISK which I didnÆt really care about, so I started to give some away. The money went to friends, ship purchases (lots of shiny equipment), and simply giving it away in Jita. I even gambled about 15B ISK away on EOH poker with crazy betting In total I went through the entire 100B in 4 weeks." From his OP linky. _ Make ISK\|\|Build\|\|React\|\|1k papercuts _

cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:21:00 - [71] Originally by: SencneS Edited by: SencneS on 04/03/2011 01:06:47 While one time audits are useless when faced with someone smart enough to exploit them. I wonder how he could have faired with an ongoing constant financial reporting on his API. Its one thing to create an environment in which can clearly trick a one time audit, it's another to maintain the illusion without anything unusual coming up. The longer it runs the possibility of being tripped by up a financial reporting would be. Interesting read none the less, it's saved for reference material and is has some new unique insight into what to look for to determine a scam at least. I would have been dead in the water with continuously tracked API data. The obvious way to beat individual audits was and is asset transfers via station trades between two accounts. Secondly you always need to rotate who you use to audit you. Account A set up, gets audits passes with auditor X Account B launches business with account A assets, and audited by auditor Y Account A launches bigger business with account B assets, audited by auditor X or new one. Obviously takes a bit of time for API to clear between audits. This can be done easily by buying lots of little junk for low lvl PVP (ammo etc.). Assets can be boosted with good quality BPC's that software can't see difference (used to be at least). Final and possibly most important thing is the interview with the auditor to discuss business plan and scope. Spend time chatting with auditor that it is said publically that it is the "other" character being audited, and that in event of SCAM the characters will be released. The auditors always see this as failsafe, because they are above reproach. This way the unknown ALT is never audited by the same auditor so the information isn't made public so other auditors won't find out. The other thing on your side is that auditors are quite often doing the audit to prepare a name for themselves. They are building their own rep by performing a quality audit on you. They want you to be successful. There are always questionable items that come up on the audit, as long as you have a reasonable explanation the auditor WANTS to believe you. This process is in their benefit also.
Frenden Dax Dax Acquisitions	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:22:00 - [72] This is disappointing, as well as entirely unexpected. Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for.
Akita T Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:26:00 - [73] You know what all of this actually reminds me of ? The much-too-frequent stories of big lottery winners who screw up their own lives because they have no clue how to handle themselves now that they have potentially a lot of money, and end up doing a lot of stupid stuff because of it, basically not just wasting it all but also getting deep into debt because of it, so that at the end, winning the lottery was one of the worst things that happened to them. Ok, it was not a lottery win for cosmoray and debt in EVE is unenforceable, but it was pretty close to that, and the end result was similar, but only his investors paid the price. It's actually a sad story. I don't dislike cosmoray because of it, not even an ounce of hate, really (well, not having had invested a single ISK with him ever is probably one of the prerequisites for that, heh)... in fact, I actually pity him, more than anything else. You just had to burn out, didn't you ? Now one more entertainment source is gone. Oh well... _ Make ISK\|\|Build\|\|React\|\|1k papercuts _
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company ISK Six	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:27:00 - [74] This whole story seems a bit ..... haphazard, fabricated, something? Any chance that the story you posted is fabricated and there is another reason you don't have any ISK left? ______________________________
Roguehalo Caldari Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:28:00 - [75] Originally by: Frenden Dax This is disappointing, as well as entirely unexpected. Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. On what basis?
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company ISK Six	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:28:00 - [76] Originally by: SencneS Well I'll be... Look mommy another one!! He is already on "The Thieves of EVE" list anyway so it's not like anything changed. Another day another ISK sucked away by those smarter then the people who watch over them. Do you actually know why he's on that list, or are you just trying to be clever? ______________________________
Frenden Dax Dax Acquisitions	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:33:00 - [77] Originally by: Roguehalo Originally by: Frenden Dax This is disappointing, as well as entirely unexpected. Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. On what basis? Industrial prowess, and consistently running a business while regularly paying dividends. Of course, the latter item is now revealed to be false.
Roguehalo Caldari Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:33:00 - [78] Originally by: Selene D'Celeste This whole story seems a bit ..... haphazard, fabricated, something? Any chance that the story you posted is fabricated and there is another reason you don't have any ISK left? Some people just fall so in love with Kings
Akita T Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:36:00 - [79] Originally by: Frenden Dax Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. Hmmm, I wonder... How many people are left in the "ran or still running high-ticket public fund deals and not scammed yet" group ? ... about four or so ? _ Make ISK\|\|Build\|\|React\|\|1k papercuts _
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:37:00 - [80] Originally by: SencneS Well I'll be... Look mommy another one!! He is already on "The Thieves of EVE" list anyway so it's not like anything changed. Another day another ISK sucked away by those smarter then the people who watch over them. "Charmed magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn..." Black Sun Empire

Roguehalo Caldari Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:37:00 - [81] Originally by: Frenden Dax Originally by: Roguehalo Originally by: Frenden Dax This is disappointing, as well as entirely unexpected. Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. On what basis? Industrial prowess, and consistently running a business while regularly paying dividends. Of course, the latter item is now revealed to be false. What industrial prowess was that? You need to realise that people with genuine industrial prowess DON'T NEED TO BORROW ISK since making isk in Eve is ridiculously easy.
Frenden Dax Dax Acquisitions	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:43:00 - [82] Originally by: Akita T Originally by: Frenden Dax Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. Hmmm, I wonder... How many people are left in the "ran or still running high-ticket public fund deals and not scammed yet" group ? ... about four or so ? A rapidly diminishing number, indeed.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:44:00 - [83] Quote: There are always questionable items that come up on the audit, as long as you have a reasonable explanation the auditor WANTS to believe you. This process is in their benefit also. This is why I always stated that auditors should be paid by investors like in RL. Also, you did not use BPCs but put real BPOs in trade window and BPCs cannot be copied in a POS - and they were showing as such. Therefore in my case, the audited character had: - real BPOs - real POS - real ISK. - real other assets. So it's not true you just slapped some BPCs and had the OK tag with no effort like you seem to want to dismissively show. Quote: This whole story seems a bit ..... haphazard, fabricated, something? Any chance that the story you posted is fabricated and there is another reason you don't have any ISK left? There is more that he did not say... I.e. this lack of possessions had a VERY odd coincidence with that very timely event involving somewhat related guy caught in RMT or cheating and that was subject to full confiscation by CCP. Imagine if it's all the same person. At this point nothing may be excluded and the effects would be exactly those: a pretend scammer who in realty got caught with his hands in the cheat honey. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:48:00 - [84] Originally by: Akita T Originally by: Frenden Dax Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. Hmmm, I wonder... How many people are left in the "ran or still running high-ticket public fund deals and not scammed yet" group ? ... about four or so ? Why, Sally, I didn't know you cared... Black Sun Empire
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company ISK Six	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:49:00 - [85] Originally by: Frenden Dax Originally by: Akita T Originally by: Frenden Dax Cosmo, you were one of the few remaining people on MD that I still had respect for. Hmmm, I wonder... How many people are left in the "ran or still running high-ticket public fund deals and not scammed yet" group ? ... about four or so ? A rapidly diminishing number, indeed. We should start a thread making a list, though it would be a damn short thread. ______________________________
cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:50:00 - [86] VV the audit you performed showed REAL BPO's and assets. This was done via asset transfer from Cosmoray to Irgazin. At the time you even asked why there was questionable transactions between Cosmoray and Irgazin, because there was a bunch of ISK transfers. It was played off easily. Read the chatlog bro!! My first audit that was done on the original Cosmo Construction, was done with BPC's.
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 01:51:00 - [87] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Wall of babblefish You gave a green light to a scammer & even put an alt in a holding corp with him. Please stop posting, i highly doubt anyone will trust you to audit them after this.
Fulbert Gallente	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:01:00 - [88] Posting in an epic thread! - It's raining memes! - Audits are being questionned. Serious buisness. - Block Uxx versus Kalrand! Flamewar has begun! Philosophical concerns : isn't EVE online a giant Ponzi scheme with Jovian lolcats on the top? Has "Market Discussions" anything to do with "Markets"... or "Discussions" (calling each other "idiots" or "meat popsicles" isn't really a discussion, sir...). ____________________________________ Fulbert Industrialist - Casual Trader EVE Online, the best browser MMO of them all
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:03:00 - [89] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 02:04:59 Quote: At the time you even asked why there was questionable transactions between Cosmoray and Irgazin, because there was a bunch of ISK transfers. It was played off easily. Read the chatlog bro!! Yes but as you well say, beyond asking I could not have the proof. You also appeared to be friendly to each other, which would explain transactions going back and forth. Quote: You gave a green light to a scammer You oddly missed this: Quote: Basically, the Investee looks like with the ability to successfully honor the bond, with some effort. *Notice how an audit can only evaluate the ability or potential* of an Investee to succesfully honor a bond, not his possibly different real plans. Quote:** i highly doubt anyone will trust you to audit them after this. This is quite low on my care-meter. I did all my audits except the last two for 1/10 of the equivalent money of the time I spend doing them. It was and is a work made to try help the MD community with the little I can do. If none will want them made any more, hey, it's time saved for me. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
LeonessDarkpaw	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:04:00 - [90] Originally by: Kalrand You're an idiot who didn't read what he posted. Thankfully no one cares what you think.

Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:12:00 - [91] Edited by: Misty McGinnity on 04/03/2011 02:12:31 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Basically, the Investee looks like with the ability to successfully honor the bond, with some effort. *Notice how an audit can only evaluate the ability or potential* of an Investee to succesfully honor a bond, not his possibly different real plans.** in other words, i posted some cool graphs, i am biased by the person whom paid for the audit (as its in our best interests) but really everything i do only verifys the account does "some" trading & has "some NAV", i can't be sure of how many accounts the person has, but the API key i was given seems ok "insert disclaimer here" tl:dr audits are useless.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:15:00 - [92] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 02:17:07 Originally by: Misty McGinnity Edited by: Misty McGinnity on 04/03/2011 02:12:31 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Basically, the Investee looks like with the ability to successfully honor the bond, with some effort. *Notice how an audit can only evaluate the ability or potential* of an Investee to succesfully honor a bond, not his possibly different real plans.** in other words, i posted some cool graphs, i am biased by the person whom paid for the audit (as its in our best interests) but really everything i do only verifys the account does "some" trading & has "some NAV", i can't be sure of how many accounts the person has, but the API key i was given seems ok "insert disclaimer here" tl:dr audits are useless. I am still waiting for your main to mail me as per the other day's post. Or are you a scammer? The intentions kinda give it out. TL:DR you don't know what an audit is? That is a skill check + optional assets and performance check? Your trolling is worsening lately, maybe because of trying too hard. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Myra2007 Millstone Industries	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:18:00 - [93] The funny thing to me is how - on a forum with an ongoing debate about mistrust and hostility towards new entrepreneurs - grinding rep seems to be the easiest thing in the world. Image cultivation is key and people have shown over and over again that they're desperate to accept pop idols without much ado. People seem to love the idea of this incorruptible man of principles that raised 100's of billions solely by pains and labor maybe because they'd like to be that guy. Curzon Dax is a great (maybe the best) example in my opinion. I wasn't around here much when that happened so I don't know if he had much of an MD presence prior to his scam. But in the other forums he used to present himself as some kind of retired alt of a very influential and wealthy player. As a guy that risks billions in officer mods in his battleship 1v1 contest because it doesn't mean anything to him. A guy that has more isk than he could ever use with the stereotypical contempt that rich people have for money. He was clearly above isk and other petty interests of mere mortals. When he made his parodies his popularity exploded and the rest is history. Did that guy actually ever "do" anything except for self-indulgent (however successful) posing in the forums before people threw some 50b isk his way? You can look at other less flamboyant examples but the principle remains: a few moderately successful ventures and good pr (usually not much more than hollow but persistent chest beating tbh) are everything you need. The mere fact that people actually seriously discuss if audits should or should not be conducted is breathtaking and a testament to the gullibility of many. They should literally be conducted all the time not once or twice in a span of years. I digress however. Before going back to lurking let me say that this has produced very little tears up to now. Also the total scam amount is nebulous and I suspect only mildly worth a 4 year time investment. I don't want to downplay the merits of this heist and I'm sure the OP is a smart guy. However to say that he had to use much cunning to trick people would arguably be a lie. -- Originally by: Professor Slocombe I will only buy tickets if the prize is your stuff and you leave Eve. Forever. You irritating self obsessed cretin.
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:23:00 - [94] Originally by: Misty McGinnity in other words, i posted some cool graphs, i am biased by the person whom paid for the audit (as its in our best interests) but really everything i do only verifys the account does "some" trading & has "some NAV", i can't be sure of how many accounts the person has, but the API key i was given seems ok "insert disclaimer here" tl:dr audits are useless. It's not VV's fault this was a scam, stop blaming him. MD demands audits, he provides. And even if he did audit Cosmo, VV's working against the tools CCP provides (which, as Cosmo said, can be manipulated). Blame the scammer for scamming, plz --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
UmadSon	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:24:00 - [95] Edited by: UmadSon on 04/03/2011 02:24:50 rofl you all got owned. so much for being the ONLY trust worthy person. signed YOUR BIGGEST FAN!
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:27:00 - [96] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 02:28:40 Quote: The mere fact that people actually seriously discuss if audits should or should not be conducted is breathtaking and a testament to the gullibility of many. They should literally be conducted all the time not once or twice in a span of years I agree, but CCP - as usual - gives 99% of the best and fully updated tools to scammers and thieves while the honest people have to deal with 1% of outdated pre-Dominion tools, a laughable joke of API, a laughable joke of API keys that publish your real account ID for everyone to crack, a laughable joke of shares votes that you can artificially tamper with, a laughable joke of BPO lockdown that can be cheated in 1001 ways. Plus, the time to making the above work has a cost. My (auditors') minerals are not free, but few want to pay for the costs in some multi-hours long operation. Result: auditors quit all the time => scammers can do like Cosmo and switch them to hide their tracks. Being constantly flamed by a nebula of idiots does not help either. It takes some forum hardening to endure the many little Mittanis we apparently inherited off CAOD. Most people give up, which - guess the coincidence - is the game of the trolls mains i.e. the scammers to be. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:27:00 - [97] Originally by: UmadSon Edited by: UmadSon on 04/03/2011 02:24:50 rofl you all got owned. so much for being the ONLY trust worthy person. signed YOUR BIGGEST FAN! Who got 'owned' ? We're not even sure how much isk he actually "stole" tbh, he said himself he ran a legitimate business for 130odd billion isk, how much isk was actually stolen? How much debt has he left behind? .. and who the **** said anything about "the ONLY trust worthy person" ? Your troll is weak, son.
Ceroth	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:33:00 - [98] This theft is halarious, ooo he took 100 bil? and? who gives a flying rats butt about 100 bil from a bunch of self obsorbed people who believed so highly in their audit system that it could not fail. WHERE IS YOUR AUDIT PROOF NOW! Kind of sad his souls value is only 100-150 bil..... hes cheap... ill take 2 of him to go please.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:39:00 - [99] Originally by: Ceroth This theft is halarious, ooo he took 100 bil? and? who gives a flying rats butt about 100 bil from a bunch of self obsorbed people who believed so highly in their audit system that it could not fail. WHERE IS YOUR AUDIT PROOF NOW! Kind of sad his souls value is only 100-150 bil..... hes cheap... ill take 2 of him to go please. Switched to another alt because you can't to reply to my question above? - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:39:00 - [100] The take wasn't massive by any means. I left with total debts of 99.5B: Cosmoray Holdings Bond = 40B Private Bond = 59.5B Plus a few others that folded. The profits over the long term with all the scams was maybe 30B, but I also made money with the scam proceeds so I am not actually sure of the realistic take (pure scam profit after dividends). Total profits (net after dividends) over time utilizing (IER, loans, patch trading, etc) the stolen ISK was in excess of 200B ISK. But, as stated the ponzi scheme was always growing needing more food to feed itself. If you had invested early it is likely that you got most (over 100% if invested at start) of your money back via dividends. Wasn't really the amount that I was interested in, it was the manipulation and playing the long con. Problem was it got boring.

Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:46:00 - [101] Originally by: cosmoray The take wasn't massive by any means. I left with total debts of 99.5B: Cosmoray Holdings Bond = 40B Private Bond = 59.5B Plus a few others that folded. The profits over the long term with all the scams was maybe 30B, but I also made money with the scam proceeds so I am not actually sure of the realistic take (pure scam profit after dividends). Total profits (net after dividends) over time utilizing (IER, loans, patch trading, etc) the stolen ISK was in excess of 200B ISK. But, as stated the ponzi scheme was always growing needing more food to feed itself. If you had invested early it is likely that you got most (over 100% if invested at start) of your money back via dividends. Wasn't really the amount that I was interested in, it was the manipulation and playing the long con. Problem was it got boring. I recall people like Flakeys invested in Zigzag industries. How did you manage to quietly shut it down without paying? Because I am quite sure Flakeys would not stay silent if he lost the good billions he put into that. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
mechtech SRS Industries SRS.	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:47:00 - [102] I can't help but think you could have taken this to a higher level. Kind of like when Curzon Dax opened a giant bond, and then convoed each individual investor saying that someone pulled out and an extra slot was opened, netting an extra 100b. 3 years of work just to burn out? Well I guess burn out isn't something that you can stop, but still... The best part is when people slowly realize that something is not right, but by that time they already have 150B more for a titan fund or whatever they're peddling.
cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:48:00 - [103] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: cosmoray The take wasn't massive by any means. I left with total debts of 99.5B: Cosmoray Holdings Bond = 40B Private Bond = 59.5B Plus a few others that folded. The profits over the long term with all the scams was maybe 30B, but I also made money with the scam proceeds so I am not actually sure of the realistic take (pure scam profit after dividends). Total profits (net after dividends) over time utilizing (IER, loans, patch trading, etc) the stolen ISK was in excess of 200B ISK. But, as stated the ponzi scheme was always growing needing more food to feed itself. If you had invested early it is likely that you got most (over 100% if invested at start) of your money back via dividends. Wasn't really the amount that I was interested in, it was the manipulation and playing the long con. Problem was it got boring. I recall people like Flakeys invested in Zigzag industries. How did you manage to quietly shut it down without paying? Because I am quite sure Flakeys would not stay silent if he lost the good billions he put into that. I used some IER profits to close it down. Cosmoray "stepped in" for the sake of the bond and personally paid out the bond holders. After the payout that was when "WE" released the collateral.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:50:00 - [104] Originally by: cosmoray I used some IER profits to close it down. Cosmoray "stepped in" for the sake of the bond and personally paid out the bond holders. So, in the end the investment turned out not being a scam in itself and investors did not lose money? - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.04 02:55:00 - [105] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: cosmoray I used some IER profits to close it down. Cosmoray "stepped in" for the sake of the bond and personally paid out the bond holders. So, in the end the investment turned out not being a scam in itself and investors did not lose money? If I robbed a bank this week for $75,000, but paid it all back next week do you think I could avoid going to prison for 15 years?
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:08:00 - [106] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 03:12:20 Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 03:11:52 Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 03:09:41 Originally by: cosmoray If I robbed a bank this week for $75,000, but paid it all back next week do you think I could avoid going to prison for 15 years? See, I could technically quote the audit disclaimer: Quote: Notice how an audit can only evaluate the ability or potential of an Investee to succesfully honor a bond, not his possibly different real plans. rightfully blame the poor means auditors got to try do their job and so on. But if the investors have not lost money - despite the overall result of the ponzi is a scam - THEIR specific case did not end up wrong. THEIR specific case is what regards me. They did not get scammed. This relieves me, because I'd feel bad for Flakeys and Emmgel, but also tells me that the whole secured + audited investment architecture actually has been a local success more than if nothing had been in place. Therefore that investment framework in the substance worked despite a scammer being behind it. Therefore the trolls have much less meat to chew upon. I challenge them to have achieved that. The price to force that mechanism would have been very unfavorable because even if you simulated an investee disappearance or scam, then you'd be at stake to pay back (collateral holder). Not doing so would have burned you 2 years ago. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:23:00 - [107] Shock, horror, never again, just a few bad apples, etc Just like real life investing!
Krythas	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:31:00 - [108] Well played sir :-) And for all the rabid people crying 'told you so' - seriously, who cares ? As an investor you invest what you are willing to lose. If you lose it life goes on. Personally, I've given more than I invested away to corpmates, newbies and other randoms that I've felt sorry for. / now sitting back and stealing kalrands popcorn.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:34:00 - [109] "Investors" in MD are just roleplayers too dumb to realize they're roleplaying. There is a structural bias in EVE game and metagame mechanics towards scamming.
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:41:00 - [110] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Your trolling is worsening lately, maybe because of trying too hard. lol, trying to hard? trolling the auditor of a ponzi is easy. Especially when the scammer names YOU. whats hard about this? also its friday afternoon here & its a madhouse :\

Amarr Citizen 155 Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:47:00 - [111] If only you all had listened to me last summer.
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.04 03:50:00 - [112] Originally by: Amarr Citizen 155 If only you all had listened to me last summer. you have time to dig up posts etc but not enough time to payout E**** investors? GTFO nerd.
Ave Volta Black Frog Logistics Red-Frog	Posted - 2011.03.04 04:37:00 - [113] I find this a boring and uninteresting end to an entity which had some considerable value attached to them. Characters can be thought of as corporations that hold considerable value in name alone through their ability to attract capital and organize new ventures or partnerships. The unfortunate thing about scamming is that it effectively erases all of that value, and there's no going back. All scams/con jobs are essentially the same with only technical variations. Some are obviously executed more skillfully than others, but in the end, deception is the only key skill. It's considerably less impressive then being able to successfully sustain a viable business through time. In regards to the viability of audits; I think this is yet another example that audits are a tool with a with a limited scope and ability to inform. They are somewhat useful for capturing a snapshot of some current and past activity, but can this can be circumvented due to deceptive allocation of assests as has been shown here. Even if there was a mechanism for continuous monitoring of assets scammers would soon devise ways to launder isk etc... Security is always weak and almost meaningless without a justice and enforcement system. Security systems are structured systems with defined procedures and rules which means they can easily be broken and circumvented. All you need to understand is where the weaknessess lie and exploit. -------------------------------- RED FROG ALLIANCE: Here, There, and Everywhere.
Machete Visor	Posted - 2011.03.04 04:44:00 - [114] dunno, mostly tl:dr.... anyway, 4 years to take in 30b or something of that magnitude (or any magnitude) hardly seems worth it. painless 1hr a day station trading can earn you 3b per month. x 48 months = 144b over 4 years. yawn nothing to see here except someone playing a meta-game basically with themselves.
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 04:59:00 - [115] Originally by: LeonessDarkpaw Originally by: Kalrand You're an idiot who didn't read what he posted. Thankfully no one cares what you think. Thankfully no one knows who you are. Originally by: cosmoray If I robbed a bank this week for $75,000, but paid it all back next week do you think I could avoid going to prison for 15 years? 75 Thousand? No. 7.5 Billion? Yes. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.04 05:16:00 - [116] Edited by: SencneS on 04/03/2011 05:18:14 Selene - It matters not why he is on the list, it's that he is "Already on the Thieves of EVE" list. Stop focusing on the wrong thing.. Amarr for Life
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.04 05:19:00 - [117] Originally by: Machete Visor yawn nothing to see here except someone playing a meta-game basically with themselves. Let's hope he gives himself away by getting too clever.
AtheistOfFail Caldari	Posted - 2011.03.04 05:21:00 - [118] Bad Bobby Cosmoray Who will be next?
Liang Nuren	Posted - 2011.03.04 05:37:00 - [119] Originally by: AtheistOfFail Bad Bobby Cosmoray Who will be next? OOH! MEE! MEE! Someone give me a billion! -Liang -- Eve Forum ***** Extraordinaire On Twitter
Yukon Kornelius	Posted - 2011.03.04 05:54:00 - [120] Hmmmm, Maybe at some point people will come to realize that audits are near worthless at preventing scams. I tried to make this point in December but was of denounced as being a scammer. Can audits verify abilities and claims of item possession? Yes. Can audits verify intentions? No. and, IMHO, since audits can't verify intentions they are of marginal utility at best. Regards, Yukon Kornelius

Dezolf Minmatar DAX Action Stance	Posted - 2011.03.04 06:13:00 - [121] Edited by: Dezolf on 04/03/2011 06:24:11 ...Wow. The content in this thread is a lot more interesting than the fact that cosmo scammed. In other news, I'm now selling ~~cosmobonds~~ 1000 shares cosmoray shares. :P
AtheistOfFail Caldari	Posted - 2011.03.04 06:14:00 - [122] Originally by: Dezolf ...Wow. The content in this thread is a lot more interesting than the fact that cosmo scammed. In other news, I'm now selling cosmobonds. :P I'll take one, just send me an eve-mail.
Varo Jan Caravanserai Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 06:16:00 - [123] Originally by: AtheistOfFail Bad Bobby Cosmoray Who will be next? Another failure with a large ego.
Florestan Bronstein	Posted - 2011.03.04 07:04:00 - [124] Originally by: cosmoray Assets can be boosted with good quality BPC's that software can't see difference (used to be at least). still the case - software only looks through finished industry jobs to identify BPOs. An auditor would probably ask you to show BPOs on a contract if they are a large part of you NAV but I think you could come up with plausible reasons to evade that.
Florestan Bronstein	Posted - 2011.03.04 07:10:00 - [125] Originally by: Fulbert Philosophical concerns : isn't EVE online a giant Ponzi scheme with Jovian lolcats on the top? nah... the Broker is playing the empires while the Enheduanni (-> Theodicy) are playing the Jovians (and everyone else).
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 07:14:00 - [126] Originally by: Selene D'Celeste This whole story seems a bit ..... haphazard, fabricated, something? Any chance that the story you posted is fabricated and there is another reason you don't have any ISK left? The truth will out. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!
Rakshasa Taisab Caldari Sane Industries Inc. Initiative Mercenaries	Posted - 2011.03.04 07:20:00 - [127] Loan and IPO **** threads need to be in their own forum so we can use this place for discussing stuff that actually matters.
Alice Denasi	Posted - 2011.03.04 08:33:00 - [128] "Bored with the Money Entering 2010 I was suddenly sitting on a pile of ISK which I didnÆt really care about, so I started to give some away. The money went to friends, ship purchases (lots of shiny equipment), and simply giving it away in Jita. I even gambled about 15B ISK away on EOH poker with crazy betting In total I went through the entire 100B in 4 weeks." Any isk/modules/ships/bpo's left from all this? May I have some please?
Jackie Fisher Syrkos Technologies Joint Venture Conglomerate	Posted - 2011.03.04 08:49:00 - [129] Oops and ouch. Oh well, congrats I suppose. Joint Venture Conglomerate
Sturmwolke	Posted - 2011.03.04 09:02:00 - [130] Ahahaha .. why am I not surprised when something like this pops out

Jagga Spikes Minmatar Tribal Liberation Force	Posted - 2011.03.04 09:21:00 - [131] Originally by: cosmoray Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: cosmoray I used some IER profits to close it down. Cosmoray "stepped in" for the sake of the bond and personally paid out the bond holders. So, in the end the investment turned out not being a scam in itself and investors did not lose money? If I robbed a bank this week for $75,000, but paid it all back next week do you think I could avoid going to prison for 15 years? imo, not only you could escape prison, you could easily get a job. ________________________________ : Forum Bore 'Em : Foamy The Squirrel - [jedi handwave] "There is no spoon."
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 09:28:00 - [132] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 09:35:20 Quote: "Investors" in MD are just roleplayers too dumb to realize they're roleplaying What's dumb at roleplaying in a MMORPG? This is all the well known EvE's Victim blaming process. This is exactly the argument women raprs use, and certainly does not make them more respected or justified. Scammers, emblezzers, thieves and similar filth are not considered heroes in RL. They are exactly the shame sh!t, they just happen to be in a perverted sandbox where their kin is hugely helped, advantaged, supported, given all the best tools to succeed. What the players are too dumb to realize is this sandbox should be a true sandbox, where if I want to do A or be XYZ I can. But no, it's not a true sandbox, it's a stinkbox where the majority with positive attitudes (even pew pew guys) are constantly affected by the sandbox omissions (the elements that would allow for the above). And guess how many CSM candidates are going to talk about EvE missing half of the sandbox (the good people's half)? ZERO. Is is ridicolous. Istaria, a dinosaur with 1000 players, a Direct X 7 MMO is more sandbox than EvE. If it had PvP and a real economy I'd play it all the time instead of this biased crap. Quote:* lol, trying to hard? trolling the auditor of a ponzi is easy. Especially when the scammer names YOU It's fine. Of course the scammers and troll alts are meant to sh!t all over those supposed to keep them in check. Also, he: - had to do a amount of work to get the "stage" done - had a real functioning IPO run, had to have real researched BPOs on hand, real POS placed, real high SP manufacturing character to burn. - gave the investors their money back exactly because it was not just the usual "hi I am MD Elite now send me ISK kthx" garbage "prospectus" but a secured and checked investment. - Those who invested outside of my audited IPO lost all their money. Those inside did not. This alone should make you reflect. Quote: Hmmmm, Maybe at some point people will come to realize that audits are near worthless at preventing scams. I tried to make this point in December but was of denounced as being a scammer. Can audits verify abilities and claims of item possession? Yes. Can audits verify intentions? No Where and when did audits claim they would verify intentions? It's always the scammers and other well opacity interested people who keep reharsing the "LOL AUDITS DON'T GURANTEE SAFETY, SO THEY ARE USELESS". They are trying so hard into that, that people don't believe them any more. Quote: and, IMHO, since audits can't verify intentions they are of marginal utility at best They are of marginal utility like the RL audits are, yet people still keep doing the latter. Where is it written that a RL company holder did not fabricate fake balances, statements and so on to fool auditors? Ever heard of the scandal of those many famous rating firms as well? Yes those who fell into Enron and similar traps? And still, they keep doing them. Are investors so happy to keep paying for useless stuff? Or are they using those consultants because they help keep the 80% of bad scammers under check? It's 80% / 20% like usual. 20% is just too expensive to fight and they end up being the outliers. Originally by: Florestan Bronstein An auditor would probably ask you to show BPOs on a contract if they are a large part of you NAV but I think you could come up with plausible reasons to evade that He did show BPOs thru a trade window. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Bumblefck Kerensky Initiatives	Posted - 2011.03.04 09:46:00 - [133] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha images I have reported your post Thanks for breaking the forums with your images ?
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 09:57:00 - [134] I got a little suspicion: who audited Cosmoray first? ATM I have to work and don't have time for forums drilling. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
RAW23	Posted - 2011.03.04 09:57:00 - [135] Edited by: RAW23 on 04/03/2011 10:13:56 Four years to steal 30bil? Let's face it, no system is ever going to be able to weed out scammers who are willing to put in that much effort for that little return. On a side note, this end result, whilst mildly surprising, confirms the character assessment I formed of Cosmo a year ago after he stated publicly that he was willing to provide financial support for scammers, a view that was confirmed by his posting in the One Stop buyout thread and his suggestion that LoW break her agreement with Varo if she coud get more isk elsewhere. I'm slightly surprised that these statements had little to no effect on his perceived reputation. On the audit question, those arguing that this scam is a reason NOT to have any audits at all are putting forward a rather odd position. Cosmo notes that he had to go through various steps to pass the audits he did have and that even with those steps there were risks of being caught. Assuming that people would continue to invest in offerings where no audits were ever available, I would ask those detractors of audits to explain how their removal would reduce the incidence of scams? It seems plain from this, and from Cosmo's own words, that was is needed is a more rigorous system, not a less rigorous one, especially with anyone holding large amounts of public isk. there should be no excuse for not doing EVERYTHING possible in terms of oversight and anyone rejecting any of the available forms of oversight should automatically be left out in the cold.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 10:10:00 - [136] Originally by: RAW23 Cosmo notes that he had to go through various steps to pass the audits he did have and that even with those steps there were risks of being caught Not only that, back in 2009 there were not such formidable software like JEvEassets or they were vastly less featured than today. Originally by: RAW23 I would ask those detractors of audits to explain how there removal would reduce the incidence of scams As philosopher you certainly know the millenia old question: "cui prodest"? Cui prodest to make such statements? The question contains the answer. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Commander Godsmack	Posted - 2011.03.04 10:20:00 - [137] OH!! - DID I SO NOT FUVCKING KNOW SOMETHING WAS WRONG IN SIGNATURES THE OTHER NIGHT! o.0 So much for ya'll that been laughing at me for "missing out on an epic deal" = cosmo so legit... I still have my money *****es!
Alain Kinsella Minmatar	Posted - 2011.03.04 10:29:00 - [138] Originally by: Jack Mortu Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. No, there's honest people in eve who are honest for sake of being so. You likely wont find them on this forum, or at least they're a rarity. It all comes down to: Honesty > Any amount of ISK Yes, we do exist. In theory, I've already backed this character (indirectly) with my RL name as well - given what I've said about which MMOs I come here from. A decent searcher should be able to find it. As for OP, no this statement did not surprise me: Quote: You can also analyze why I actively worked on ways of getting round audits and generally causing mischief. I have had fun. . . That said it all, really (given personal experience elsewhere). PS - Good Greif, leave VV alone, the amount of work needed to get around the audit was extreme (more so than an average - or even above-average - scammer would be willing to do).
Scott Ryder Amarr Ministry of War	Posted - 2011.03.04 10:38:00 - [139] Edited by: Scott Ryder on 04/03/2011 10:38:28 Originally by: cosmoray Well thatÆs the story, now have fun debating me. Youre kinda full of yourself considering youve scammed 100b isk? Pebbles tbh
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 10:42:00 - [140] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 09:38:06 Quote: "Investors" in MD are just roleplayers too dumb to realize they're roleplaying What's dumb at roleplaying in a MMORPG? This is all the well known EvE's Victim blaming process. This is exactly the argument women raprs use, and certainly does not make them more respected or justified. Scammers, emblezzers, thieves and similar filth are not considered heroes in RL. Hilariously, you were insistent to me in a few MD threads when I raised this same point that I was dreadfully wrong. Now you're playing the sympathy card, and insisting I'm doing the equivilant of being a *-excuser because I'm pointing out the obvious: giving ISK to someone else in EVE as an "investment" is nothing but a role-playing proposition. It is not a rational means to increase one's own ISK. Cosmoray roleplayed as a capitalist You roleplayed as an auditor Countless players roleplayed as investors All that is well and good. There is nothing wrong with roleplaying in a MMORG. But you, and probably cosmo, and certainly many of the investors were too dumb to realize you were roleplaying. You believed you were actually doing real auditing, in a game with no effective paper trail, where even characters can be bought and sold. To wit, pretty much every post of yours (and other geniuses of the MD "elite") in this thread: http://eve-search.com/thread/1381843/page/2 Oh god, there's so much to choose from. Originally by:** Vaerah Vahrokha You persist in tunnel vision, this kills chances. Just because you don't figure out how or why people can make money dealing with probable scammers does not mean it's impossible. Exactly like it's possible to achieve amazing RL trading returns by grid trading even if apparently putting seemingly random trades does not make sense. Cost averaging, risk and money management turn below 35% positive outcome strategies into positive long term results. Ask Flakeys how he does, he can teach you a bunch. - Auditing & consulting Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha The instant you leave very basic and protected finance like i.e. basic bank accounts, you are in a whole new universe, where sharks are better friends than the men you meet and there are no safety nets or protections to save you vs people who fuk others as profession. Yet in both cases there are people who manage to deal with it and earn their lunch. Both in RL and EvE. Both in RL and in EvE you have to be good enough. EvE is realistic in more ways than it's generally accepted and known to be. - Auditing & consulting And finally Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha My attitude is based on prudent money management copied from RL and briefly mentioned here. I cannot be scammed hard since no investee would get more than a pre-determined small sum. I don't tend to have more than few billions in spare cash anyway as I mainly invest it in BPOs. - Auditing & consulting All of it roleplay, and none of it acknowledged as such at the time. It's all SRS BZNS international finance, and once it crashes down (as it invariably will whenever the sum gets great enough for theft to outweigh the satisfaction the bond creator gets from roleplaying as a capitalist) then and only then, briefly, do you acknowledge that maybe comparing real life to a game where there is no effective paper trail, no possibility for effective outside auditing, and even the true identity of a "person" is unknowable and can shift day to day is all a just hubris. Although to be honest, you haven't even admitted that.

Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 10:50:00 - [141] followup. why do I care? I am a real life fraud investigator. You would think my services would be extremely useful in MD, right? Sure, they would, if there were any, ANY real means of doing any MEANINGFUL auditing here. But there isn't. People like yourself, self-appointed "MD elite" who offer "audits" are just helping scammers and failures who claim scam to cover their pride get more victims. You're like homeopaths who tell people with real illnesses not to trust their doctors. There's way, way, way less harm, and this is just a game, but to the extent being scammed is harmful, you and the other MD "elite" ARE NOT HELPING ANYTHING. You can't help, because there is no way to do a real audit on any of this garbage. And most of it, my gut tells me, is garbage. The only "investments" that make any sense, ironically enough, are the investments that are done as roleplay. Because roleplay is the only legitimate justification for most of these bonds.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:14:00 - [142] Originally by: Alain Kinsella Originally by: Jack Mortu -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally by: Brock Nelson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, there's honest people in eve who are honest for sake of being so. You likely wont find them on this forum, or at least they're a rarity. It all comes down to: Honesty > Any amount of ISK -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, we do exist. In theory, I've already backed this character (indirectly) with my RL name as well - given what I've said about which MMOs I come here from. A decent searcher should be able to find it. When I started the game (I play since about 2 years) I learned about griefers (can flip) pretty fast. Past that stage I always - and I mean always - dealt with people who honored their word. Imagine an unknown-yet-fantastic guy not only gifted me (my now chief crafting alt) T2 fitted ships but one day made me CEO of his 27 people corp (with POS, capital BPs...) to hold it for him while he was unemployed. I had 1M SP and 900k were given to new characters. He still believed in the word given and he got all back after about half a year and... ... and it's was normal!!!!!!!!! NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF! ... at least this is what I thought back then. It's just the way I always have seen players doing in other MMOs. It's just EvE that seems to attract the worst sh!t in humankind. Then I started frequenting the forums. Back then there were those Incredible Guys who would just create a thread like: "HAY GUYS I need 20B" and they'd get 20B in minutes. They were called MD Elite. Bankers but also large IPO managers, they were a sort of untouchable cast. Since then they have all fallen miserably except like 3 people. So, MD's posters seem to be of an exspecially bad kind. But it's false that everyone has a price and that there are no honest people. I have actually the impressions that those stating and therefore accepting that everyone has a price are doomed to fall themselves. Because they accept the taint, they very idea of it. The taint is a sort of temptation and temptations are hovering above everyone's head, none excluded. But it's ALWAYS, ALWAYS the individual who willingly decides to take them, let them put their rotten seeds in himself. Quote: Now you're playing the sympathy card, and insisting I'm doing the equivilant of being a **-excuser because I'm pointing out the obvious: giving ISK to someone else in EVE as an "investment" is nothing but a role-playing proposition. It is not a rational means to increase one's own ISK. Raw got to hundreds of billions, Cista2 less but also got e-rich too and I am sure there are many others. I find they acted very rationally indeed. RP makes someone RP rich, RP does not make someone ISK rich and this is very different. Quote: To wit, pretty much every post of yours (and other geniuses of the MD "elite") in this thread: http://eve-search.com/thread/1381843/page/2 Oh god, there's so much to choose from. I subscribe into that even today. Quote: All of it roleplay, and none of it acknowledged as such at the time No, I am not that good. I just reuse as much off RL already explored solutions as possible. Unless you are roleplaying real life, you'll see how RL is as nasty as EvE is and worse. Despite you may - in theory - have consequences, RL is choking full of bast4rds who always escape the jail, even more so than EvE. Quote:** People like yourself, self-appointed "MD elite" I never self appointed me MD elite and I am actually offended to even be put near that term. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:17:00 - [143] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 11:21:54 Quote: ...are just helping scammers and failures who claim scam to cover their pride get more victims. You're like homeopaths who tell people with real illnesses not to trust their doctors. There's way, way, way less harm, and this is just a game, but to the extent being scammed is harmful, you and the other MD "elite" ARE NOT HELPING ANYTHING. You can't help, because there is no way to do a real audit on any of this garbage. So, what solution do you propose? Because talk is cheap. Do you prefer to see MD to become even more a sum of CAOD + unchecked Jita scam? You are a fraud investigator? Then help finding something better than audits to counter the oceans of human garbage attempting to scam everything everywhere including MD. I am frankly tired of all of this very comfortable chair criticism. DO something. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:28:00 - [144] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 04/03/2011 11:30:45 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 11:21:54 Quote: ...are just helping scammers and failures who claim scam to cover their pride get more victims. You're like homeopaths who tell people with real illnesses not to trust their doctors. There's way, way, way less harm, and this is just a game, but to the extent being scammed is harmful, you and the other MD "elite" ARE NOT HELPING ANYTHING. You can't help, because there is no way to do a real audit on any of this garbage. So, what solution do you propose? Because talk is cheap. Do you prefer to see MD to become even more a sum of CAOD + unchecked Jita scam? You are a fraud investigator? Then help finding something better than audits to counter the oceans of human garbage attempting to scam everything everywhere including MD. I am frankly tired of all of this very comfortable chair criticism. DO something. I already have done lots - encouraging people not to fall for any of this garbage. You, and others, insist on perpetuating the myth. The game mechanics do not enable any real auditing to occur. I cannot change that, because I am not a dev.
Zamestian Han	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:29:00 - [145] Edited by: Zamestian Han on 04/03/2011 11:29:54 Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: Selene D'Celeste This whole story seems a bit ..... haphazard, fabricated, something? Any chance that the story you posted is fabricated and there is another reason you don't have any ISK left? The truth will out. It is easy. Cosmoray is addicted to gambling on EOH Poker. But he sucked as a poker player so, he lost all his ISKs. At this point, he must choice one of "Scammer" "Big Time Loser" titles. Obviously anyone would choice "Scammer". Now, we need an audit to confirm he is a real scammer or else this story is what i am going to believe.
RAW23	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:31:00 - [146] Emperor Cheney - Whilst you are absolutely correct insofar as much more gets scammed than gets paid out it is not the case that there is no rational way to make money investing on MD. I only collected data for a nine month period (including roughly 70 investments, iirc) but the empirical evidence showed that as long as you diversify your investments and do not scale them to the size of the offering (that is, invest exactly the same amount in each offering, regardless of size), you WILL make money if you invest in absolutely everything that launches. The profit is fairly small if you take the basket as a whole and make no discriminations amongst investments whatsoever. But it rises rapidly if you make even basic types of determinations (such as, was this offering audited?). Following a model such as this, the impact of Cosmo, or EBANK, or T4U scamming is no higher than that of Lethal Entrepreneur doing the same. It is true that it then becomes difficult to scale a successful investment strategy beyond a certain point as, if you want to keep 100bil invested at all times, you will have to take bigger stakes in the bigger, riskier and (ironically) lower return offerings. But for a small investor no such problem arises and a successful and rational investment strategy can be pursued easily. In fact, one of the rules that will increase you returns is to not invest in anything over 50bil as the incidence of scam in this range is higher than in the sub 10bil range by a very large factor (my limited data showed the 10-20bil range to be the safest of all in term of incidence of scam, although this was mitigated by lower returns - it's probably not worth dwelling too much on this point, though, as the sample for this range was very small).
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:41:00 - [147] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 04/03/2011 11:42:13 Originally by: RAW23 Emperor Cheney - Whilst you are absolutely correct insofar as much more gets scammed than gets paid out it is not the case that there is no rational way to make money investing on MD. I only collected data for a nine month period (including roughly 70 investments, iirc) but the empirical evidence showed that as long as you diversify your investments and do not scale them to the size of the offering (that is, invest exactly the same amount in each offering, regardless of size), you WILL make money if you invest in absolutely everything that launches. The profit is fairly small if you take the basket as a whole and make no discriminations amongst investments whatsoever. But it rises rapidly if you make even basic types of determinations (such as, was this offering audited?). Following a model such as this, the impact of Cosmo, or EBANK, or T4U scamming is no higher than that of Lethal Entrepreneur doing the same. It is true that it then becomes difficult to scale a successful investment strategy beyond a certain point as, if you want to keep 100bil invested at all times, you will have to take bigger stakes in the bigger, riskier and (ironically) lower return offerings. But for a small investor no such problem arises and a successful and rational investment strategy can be pursued easily. In fact, one of the rules that will increase you returns is to not invest in anything over 50bil as the incidence of scam in this range is higher than in the sub 10bil range by a very large factor (my limited data showed the 10-20bil range to be the safest of all in term of incidence of scam, although this was mitigated by lower returns - it's probably not worth dwelling too much on this point, though, as the sample for this range was very small). I agree it is possible to make isk by investing. I do not agree that it is possible to make useful amounts of isk by investing for the effort. The effort and time to return ratio necessary to make a profit on the MD market is far surpassed by almost every other means of making ISK in this game, while also keeping one's assets locked up. So once again, the only legitimate motivation is roleplay. I am not knocking roleplay at all, btw. I think roleplay is great. There is a danger, however, when people stop understanding that what they are doing is roleplay.
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:47:00 - [148] Edited by: Florestan Bronstein on 04/03/2011 11:54:48 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha So, what solution do you propose? Because talk is cheap. The only solution is to get rid off investing for monetary gain. Loaning (or gifting) ISK to people you want to help works very well and is practiced all over the place in EVE - from helping out random strangers in NPC corp chat to raising ISK to finance the next big corp/alliance goal. In fact many of the gifts I have handed out over the time ended up being loans as the player returned the items/ISK I had given him as soon as he could afford it (mostly new players that I had given fitted ships, ISK for implants, ...) Loaning out virtual money in order to earn passive income, makes the loan just yet another business transaction and introduces profit making/greed into the whole equation. (edit: very poor choice of words here by me - in fact it creates the need to view the transaction as an "equation" in the first place) During the past few years I have looked at other MMOs whenever I got bored of EVE and in all other games I have found people helping each other, sharing resources and lending each other items or materials. In no other game I have found people charging interest and trying to create a passive income from handing out loans (of course a polite borrower will always try to include a small tip when paying back but that's politeness & gratitude, not a commercial requirement). Loans work great as long as they are backed by a social relationship. <insert obligatory Marx quotes on alienation here>
RAW23	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:50:00 - [149] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 04/03/2011 11:42:13 Originally by: RAW23 Emperor Cheney - Whilst you are absolutely correct insofar as much more gets scammed than gets paid out it is not the case that there is no rational way to make money investing on MD. I only collected data for a nine month period (including roughly 70 investments, iirc) but the empirical evidence showed that as long as you diversify your investments and do not scale them to the size of the offering (that is, invest exactly the same amount in each offering, regardless of size), you WILL make money if you invest in absolutely everything that launches. The profit is fairly small if you take the basket as a whole and make no discriminations amongst investments whatsoever. But it rises rapidly if you make even basic types of determinations (such as, was this offering audited?). Following a model such as this, the impact of Cosmo, or EBANK, or T4U scamming is no higher than that of Lethal Entrepreneur doing the same. It is true that it then becomes difficult to scale a successful investment strategy beyond a certain point as, if you want to keep 100bil invested at all times, you will have to take bigger stakes in the bigger, riskier and (ironically) lower return offerings. But for a small investor no such problem arises and a successful and rational investment strategy can be pursued easily. In fact, one of the rules that will increase you returns is to not invest in anything over 50bil as the incidence of scam in this range is higher than in the sub 10bil range by a very large factor (my limited data showed the 10-20bil range to be the safest of all in term of incidence of scam, although this was mitigated by lower returns - it's probably not worth dwelling too much on this point, though, as the sample for this range was very small). I agree it is possible to make isk by investing. I do not agree that it is possible to make useful amounts of isk by investing for the effort. The effort and time to return ratio necessary to make a profit on the MD market is far surpassed by almost every other means of making ISK in this game, while also keeping one's assets locked up. So once again, the only legitimate motivation is roleplay. I am not knocking roleplay at all, btw. I think roleplay is great. There is a danger, however, when people stop understanding that what they are doing is roleplay. I don't know about that. For a sub 20bil investment pool, with fairly minimal controls on your investment and adjusting for scams you can make something like 4-5% per month, if I remember the figures correctly. The effort involved in placing these funds would be pretty minimal and the returns would compare quite favourably to something like running a research/copy farm in terms of isk:effort. Whilst you can certainly do more with the isk, the problem is, for myself anyway, that I run out of time to do the active earning things before I run out of isk. So left to choose amongst a small field of passive/semi-passive income streams MD investing is a good use for at least a chunk of it. As I said, though, getting above a mid sized investment pool in a sensible way is difficult and I would tend to turn to other avenues to take the rest of my isk. But the 20 or so bil that can be placed will yield better returns than many other options (including T2 BPOs).
Magnu Stormhawk Stormhawk Enterprises	Posted - 2011.03.04 11:53:00 - [150] I always felt a bit odd about getting paid out by cosmo on that insured bond. I spent some time considering how a bond insurance business could work and my conclusions were that i didnt think it could. I didnt make the next logical link though. Glad you had your fun cosmoray. Thanks for the insight into your techniques, to the extent it may serve to help MD evolve further. Also thanks for not preaching too much like those rejects who think they are cool for 'scamming to teach MD a lesson'. You're still a scumbag of course.

Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 12:01:00 - [151] Originally by: RAW23 I don't know about that. For a sub 20bil investment pool, with fairly minimal controls on your investment and adjusting for scams you can make something like 4-5% per month, if I remember the figures correctly. The effort involved in placing these funds would be pretty minimal and the returns would compare quite favourably to something like running a research/copy farm in terms of isk:effort. Whilst you can certainly do more with the isk, the problem is, for myself anyway, that I run out of time to do the active earning things before I run out of isk. So left to choose amongst a small field of passive/semi-passive income streams MD investing is a good use for at least a chunk of it. As I said, though, getting above a mid sized investment pool in a sensible way is difficult and I would tend to turn to other avenues to take the rest of my isk. But the 20 or so bil that can be placed will yield better returns than many other options (including T2 BPOs). That is interesting, thanks. If a player has very large amounts of isk lying around, that does seem like a logical place to park 20 billion. I would expect that sort of player to be fairly rare, though.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 12:48:00 - [152] Quote: The game mechanics do not enable any real auditing to occur. I cannot change that, because I am not a dev The RL mechanics do not enable any hope to get rid off criminals as well, even if they can be tracked and jailed. I cannot change that, because I am not a god. Yet the police still exists. Why? Because the police WILL catch the millions of small thieves, scammers and similar, even if they can do nothing against the big smart criminals heads. Quote: I agree it is possible to make isk by investing. I do not agree that it is possible to make useful amounts of isk by investing for the effort. You are quoting someone who made double digit billions in MD, just FYI. Originally by: Magnu Stormhawk Also thanks for not preaching too much like those rejects who think they are cool for 'scamming to teach MD a lesson'. You're still a scumbag of course I dare say that scamming became so obvious and ubiquitous that in order to feel pro, people should achieve and gloat about reaching the objective of not scamming. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 12:54:00 - [153] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 12:56:00 So, since suspiciously none bothered, I took the liberty to go dig the original audit thread: Peculiar things: Originally by: cosmoray Q: Will I allow an API audit? A: No. Sorry but I am not keen on anyone looking through my account details no matter what the reputation This is the scammer mantra. It's their blueprint. Notice how they ALL say auditing is useless yet ALL post the above? Other golden nuggets: Originally by: dael'vras I'm also rather concerned at the sloppiness of the investors you have so far who haven't insisted on ANY checks at all and seem to be relying purely on the fact that you've been 'around' for a bit. The 'institutional' investors at least should know better. Originally by: YouGotRipped TBH, I see no reason why Kazuo shouldn't be allowed to take a look at your dealings / chars. I've trusted him with my info in the past and he's reliable and most professional in his reports There are more interesting interwines between this and other characters in that thread and those plastic rep made investees. Is there a "master of puppets" under so many scamming faces alternating in the last years? One day he'll get tired and will reveal how smart he was, as he played 1000 faces and roles. There are such guys in RL as well. Audit text: This shows: - how back at the time auditing was still at its infancy. The biggest bother was to make sure there was no BAWWWWWW! Riethe in their accounts. - how audits are FAR from perfect but that "quick audits" seem to be worse as they tend to be superficial. - how accepting limited API keys and believing on some investee word (because he got REP!) does no good. So much for the "just few accounts quick audits". - how Kazuo Ishiguro was not that fooled as Cosmoray seems to imply: Quote: He has also claimed ownership of a third account Quote: He says that it might or might not be involved with the IPO Quote: I think that's all I have to say that falls within the scope of what the API can tell me. If it had been today, the investors would not have blindly accepted such limited information. Just see what happened when Block Ulkx stated he's going to seclude assets on a separate account: it did not end up well. Back at the time, HE GOT REP, therefore no one raised an eyebrow. Also notice in the thread the welcome presence of guest stars like: YGR, Bad Bobby, Manalapan, Kazzac Elentria... and others. It was really a giant circle jerk. That was the MD Elite. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Weaselior GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 13:31:00 - [154] lawl
Weaselior GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 13:32:00 - [155] vv still fighting the war against in-game crime i see but guuuuuuuuys, stealing pretend money is wrong!
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 13:40:00 - [156] Originally by: Weaselior vv still fighting the war against in-game crime i see but guuuuuuuuys, stealing pretend money is wrong! It's still property or at least intellectual property. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 13:47:00 - [157] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha And guess how many CSM candidates are going to talk about EvE missing half of the sandbox (the good people's half)? ZERO. I can assure you that if there was a way to "punish" other characters outside of shooting their ships, that it would be abused to punish people for far more than financial crimes. Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Weaselior GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 14:03:00 - [158] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: Weaselior vv still fighting the war against in-game crime i see but guuuuuuuuys, stealing pretend money is wrong! It's still property or at least intellectual property. holy lawl isk as intellectual property you've hit new depths of ******edness on this one
Weaselior GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.04 14:05:00 - [159] actually i'd like to hear more could you elaborate on the intellectual property argument, community isn't on this week and I need some laughs
Evil Aye	Posted - 2011.03.04 14:21:00 - [160] Quote: CCP's intellectual property Slave

Raid'En	Posted - 2011.03.04 14:24:00 - [161] Originally by: Selene D'Celeste This whole story seems a bit ..... haphazard, fabricated, something? Any chance that the story you posted is fabricated and there is another reason you don't have any ISK left? The truth will out. if he took 4 year to steal 30b there's for sure something wrong heres ---------------- Wormhole Trading
Amarr Citizen 155 Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 14:52:00 - [162] God damn VV, you're so confused/jaded about the "MD Elite" that you'll name anyone that's been on here for 2-3 years as an "MD Elite". It's quite a short list but since you don't have on a ring like this one /me quickly flashes an ass hole shaped ring, I guess it would be near impossible for you to know who is actually an "MD Elite". **** even Cosmoray isn't an "MD Elite" anymore, not since he stopped paying dues. P.S. I'm slightly screwing with you, but mostly screwing with everyone.
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.04 14:57:00 - [163] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: cosmoray I used some IER profits to close it down. Cosmoray "stepped in" for the sake of the bond and personally paid out the bond holders. So, in the end the investment turned out not being a scam in itself and investors did not lose money? Did you see me post about a loss?If i loose i post even if it's only 200 mille Still reading through this pile of posts but i got to say this surprised me for once cosmo.Welcome to the *******club i guess.Now just file an application with pandemic legion or dirty rotten scoundrels and it's complete.
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.04 15:05:00 - [164] Originally by: Emperor Cheney That is interesting, thanks. If a player has very large amounts of isk lying around, that does seem like a logical place to park 20 billion. I would expect that sort of player to be fairly rare, though. While I do like your attitude, a supporter of Audits are an illusion ideology. I have to inform you that people that "invest", no that's not right term... People that GAMBLE on a another persons honesty around here actually DO have 20B to park somewhere. Yes, the population sample is small compared to EVE, but around here most people have ISK to park, even if they are actively playing the game. I'm telling you this because your corp name make be laugh and your understanding of fruitless efforts audits perform. Now watch me get flamed by those that support audits.. LOL Amarr for Life
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.04 15:18:00 - [165] Edited by: flakeys on 04/03/2011 15:25:34 Originally by: Emperor Cheney I agree it is possible to make isk by investing. I do not agree that it is possible to make useful amounts of isk by investing for the effort. I have made over 40 B in 1.5 years time max on MD with investing.Saying investing does not pay well is wrong HOWEVER the rates have gone from 10% to 4% so i will agree it is a lot less attractive these days.I currently have about 50B still placed with some people -mostly raw23 - but at this point keep a large amount of isk in my own pocket even if i am not playing the game since recently i do not have the faith/will any more to risk it all. From the gained itnerest i am just adding it to game time.Currently i can play till somewhere mid next year and i will keep doing it this way.So in case i would get burned with a scam at this point i can still play for year/years and have a large stockpile to immedialty do as i please when/if i return to playing eve. Originally by: Weaselior vv still fighting the war against in-game crime i see but guuuuuuuuys, stealing pretend money is wrong! That's one vision , my vision is feeling the need to stealpretend money is just stupid and sadd.Now if you would steal RL i would find that a lot more logical . Originally by: Amarr Citizen 155 P.S. I'm slightly screwing with you, but mostly screwing with everyone. I allways like it when you screw me and call me bad names hunk On a sidenote the MD elite was a brand used before the forum move.Cosmo didn't belong to it and neither did my loving hunk AC , hell AC just came around the corner before the move.Hey i got an idea ACc maybe you learn cosmo some poker since your poker ipo did manage to be verry succesfull.
Darrigaaz	Posted - 2011.03.04 16:10:00 - [166] I am disappoint.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 16:10:00 - [167] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 16:13:02 Originally by: Amarr Citizen 155 I guess it would be near impossible for you to know who is actually an "MD Elite". I have many limits and defects, possibly more than most others, but I am expecially proud of two of them: - my inability to understand why someone would scam, expecially in a game. Not the shallow "why" tied to gaining some Monopoly money, but the inner, deep "why" about they feel doing the very act. What suddenly rots and make them become like that. - my inability to properly know, be, pertain to MD Elites. I have to be too much of a peasant to get to that. Sorry, my fault. Originally by: SencneS I have to inform you that people that "invest", no that's not right term... People that GAMBLE on a another persons honesty around here actually DO have 20B to park somewhere. Did you know that in England (due to tax reasons) one of the most important forms of retail investing is called "Spread betting"? Nothing new to see here. It's all calculated risk, once again both in EvE and in RL. Both in EvE and in RL many get burned, but not all. Flakeys above and Raw23, Taram Caldar, Emmgel are but some examples of people who intelligently managed risk. The fun thing is that in my half a year old Experiment #01: RL finance analysis applied to EvE I posted this very article: "2) Sound risk management". If only people would care about what is harshly learned from RL and then freely given to them on a silver platter. There is even this prophetic piece: Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Finally, don't trust investees that refuse to get an audit. EVEN GODS SCAM IN EVE, be brave and demand the only, even if tiny, little filter against obvious scam. Of course this is an apparent conflict of interest off mine, since I am an auditor. Apparent, because in reality if there is something I am not interested doing any more is exactly this thankless routine without glory. But hey, in any case, why should someone get your billions without giving you anything back, not even a bland information about who he is and if he can actually do what he claims? - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.04 16:34:00 - [168] Edited by: flakeys on 04/03/2011 16:35:00 Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. I don't give a **** if you say you're a honest person, you're a trustworthy third party, either way you're going to scam. Everyone has a price, its just a matter of figuring out what it is. I know Grendell's got a price. I know Chribba's got a price. Whats yours? Said this a lot of times.It is not IF someone will scam but how much you think his price will be when investing.Something wich is extremely hard to do specifically if they are also getting funds not mentioned on MD hence why i repeatedly ask people to mention loans on MD. There are verry few who will not be tempted by isk.I can a 100% sure say that i would not for any amount of isk simply because when i had over 100 B it did add nothing i didn't have at 10 B regarding enjoying the game to my liking , have enough allready to play eve for a freaking long time with GTC and the expensive eve toys i have allmost never undock because flying an uberexpensive ship for pvp these days with the blob warfare would have no impact on my k/d ratio. That said when investing i allways expect it to be lost but with some people you find the likelyhood a lot smaller.A lot of times you can be proven wrong though .
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 16:55:00 - [169] Originally by: flakeys ...and the expensive eve toys i have allmost never undock because flying an uberexpensive ship for pvp these days with the blob warfare would have no impact on my k/d ratio. Flakeys, today I lived a terrific and cheap day with some guys of Wildly Inappropriate. There's no need to have the super-pimp nor to go deep in 0.0. In fact they came to hi sec. You can too. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Ambo I've Got Nothing	Posted - 2011.03.04 17:38:00 - [170] Well this is sad. Luckily I had already got a little twitchy a few months back. (Bad luck to you guys who bought the stake btw ) Just goes to show (yet again) - if it's not collateralised, don't expect to get it back. --------------------------------------

Fleshbot	Posted - 2011.03.04 18:08:00 - [171] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Many words This is my final say on audits. Consider an audit a life vest. It is provides no guarantee against hypothermia, starvation, attacks by sharks, but it does protect you from drowning. An audit provides SOME protection, not 100% but enough that it dissuades some people from scamming and catches a very, very few. Mostly though it is a red flag, since an audit can cause no real harm to you, why would you skip one? So the question for those claiming that audits are useless is, do you want less protection or more. I'm acknowledging it isn't 100% but it is some about greater than 0%.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 18:08:00 - [172] Originally by: Ambo Well this is sad. Luckily I had already got a little twitchy a few months back. (Bad luck to you guys who bought the stake btw ) Just goes to show (yet again) - if it's not collateralised, don't expect to get it back. Well, to be technical, you bought low and sold high. Very high. Just before the crash where shares become face value of 0.01 penny. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.04 18:14:00 - [173] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Did you know that in England (due to tax reasons) one of the most important forms of retail investing is called "Spread betting"? Nothing new to see here. It's all calculated risk, once again both in EvE and in RL. Both in EvE and in RL many get burned, but not all. Mitigating overall risk is almost always why someone would park a load of cash somewhere. It doesn't surprise me some try to distribute their investments around in EVE. I don't fully agree with that, only because the deposit records I have from two large customer bases across two system would indicate that a good number of people subscribe to the "Keeping your eggs in one basket" approach when it comes to EVE. In fact the sociological aspect of EVE supports this ideology. "TRUST NO ONE!!" However, when you get to the point you can start trusting someone enough to invest in them, people will often dump into that single point. Mostly because they trust that person and no one else. It's hard to distribute risk when you trust no one, and want to invest. The more you invest in others the much higher you are at exposing yourself to any loss, this is especially apparent in EVE. It's a thin line, personally the best way to mitigate risk is to literally only invest in yourself. While I have invested in others over the years and made a healthy return, I changed that, and wouldn't/don't invest in anything else unless it was for a good cause or something I believed would be a benefit to the community. I've always viewed those investments as a one time payment for a service I hope will continue, rather then an investment that gains value. I now only have one investment entity, BSAC, I am the largest holder of MRDs in the BSA Exchange because I very much like the idea of a commodity currency. The remainder of my investment in there is sitting in the Cash Reserve program, purely because of ISK I had available from selling some Mineral indices which I also liked the idea of and wanted to support the concept.. Don't take that as an endorsement though, I didn't mention this to promote that entity, but as an example of the way I view investments. It just so happens that public investment wise, "all my eggs are in one basket". This wouldn't be the case if someone else had come up with Commodity Currency, or Mineral Indices before Block. Amarr for Life
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 18:29:00 - [174] Originally by: SencneS In fact the sociological aspect of EVE supports this ideology. "TRUST NO ONE!!" However, when you get to the point you can start trusting someone enough to invest in them, people will often dump into that single point. Mostly because they trust that person and no one else. This is not just in EvE. Since I started RL trading, I get a number of people knocking at my door / phone asking what they should invest in. I am just a part time retail trader yet people address me as "you that know finance...". Point 1) They ask me about what bond or similar security is the best for them. Point 2) Finally they want to hand me money so I do it for them. Point 3) Point 1) They trust someone just because it's been said to them by someone else. I could be a blasted scammer and yet they blindly ask me. Point 2) They not only trust with no proof, they ask about things that someone does not even trade. I don't trade bonds (well, Z-Bonds future, but it's not the regular bonds how they intend). Point 3) They not only trust and ask what's possibly not known well, they also blindly hand out money. EvE = RL, oh if they are. Quote: because the deposit records I have from two large customer bases across two system would indicate that a good number of people subscribe to the "Keeping your eggs in one basket" approach when it comes to EVE. They are bad investors. It's expected off them, they are employees in RL and for some inexplicable reason, none teaches people how important is to safeguard their own wallets. They will teach you at school all sorts of useless garbage but NOT how to save money. Quote: This wouldn't be the case if someone else had come up with Commodity Currency, or Mineral Indices before Block. When he started, EvE was a different game for a different playerbase. Nowadays finding people to faithfully believe in you and grow such a large operation would be next to impossible. The game deteriorated as well, going mainstream = get full of bad humanity specimens which in turn slowly transformed EvE in what it is now, including in the investments & trust departments. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.04 18:37:00 - [175] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: flakeys ...and the expensive eve toys i have allmost never undock because flying an uberexpensive ship for pvp these days with the blob warfare would have no impact on my k/d ratio. Flakeys, today I lived a terrific and cheap day with some guys of Wildly Inappropriate. There's no need to have the super-pimp nor to go deep in 0.0. In fact they came to hi sec. You can too. Wich is what i meant VV , if i can pvp in a regular drake why do i need a cynabal.Why need a fully faction fit cnr for a mission my tengu can do with as much ease.
Molic Blackbird	Posted - 2011.03.04 19:04:00 - [176] From the original Audit done by Kazuo Ishiguro: Quote: He has an appropriate collection of T1 ship blueprints, mostly in research at the present time. I have not seen evidence of any recent ship sales either by the corp or any of the characters on the 1st account, but this is probably because, as indicated by the corp's delivered job records, many of his ship blueprints have been researched extensively over the last couple of months. Cosmoray stated he passed the audit by using BPCs instead of Originals. If they were mostly in research, how could they have been copies?
Jita Bloodtear	Posted - 2011.03.04 19:23:00 - [177] While it's more of an ideological argument you're making, you shouldn't take it so personally Vaerah. I don't think anyone would seriously finger you here for causing this. We all KNOW audits don't provide security, they only provide more information so investors can make better informed decisions. It's not the job of the auditor to guarantee a scamless investment, only to provide this information to investors. You did your job, it can't possibly be your fault --------------------------- Full Explanation of the Industry Index System
Mas Cream Monetary Allocation Certified Securities Inc. II	Posted - 2011.03.04 19:35:00 - [178] This was a fun read. I'm going to incorporate a few things into my new IPO from here. Buy Shares in Eve Online's First FAKE SCAM!
cosmoray Cosmoray Holdings Corp	Posted - 2011.03.04 19:44:00 - [179] Blimey VV do you work for the Pope? Your world sounds awfully perfect without any errors. It must be difficult to step out of the house and deal with the peons who can't survive in your perfect world. Have you ever let your hair down? Laughed when a bird crapped on someone? Got drunk, puked in the street? Found a $10 bill on the street and not immediately handed it to the police or gave it to charity? Isn't it boring living a perfect life?
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 19:59:00 - [180] Originally by: cosmoray Isn't it boring living a perfect life? When you gonna give up this charade and let the truth out? Too many people know for you to portray it as anything else. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!

Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:07:00 - [181] Originally by: Jita Bloodtear While it's more of an ideological argument you're making, you shouldn't take it so personally Vaerah. I don't think anyone would seriously finger you here for causing this. We all KNOW audits don't provide security, they only provide more information so investors can make better informed decisions. It's not the job of the auditor to guarantee a scamless investment, only to provide this information to investors. You did your job, it can't possibly be your fault I want to hug you. Quote: Blimey VV do you work for the Pope? Your world sounds awfully perfect without any errors My world is far from perfect. Continuing with your Pope analogy, I am a sinner but I repent. Hoping my life was not in vain spent. Born one day in a world to evil bent. I chose to earn my living cent by cent. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Grog Barrel	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:08:00 - [182] the boat sank already, tools, stop defending the undefendable.
Gabriel Rosencrantz Red Frog Freight	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:29:00 - [183] Sometimes, if you wait long enough, someone will make your point for you. http://eve-search.com/thread/1085882/page/3#62 That thread contains this gem: Originally by: Hawkblade Originally by: Gabriel Rosencrantz EVE has a demonstrated history of long cons perpetrated by trusted individuals. In some cases, a year or more long. Please, feel free to provide some examples of this demonstrated history? After all, you've obviously opened your mouth. Let us examine, in proper detail, the copious amount of manure that has come tumbling out. LOL
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:38:00 - [184] Originally by: Gabriel Rosencrantz Sometimes, if you wait long enough, someone will make your point for you. Oh how humorous that the irony of your satisfaction is lost on you. None of your own fault of course, ignorance of the truth behind the veil of lies being your only saving grace. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!
A Little Girl	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:39:00 - [185] Bad Bobby! How could you?? Oh wait, wrong thread.
Gabriel Rosencrantz Red Frog Freight	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:41:00 - [186] Originally by: Ray McCormack Oh how humorous that the irony of your satisfaction is lost on you. None of your own fault of course, ignorance of the truth behind the veil of lies being your only saving grace. How delightfully nonsensical.
Amarr Citizen 155 Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 20:55:00 - [187] Originally by: Gabriel Rosencrantz Originally by: Ray McCormack Oh how humorous that the irony of your satisfaction is lost on you. None of your own fault of course, ignorance of the truth behind the veil of lies being your only saving grace. How delightfully nonsensical. I feel as though I should be sipping tea and sticking my pinky finger out when reading you and Ray's comments to one another. (my apologies to the tea drinkers in the room)
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.04 21:00:00 - [188] Originally by: Amarr Citizen 155 (my apologies to the tea drinkers in the room) Apology not accepted, I demand satisfaction. /glove slap. Pistols at dawn, you salacious miscreant. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.04 21:15:00 - [189] Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: Amarr Citizen 155 (my apologies to the tea drinkers in the room) Apology not accepted, I demand satisfaction. /glove slap. Pistols at dawn, you salacious miscreant. sa+la+cious/səˈlāSHəs/Adjective 1. (of writing, pictures, or talk) Treating sexual matters in an indecent way. 2. Lustful; lecherous: "his salacious grin faltered". Drinking tea is sexual for you? Explains a lot.
The Mattius Enigma Technologies	Posted - 2011.03.04 21:30:00 - [190] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I have many limits and defects, possibly more than most others, but I am expecially proud of two of them: - my inability to understand why someone would scam, expecially in a game. Not the shallow "why" tied to gaining some Monopoly money, but the inner, deep "why" about they feel doing the very act. What suddenly rots and make them become like that. This also interests me. I am far from perfect in game or in real life, but i have not and never would scam, even when the game mechanics are so readily set up for people to do so. I would feel no differently stealing someones ISK or assets in game, than i would helping myself to the contents of their wallet in RL. I guess i am also rather odd in this respect

Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 21:37:00 - [191] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Quote: The game mechanics do not enable any real auditing to occur. I cannot change that, because I am not a dev The RL mechanics do not enable any hope to get rid off criminals as well, even if they can be tracked and jailed. I cannot change that, because I am not a god. Yet the police still exists. Why? Because the police WILL catch the millions of small thieves, scammers and similar, even if they can do nothing against the big smart criminals heads. Thieves are people. Discrete units of individual. Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions. People, in those senses, do not even exist in EVE. I have no way to adequately assure myself that I am even talking to the same VV I was yesterday. In this environment, there are 2 useful services an auditor can provide the public. They are both very limited. 1) Report assets, as reported to the auditor at the time, noting when these assets were reported. This is still quite game-able by the scammer/capitalist 2) Look for any red flags, and report them. Any competent scammer can avoid these. But there is a more basic, more elemental duty of an auditor, and it is one you fail resolutely in: skepticism. You are a cheerleader; a mystic preaching the magic and wonders of some clearly false concept of a rational and police-able EVE MD marketplace. This is an attitude that indirectly lends false credence to your clients, and encourages more victims to lose money to scams. Having you, or any other of the MD fantasy believers do audits is like having MSNBC do business reporting. What's that? Oh, oh dear. Well, my country's doomed. . .
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.04 21:37:00 - [192] Originally by: Caldariftw123 sa+la+cious/səˈlāSHəs/Adjective 1. (of writing, pictures, or talk) Treating sexual matters in an indecent way. 2. Lustful; lecherous: "his salacious grin faltered". Drinking tea is sexual for you? Explains a lot. It's not the tea, it's the miscreant... - Pistols at dawn, you sexual depraved individual. Dumbed down even more.. - Pistols at dawn, you sexual villain. We've known for a long time these two just need to get a room and take out their lustful actions on each other! You should have SEEN corp chat.. If ever there was reason to be able to close the "Corp" tab, that would be it... Amarr for Life
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 22:07:00 - [193] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 22:10:06 Quote: Thieves are people. Discrete units of individual. Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions. People, in those senses, do not even exist in EVE Yes, sure. Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. When 1 out of 3 homicides in the USA and almost 3 out of 4 robbery crimes don't get punished at all, your argument about "Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions" loses a lot of grip. Edit: I dare say that MD and its self-policing (be it big investors warning others, auditors and what else) are achieving better than a 71.8 number of scammed robbery investments out of 100. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 22:29:00 - [194] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 04/03/2011 22:29:50 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 22:10:06 Quote: Thieves are people. Discrete units of individual. Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions. People, in those senses, do not even exist in EVE Yes, sure. Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. When 1 out of 3 homicides in the USA and almost 3 out of 4 robbery crimes don't get punished at all, your argument about "Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions" loses a lot of grip. Edit: I dare say that MD and its self-policing (be it big investors warning others, auditors and what else) are achieving better than a 71.8 number of scammed robbery investments out of 100. er, what? That's not even apples and oranges. You're completely on Mars. 0% of EVE scams are punished, unless there is some sort of EVE prison I am not aware of. 0% of scammed money is recovered. What are you talking about? None of this is improving my conception of your auditing abilities.
Jita Bloodtear	Posted - 2011.03.04 22:54:00 - [195] Originally by: Emperor Cheney None of this is improving my conception of your auditing abilities. So what exactly were you expecting an audit to result in? 100% bulletproof secured investment backed by the auditor to claim responsibility for investor's lost assets? An audit turns up a net value estimation, and evaluation of currently owned assets. As far as I can tell, the audit did all this very well. If you're mad because you lost money, you should look in the mirror for blame. The auditor did his job. The risk assessment is the investor's job, not the auditor --------------------------- Full Explanation of the Industry Index System
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:13:00 - [196] Originally by: Jita Bloodtear So what exactly were you expecting an audit to result in? I already explained that. Like, 3 posts up. Originally by: Me In this environment, there are 2 useful services an auditor can provide the public. They are both very limited. 1) Report assets, as reported to the auditor at the time, noting when these assets were reported. This is still quite game-able by the scammer/capitalist 2) Look for any red flags, and report them. Any competent scammer can avoid these. But there is a more basic, more elemental duty of an auditor, and it is one you fail resolutely in: skepticism. You are a cheerleader; a mystic preaching the magic and wonders of some clearly false concept of a rational and police-able EVE MD marketplace. This is an attitude that indirectly lends false credence to your clients, and encourages more victims to lose money to scams. Additionally, there is the element of analytical competence. This is generally evidenced by, amongst other things, not confusing the rules of real life with the rules of EVE Online. An effective auditor is a master of rules, and as such does not readily confuse a in-game scammer admitting to theft of ISK with the FBI putting someone in prison.
Rikki Sals Caldari	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:16:00 - [197] That was kinda a dull read. No wonder you're bored with EVE. Also, just gonna regurgitate the sentiment that it's bizarre how people have the desire to make these third party investments, the game's mechanics being what they are. Then again, I suppose people's fallibility is what EVE is all about.
Berikath	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:21:00 - [198] I have something to say on this topic. Lulz. ..... that's pretty much it. * [ SIG] * Wish list for PI: One-click input routing Copy product, inputs & outputs in factories *Launchpad upgrades: twice the space, twice the cost, half the hassle! [ /sig ]
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:41:00 - [199] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 04/03/2011 23:43:57 Quote: Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. When 1 out of 3 homicides in the USA and almost 3 out of 4 robbery crimes don't get punished at all, your argument about "Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions" loses a lot of grip. Edit: I dare say that MD and its self-policing (be it big investors warning others, auditors and what else) are achieving better than a 71.8 number of scammed robbery investments out of 100. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- er, what? That's not even apples and oranges. You're completely on Mars 71.8% of cases are not "cleared" (see the site for the jargon) as in, the case is not closed at all. I.e. in 71.8% of the case the robber has success and no consequence at all (ie. in RL they end up even better than in EvE, where they get burned at last). Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:49:00 - [200] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 04/03/2011 23:55:42 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha 71.8% of cases are not "cleared" (see the site for the jargon) as in, the case is not closed at all. I.e. in 71.8% of the case the robber has success and no consequence at all (ie. in RL they end up even better than in EvE, where they get burned at last). Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. What? You are once again failing to grasp simple things. NO ONE in EVE is "caught" in any sense comparable to criminal proceedings. It is not possible to sanction any other player in EVE, except by blowing up their ship. You seem unable to distinguish between the rules of reality and the rules of EVE. These comparisons you are making are totally invalid, and they discredit your analytical abilities. edit: to break it down even further - You are comparing cases where a crime actually happened in the real world (burglary) to cases where a 'crime' was suspected in MD and mitigated before it happened. That right there is completely invalid. Then on top of that, you're comparing being discredited by MD as being equivalent to being put in prison in the real world. AND you are assuming that there is a positive correlation between scams you think you caught and things that were actually scams, which if they never really happened, is unprovable. You seem unable to figure out what data sets mean, how they relate, and what they can be compared to.

Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:53:00 - [201] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha 71.8% of cases are not "cleared" (see the site for the jargon) as in, the case is not closed at all. I.e. in 71.8% of the case the robber has success and no consequence at all (ie. in RL they end up even better than in EvE, where they get burned at last). Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. What? You are once again failing to grasp simple things. NO ONE in EVE is "caught" in any sense comparable to criminal proceedings. It is not possible to sanction any other player in EVE, except by blowing up their ship. You seem unable to distinguish between the rules of reality and the rules of EVE. These comparisons you are making are totally invalid, and they discredit your analytical abilities. Are you trolling? There's plenty of attempts to create scam threads that get killed on sight, all those dudes get caught and their character "burned". Sure it's not equal to jailing the guy IRL but for what matters in EvE they are arrested. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.04 23:56:00 - [202] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 04/03/2011 23:57:53 from the above: Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha 71.8% of cases are not "cleared" (see the site for the jargon) as in, the case is not closed at all. I.e. in 71.8% of the case the robber has success and no consequence at all (ie. in RL they end up even better than in EvE, where they get burned at last). Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. What? You are once again failing to grasp simple things. NO ONE in EVE is "caught" in any sense comparable to criminal proceedings. It is not possible to sanction any other player in EVE, except by blowing up their ship. You seem unable to distinguish between the rules of reality and the rules of EVE. These comparisons you are making are totally invalid, and they discredit your analytical abilities. Are you trolling? There's plenty of attempts to create scam threads that get killed on sight, all those dudes get caught and their character "burned". Sure it's not equal to jailing the guy IRL but for what matters in EvE they are arrested. You are comparing cases where a crime actually happened in the real world (burglary) to cases where a 'crime' was suspected in MD and mitigated before it happened. That right there is completely invalid. Then on top of that, you're comparing being discredited by MD as being equivalent to being put in prison in the real world. AND you are assuming that there is a positive correlation between scams you think you caught and things that were actually scams, which if they never really happened, is unprovable. You seem unable to figure out what data sets mean, how they relate, and what they can be compared to. A meaningful comparison would be between burglaries PREVENTED and MD scams prevented. I mean my god, how is this confusing to you? How can you not grasp this? Ladies and gentlemen, VV, auditor extraordinaire.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:02:00 - [203] Quote: A meaningful comparison would be between burglaries PREVENTED and MD scams prevented This is actually what I wrote above - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:06:00 - [204] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Quote: A meaningful comparison would be between burglaries PREVENTED and MD scams prevented This is actually what I wrote above No. Your data from the FBI is comparing crime rates to imprisonment rates. Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Yes, sure. Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. Ladies and gentlemen, VV, auditor extraordinaire, making a encore appearance!
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:09:00 - [205] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Quote: A meaningful comparison would be between burglaries PREVENTED and MD scams prevented This is actually what I wrote above No. Your data from the FBI is comparing crime rates to imprisonment rates. Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Yes, sure. Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. Ladies and gentlemen, VV, auditor extraordinaire, making a encore appearance! He or she might not be able to tell the difference between an unpunished crime and a crime prevented, but by goodness does he/she ever ~believe~! And really, isn't that what counts most in an auditor? Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha 71.8% of cases are not "cleared" (see the site for the jargon) as in, the case is not closed at all. I.e. in 71.8% of the case the robber has success and no consequence at all (ie. in RL they end up even better than in EvE, where they get burned at last). Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. I'm not sure where your difficulty in comprehension lies, Cheney.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:13:00 - [206] Originally by: Caldariftw123 I'm not sure where your difficulty in comprehension lies, Cheney. Oh my god Because the numbers do not include robberies that were attempted and foiled. They only include robberies that were successful and unpunished. It's a completely different number with completely different implications. Related: why are there no numbers for robberies attempted and foiled? Because it's really hard to prove a robbery was going to happen. Similarly, it's really hard to tell a scam here was going to happen, and patting oneself on the back for "catching" a scam here is just as meaningless, because it's unprovable.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:23:00 - [207] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 05/03/2011 00:23:49 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Caldariftw123 I'm not sure where your difficulty in comprehension lies, Cheney. Oh my god Because the numbers do not include robberies that were attempted and foiled. They only include robberies that were successful and unpunished. It's a completely different number with completely different implications. Related: why are there no numbers for robberies attempted and foiled? Because it's really hard to prove a robbery was going to happen. Similarly, it's really hard to tell a scam here was going to happen, and patting oneself on the back for "catching" a scam here is just as meaningless, because it's unprovable. Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Quote: A meaningful comparison would be between burglaries PREVENTED and MD scams prevented This is actually what I wrote above No. Your data from the FBI is comparing crime rates to imprisonment rates. Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Yes, sure. Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. Ladies and gentlemen, VV, auditor extraordinaire, making a encore appearance! He or she might not be able to tell the difference between an unpunished crime and a crime prevented, but by goodness does he/she ever ~believe~! And really, isn't that what counts most in an auditor? Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha 71.8% of cases are not "cleared" (see the site for the jargon) as in, the case is not closed at all. I.e. in 71.8% of the case the robber has success and no consequence at all (ie. in RL they end up even better than in EvE, where they get burned at last). Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. The implication being 100% - 71.8% = 28.2% success, which is far higher than the successes of MD. I see what you mean though, maybe I misunderstood - you want to compare ONLY prevented crimes IRL with prevented crimes in MD, whereas VV is putting both prevention and policing together as something comparable .. I am inclined to agree with that. I don't see the diffuculty with what VV said overall. edit: though I think I comprehend a bit more, that you just want to argue/troll/be aggressive .. so it might explain things.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:29:00 - [208] 1) You have no idea how many scams were prevented by auditors and MD people "catching" them before they developed. It could be everything you called scam on. It could be none of them. 2) None of that is comparable to a case where a crime certifiably happens and that criminal is not caught. This is basic data analysis. That it is a foreign concept to MD people is completely unsurprising.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:33:00 - [209] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 05/03/2011 00:34:24 Quote: I am inclined to agree with that. I don't see the diffuculty with what VV said overall. Maybe it has to do with the main topic of the "exchange" that he conveniently put under a rug: Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha The RL mechanics do not enable any hope to get rid off criminals as well, even if they can be tracked and jailed. I cannot change that, because I am not a god. Yet the police still exists. Why? Because the police WILL catch the millions of small thieves, scammers and similar, even if they can do nothing against the big smart criminals heads. Thieves are people. Discrete units of individual. Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions. People, in those senses, do not even exist in EVE. Yes, sure. Let's land on Earth now. Source FBI UCR 2009 (the latest report available), - 33.4% of homicides went unpunished. - 71.8% of robbery crimes went unpunished. When 1 out of 3 homicides in the USA and almost 3 out of 4 robbery crimes don't get punished at all, your argument about "Traceable, identifiable, and culpable for their actions" loses a lot of grip I.e. who cares that RL criminals are traceable, identifiable and culpable when in the end a large part - even for the worst crimes - don't even get caught at all, much less traced and identified? That was the EvE-ish part of RL, in the sense that in RL the guilty have a very sensible probability to have ZERO consequences for their actions, exactly like here. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:37:00 - [210] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I.e. who cares that RL criminals are traceable, identifiable and culpable when in the end the most part - even for the worst crimes - don't even get caught at all, much less traced and identified? That was the EvE-ish part of RL, in the sense that in RL the guilty have a very sensible probability to have ZERO consequences for their actions, exactly like here. Because it means it is at least theoretically possible to do such, and does happen for many. In EVE, it is not theoretically possible to catch and punish the individual who scammed. It is one of the many ways that EVE is less policable than the real world. You repeatedly confuse the real world with EVE, so I was drawing a helpful distinction, specifically on how much harder it is to enforce or audit here. In regards to auditing, how can you audit anyone, if tomorrow that character could be played by a completely different person? How do you know you've only been arguing with me, and not the 25 people in my corp. Or some dude I sold this character to on ebay. Or my little brother. And so on, and so forth. In EVE, unlike the real world, even identity is mutable. This is just one example of why auditing in EVE is extremely difficult.

Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:41:00 - [211] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 05/03/2011 00:41:59 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I.e. who cares that RL criminals are traceable, identifiable and culpable when in the end the most part - even for the worst crimes - don't even get caught at all, much less traced and identified? That was the EvE-ish part of RL, in the sense that in RL the guilty have a very sensible probability to have ZERO consequences for their actions, exactly like here. Because it means it is at least theoretically possible to do such, and does happen for many. In EVE, it is not theoretically possible to catch and punish the individual who scammed. It is one of the many ways that EVE is less policable than the real world. You repeatedly confuse the real world with EVE, so I was drawing a helpful distinction, specifically on how much harder it is to enforce or audit here. In regards to auditing, how can you audit anyone, if tomorrow that character could be played by a completely different person? How do you know you've only been arguing with me, and not the 25 people in my corp. Or some dude I sold this character to on ebay. Or my little brother. And so on, and so forth. In EVE, unlike the real world, even identity is mutable. This is just one example of why auditing in EVE is extremely difficult. Well we like to hope you wont account share like that, as it is against the EULA - EULA violating issues are things we cannot account for, and that if caught CCP BAN for, as opposed to scamming which is fine. If the main jist of your argument is "policing is impossible, therefore don't even try" then why not just outright say "never invest in anything but yourself, it's impossible to follow through with anything" and be done with it? If that is how you genuinely feel, then debating is pointless is it not? You come from a polar opposite to VV who wants to see the 'world of MD' improved not killed off. If you have actual input on what CAN be done to improve things, rather than just point out the holes that we already know about and have been pointed out a thousand times before in what tools we DO have? Flawed tools > no tools at all.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:51:00 - [212] I'm posting because, like I've said before, I am a real life fraud investigator, and I see the current "auditing" climate as being snake-oil sales that probably do more to help scammers than hurt them. I am considering starting a no-bs auditing service, but I don't see a lot of customers for a guy who does little but say "there's no way to know" and even if there were, I don't have a lot of time right now. What I'd generally like to see is a lot more skepticism, analysis, and a whole lot less make believe in a capitalist self-regulating fairytale.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:54:00 - [213] Originally by: Emperor Cheney I'm posting because, like I've said before, I am a real life fraud investigator, and I see the current "auditing" climate as being snake-oil sales that probably do more to help scammers than hurt them. I am considering starting a no-bs auditing service, but I don't see a lot of customers for a guy who does little but say "there's no way to know" and even if there were, I don't have a lot of time right now. What I'd generally like to see is a lot more skepticism, analysis, and a whole lot less make believe in a capitalist self-regulating fairytale. Why is it snake oil? At what point have audits people made a claim that they can achieve something, and then not done it?
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 00:56:00 - [214] Quote: It is one of the many ways that EVE is less policable than the real world. You repeatedly confuse the real world with EVE Just because I say EvE is like RL I don't say EvE = RL. In fact when I say that a guy is punishable in EvE I don't mean the RL player but the character. Of course the RL player is not, the EULA allows scamming. What the MDers can do is to find out the scammer and punish them by "burning" them so they have to use another character (or account if that was under audit). Now, while I find odd to have to specify that I did not mean the RL player, let's get back to ground zero i.e. a page ago: you take this impossibility as a showstopper. I, and I am sure others, can't accept that because a guy can't be phyisically jailed then we can't do anything and give up or not participate at all. At this point, we would take up our tents and close MD investments, sales, anything. It's sure a solution but it's so restrictive it's not fun at all and no profitable business can be made (trading against risk ofc). Quote: In regards to auditing, how can you audit anyone, if tomorrow that character could be played by a completely different person? That's be a breach of the EULA, it's forbidden to share log in informations, it's one of the very few cases where CCP took a stance afaik. But any way, this is once again a game of risk vs potential income. How many truly resort to playing a different character tomorrow? Many? Few? I believe most play their own stuff like good Scouts. There's risk in anything. Only place with no risk is once we are dead. Quote: In EVE, unlike the real world, even identity is mutable. This is just one example of why auditing in EVE is extremely difficult. My country is subject to heavy immigration. In order to not be taken back home, all the immigrants trash their documents before they embark to our coasts. When they arrive, they give a false identity and nationality in order to make it impossible to bring them back. There are people who have stated 70 (sixty!) different identities. That's quite mutable for me ;P - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:07:00 - [215] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:08:49 Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha There are people who have stated 70 (sixty!) different identities. That's quite mutable for me ;P Indeed, but it can still be traced to one individual. Witnesses see a guy stealing a radio, invesigation can find where than one individual lives, all regardless of what papers he is carrying. The individual behind Bad Bobby could be running a bond right now, and we would never know. Further, that individual has no fear of punishment. Through laundering isk and the character bazaar, he could become a new character tomorrow. He could become a dozen new characters every day. And that without even breaking the EULA. That's the difference. The identity example is just one case where EVE is substantially different than real life. Just as seriously there is the lack of controls, and the ease of 'gaming' any auditing attempt. Were I to give audits, there is very little (I've posted it twice already) that I would feel comfortable signing off on, and even then I would include a whole lot of disclaimers.
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company ISK Six	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:09:00 - [216] Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: Amarr Citizen 155 (my apologies to the tea drinkers in the room) Apology not accepted, I demand satisfaction. /glove slap. Pistols at dawn, you salacious miscreant. Can I come? I want to shoot people too. ______________________________
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:17:00 - [217] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Were I to give audits, there is very little (I've posted it twice already) that I would feel comfortable signing off on, and even then I would include a whole lot of disclaimers. So you would basically do nothing?
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:25:00 - [218] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:25:46 That's correct. It seems a lot better than the alternative. I have too much pride in my self and work to sign even my (shockingly) fake name on my (even more shockingly) posting account to an audit that I didn't feel 100% represented the truth.
Amarr Citizen 155 Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:29:00 - [219] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Now, on MD the robbery "crimes" that have success are well below 71.8% success vs those attempted. They tend to be caught quite fast both by inquisitive MD-ers, by inquisitive auditors (even before the guy gets an audit) and even by random people. This has not even particular relevance with auditors, so it's you who are taking my point (where you pictured RL guilty people as identifiable and so on) and by your bias try steer my reply in the auditors sector. Please for the love of god would you stop doing that. You have no way of knowing how many are attempted and you have no way of knowing how many are successful. You're trying to compare a real statistic with no statistic at all. The only reason the RL statistic exists is because there is an official process for reporting and tracking the crimes. In Eve, and even on MD there is no process and they are not all reported. "In my opinion" "I think" "I feel" "I know we don't have anyway of knowing the numbers, but I think/feel/in my opinion"
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:30:00 - [220] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:25:46 That's correct. It seems a lot better than the alternative. I have too much pride in my self and work to sign even my (shockingly) fake name on my (even more shockingly) posting account to an audit that I didn't feel 100% represented the truth. So why bother 'debating' the issue if, as I said before, your only contribution is "nothing can be done, so don't bother doing anything" ? There doesn't seem to be a lot of point. If you do not invest, do not think investing can work, and think any efforts to police it are utterly futile, then there's really nothing for you to say except for just arguing for fun?

Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:41:00 - [221] Originally by: Caldariftw123 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:25:46 That's correct. It seems a lot better than the alternative. I have too much pride in my self and work to sign even my (shockingly) fake name on my (even more shockingly) posting account to an audit that I didn't feel 100% represented the truth. So why bother 'debating' the issue if, as I said before, your only contribution is "nothing can be done, so don't bother doing anything" ? There doesn't seem to be a lot of point. If you do not invest, do not think investing can work, and think any efforts to police it are utterly futile, then there's really nothing for you to say except for just arguing for fun? I can save other people from being scammed next time, and maybe change the climate a bit to be less scam-friendly. btw, I do not agree to your statements such as "think any efforts to police it are utterly futile," which are major overstatements to what I've said. A limited, honest audit is better than no audit, and no audit is better than a bad one. Also, earlier in this thread I explicitly agreed with Raw23 that certain investing strategies could work, though whether such strategies are worth it to more than a small minority of players is doubtful. For a guy who likes to accuse people of trolling, you sure do shove a lot of words into people's mouths. And no, in response to your next, inevitable post, I am not going to rephrase and re-post things I've said earlier in this thread per your inevitable demands I say "just what I would do" or "just what I think" or whatever.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:46:00 - [222] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Caldariftw123 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:25:46 That's correct. It seems a lot better than the alternative. I have too much pride in my self and work to sign even my (shockingly) fake name on my (even more shockingly) posting account to an audit that I didn't feel 100% represented the truth. So why bother 'debating' the issue if, as I said before, your only contribution is "nothing can be done, so don't bother doing anything" ? There doesn't seem to be a lot of point. If you do not invest, do not think investing can work, and think any efforts to police it are utterly futile, then there's really nothing for you to say except for just arguing for fun? I can save other people from being scammed next time, and maybe change the climate a bit to be less scam-friendly. btw, I do not agree to your statements such as "think any efforts to police it are utterly futile," which are major overstatements to what I've said. A limited, honest audit is better than no audit, and no audit is better than a bad one. Also, earlier in this thread I explicitly agreed with Raw23 that certain investing strategies could work, though whether such strategies are worth it to more than a small minority of players is doubtful. For a guy who likes to accuse people of trolling, you sure do shove a lot of words into people's mouths. And no, in response to your next, inevitable post, I am not going to rephrase and re-post things I've said earlier in this thread per your inevitable demands I say "just what I would do" or "just what I think" or whatever. Originally by: Caldariftw123 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Were I to give audits, there is very little (I've posted it twice already) that I would feel comfortable signing off on, and even then I would include a whole lot of disclaimers. So you would basically do nothing? I asked if you would do nothing, you said yes .. I didn't put words in your mouth, you said yes. Then you say the only other thing you've said that might be worthwhile, raw's strategy, is also probably no good .. soo .. what are you saying if not "there's no point policing" because it sure looks like it to me? An audit that states facts that have been checked, and also says quite clearly "this is no indication of scamming or fulfilling the offer, it is simply the facts I am able to check via the API" is basically what VV does and is a hell of a lot better than "I would basically do nothing" .. I still don't see why you are bothering to 'debate'
Grog Barrel	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:52:00 - [223] Edited by: Grog Barrel on 05/03/2011 01:52:56 Originally by: Caldariftw123 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:25:46 That's correct. It seems a lot better than the alternative. I have too much pride in my self and work to sign even my (shockingly) fake name on my (even more shockingly) posting account to an audit that I didn't feel 100% represented the truth. So why bother 'debating' the issue if, as I said before, your only contribution is "nothing can be done, so don't bother doing anything" This meaning: "the only way to contribuite, is to keep inflating the role of an auditor, not doing the opposite" right? or in other words "I too want to protect my scammer's circle, stop talking bad words about it". more scepticism and better analizis from the side of investors is what the guy is proposing. For me, this sounds like a good advice. Almost as good as a silver cross being thrown inside a cave full of vampires, after making it wet in a pool full of holy water. (or not if you are a vampire)
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 01:57:00 - [224] Originally by: Grog Barrel Edited by: Grog Barrel on 05/03/2011 01:52:56 Originally by: Caldariftw123 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 01:25:46 That's correct. It seems a lot better than the alternative. I have too much pride in my self and work to sign even my (shockingly) fake name on my (even more shockingly) posting account to an audit that I didn't feel 100% represented the truth. So why bother 'debating' the issue if, as I said before, your only contribution is "nothing can be done, so don't bother doing anything" This meaning: "the only way to contribuite, is to keep inflating the role of an auditor, not doing the opposite" right? or in other words "I too want to protect my scammer's circle, stop talking bad words about it". more scepticism and better analizis from the side of investors is what the guy is proposing. For me, this sounds like a good advice. Almost as good as a silver cross being thrown inside a cave full of vampires, after making it wet in a pool full of holy water. (or not if you are a vampire) Not even close, I'm saying if all you are going to do is say audits are useless and policing investments can not be done and therefore should not even be tried, what is the point debating? Clearly you are not going to invest, you have no solution on offer and nothing NEW to contribute - the audit/no audit debate has been done to death, every single hole in the arguments on both sides have been pointed out and the horse has been beaten beyond the point of recovery, what is the point going on about it more? If you think audits are **** then don't use them, don't listen to them, but it doesn't change the FACT that it is one of the FEW tools we have available to us, as flawed and limited as it may be, and the only alternative is NOT doing anything at all. What would be the point in discussing any of that any more? Either contribute an alternative, a solution (hell even SencneS contributes alternative views, like the ongoing audit proposal and whatnot, rather than JUST saying "no no no!") or offer something NEW, but beating the horse repeatedly gets us nowhere.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:09:00 - [225] Originally by: Caldariftw123 I asked if you would do nothing, you said yes .. I didn't put words in your mouth, you said yes. Then you say the only other thing you've said that might be worthwhile, raw's strategy, is also probably no good .. soo .. what are you saying if not "there's no point policing" because it sure looks like it to me? An audit that states facts that have been checked, and also says quite clearly "this is no indication of scamming or fulfilling the offer, it is simply the facts I am able to check via the API" is basically what VV does and is a hell of a lot better than "I would basically do nothing" .. I still don't see why you are bothering to 'debate' No, you asked if I would do "basically nothing." Very different. Like I've said at least twice in this thread (how is it you find posting easier than reading? how??) I would report assets on hand at the time of the audit, and I would look for red flags. That's not much, but they're both things I would feel confident signing my name to, with some copious disclaimers. My issue with VV isn't so much that the audits are terrible (I haven't really looked in depth, but would need compliance from former audities to really do a good double check, and frankly, I'm not made of time), but that VV's other posts here, in other threads, pretty much every post that is not a straight up audit is pure cheerleading for the MD fantasy of this being a well-policied marketplace. This, in turn, leads to even his/her audits being a soft endorsement and since audits are far, far less useful than VV or you will admit, in turn actually strengthens the hands of scammers.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:15:00 - [226] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 05/03/2011 02:15:40 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Caldariftw123 I asked if you would do nothing, you said yes .. I didn't put words in your mouth, you said yes. Then you say the only other thing you've said that might be worthwhile, raw's strategy, is also probably no good .. soo .. what are you saying if not "there's no point policing" because it sure looks like it to me? An audit that states facts that have been checked, and also says quite clearly "this is no indication of scamming or fulfilling the offer, it is simply the facts I am able to check via the API" is basically what VV does and is a hell of a lot better than "I would basically do nothing" .. I still don't see why you are bothering to 'debate' No, you asked if I would do "basically nothing." Very different. Like I've said at least twice in this thread (how is it you find posting easier than reading? how??) I would report assets on hand at the time of the audit, and I would look for red flags. That's not much, but they're both things I would feel confident signing my name to, with some copious disclaimers. My issue with VV isn't so much that the audits are terrible (I haven't really looked in depth, but would need compliance from former audities to really do a good double check, and frankly, I'm not made of time), but that VV's other posts here, in other threads, pretty much every post that is not a straight up audit is pure cheerleading for the MD fantasy of this being a well-policied marketplace. This, in turn, leads to even his/her audits being a soft endorsement and since audits are far, far less useful than VV or you will admit, in turn actually strengthens the hands of scammers. So you think that audits, that JUST fact check (do you have skills, any transactions stand out, do you actively trade like you claim, do you have the NAV you claim etc.) that are done as they are right now, are bad right now, that they are worse than NOT doing them because they are 'soft endsorements' etc. .. and in response to that you propose that you could do audits that are JUST fact checks (do you have skills, any transactions stand out, do you actively trade like you claim, do you have the NAV you claim etc.) .. I'm confused here. Or is it you?
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:23:00 - [227] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:25:27 Originally by: Caldariftw123 So you think that audits, that JUST fact check (do you have skills, any transactions stand out, do you actively trade like you claim, do you have the NAV you claim etc.) that are done as they are right now, are bad right now, that they are worse than NOT doing them because they are 'soft endsorements' etc. .. and in response to that you propose that you could do audits that are JUST fact checks (do you have skills, any transactions stand out, do you actively trade like you claim, do you have the NAV you claim etc.) .. I'm confused here. Or is it you? I would like what audits do occur to not be done by cheerleaders who can't parse data, and also not represent things the auditor cannot back up. More importantly, I would like audits that highlight their own (extreme) limitations. I would like an MD community that was more skeptical and less willing to put faith in largely meaningless audits. I haven't actually gone over VV's audits, but based on our exchanges in this thread, I have very, very little faith. I just had a large argument with you and with master auditor VV trying, painfully, to explain that un-imprisoned burglars is not the equivalent to suspected scammers who got scared away. This is the sort of numeracy and analysis we are working with here. If you want to do less posting and more actually understanding my position by, say, reading my posts, there are lots of them in this thread which you can find by hitting the little orange numbers below the last post here.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:30:00 - [228] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:28:13 Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:25:27 Originally by: Caldariftw123 So you think that audits, that JUST fact check (do you have skills, any transactions stand out, do you actively trade like you claim, do you have the NAV you claim etc.) that are done as they are right now, are bad right now, that they are worse than NOT doing them because they are 'soft endsorements' etc. .. and in response to that you propose that you could do audits that are JUST fact checks (do you have skills, any transactions stand out, do you actively trade like you claim, do you have the NAV you claim etc.) .. I'm confused here. Or is it you? I haven't actually gone over VV's audits I think I found the reason for this debate right here. So you accuse me of not reading, but you have twice now openly said you haven't even read the audits you're going on about .. ? Try finding out about the audits, we are "cheerleading" for audits AS FACT CHECKERS not as "this is not a scam!" reports. What you are saying you want audits to be is what audits ARE.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:36:00 - [229] Originally by: Caldariftw123 What you are saying you want audits to be is what audits ARE. Really? Then how come VV and you are close to tears when people allege that maybe just maybe audits can't say that much? What has VV even been arguing with me about then? I didn't start this argument. Chief Master Auditor VV did, and it's been downhill from there.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:41:00 - [230] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Caldariftw123 What you are saying you want audits to be is what audits ARE. Really? Then how come VV and you are close to tears when people allege that maybe just maybe audits can't say that much? What has VV even been arguing with me about then? I didn't start this argument. Chief Master Auditor VV did, and it's been downhill from there. Tears? Sorry, which one of us knows what an audit is, and which one says they haven't even read one yet? Right, thought so. You are just arguing. Excuse me if I dislike misinformation and nonsense. If you have something that's actually constructive or some sort of suggestion for how to improve things, that's great, but like I said posts back I don't see the point in simply arguing for the sake of it which seems to be what you are doing :)

DeODokktor Caldari Dark Templars The Fonz Presidium	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:43:00 - [231] Kinda sad so many people are ignorant of math.. While an IPO in eve may be valid, It shouldnt need to run as an IPO for years. If someone is making 130bn / month then they would buy out the investors and let the company tank the profit. The more valid corps, are the ones who cant afford to pay out the regular divident, and yet have growing asset stocks. And as for you guys linking this guy to another acount and other players, It's probably not going to happen. I mean, your here because he's telling you that you have been porked, not because you were smart enough to figgure it out ;P. ----------- Never Forget the joy of finding a main to link to a scammer alt. N-y-p-h-u-r ! !
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:46:00 - [232] Originally by: Caldariftw123 If you have something that's actually constructive or some sort of suggestion for how to improve things, that's great, but like I said posts back I don't see the point in simply arguing for the sake of it which seems to be what you are doing :) Oh my god, how many times can you post post post post post asking me to post something I've already posted? If you're just trolling me, you won. I am RL exasperated right now. I said something. VV started arguing with me. And now you jump in and repeatedly demand I re-post things I already said, and also repeatedly ask me to justify an argument I did not start. Oh my god, shut up.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:48:00 - [233] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 05/03/2011 02:49:52 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Caldariftw123 If you have something that's actually constructive or some sort of suggestion for how to improve things, that's great, but like I said posts back I don't see the point in simply arguing for the sake of it which seems to be what you are doing :) Oh my god, how many times can you post post post post post asking me to post something I've already posted? If you're just trolling me, you won. I am RL exasperated right now. I said something. VV started arguing with me. And now you jump in and repeatedly demand I re-post things I already said, and also repeatedly ask me to justify an argument I did not start. Oh my god, shut up. Your 'constructive' statement was to describe what audits already do, don't you get that? They are JUST fact checking, and then you go on to admit you haven't even read the audits .. this is why I am repeating it. Try LEARNING the subject THEN talking about it. For a "rl fraud investigator" I am really surprised you have not even the BASIC research done before you yammer on about a subject as if you have said something new/intelligent.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:51:00 - [234] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:52:05 Originally by: Caldariftw123 Your 'constructive' statement was to describe what audits already do, don't you get that? They are JUST fact checking, and then you go on to admit you haven't even read the audits .. this is why I am repeating it. Try LEARNING the subject THEN talking about it. For a "rl fraud investigator" I am really surprised you have not even the BASIC research done before you yammer on about a subject as if you haven't said something new/intelligent. Wow, I nailed it! (see above) I said a bunch of fairly obvious things. VV argued with me. Then VV continued this argument with horrible analysis. I don't see how you fit into any of this. You have yet to raise any points. If you think I'm endorsing the status quo then you should ask VV why he/she finds that so offensive.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:54:00 - [235] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:52:05 Originally by: Caldariftw123 Your 'constructive' statement was to describe what audits already do, don't you get that? They are JUST fact checking, and then you go on to admit you haven't even read the audits .. this is why I am repeating it. Try LEARNING the subject THEN talking about it. For a "rl fraud investigator" I am really surprised you have not even the BASIC research done before you yammer on about a subject as if you haven't said something new/intelligent. Wow, I nailed it! (see above) I said a bunch of fairly obvious things. VV argued with me. Then VV continued this argument with horrible analysis. I don't see how you fit into any of this. You have yet to raise any points. If you think I'm endorsing the status quo then you should ask VV why he/she finds that so offensive. You said yourself you don't know what an audit is, it's ok to be wrong sometimes you know. :) Don't get so angry, learn about the subject and then come back and raise any issues you then spot.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 02:59:00 - [236] Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:59:32 Originally by: Caldariftw123 You said yourself you don't know what an audit is, it's ok to be wrong sometimes you know. :) Don't get so angry, learn about the subject and then come back and raise any issues you then spot. What. Curious, what do you think VV and I are even arguing about? Why did VV start arguing with me? And most importantly, what do you have to do with any of this? You've made several posts in a row saying nothing. edit to add: okay, I'm done. This is clear trolling and I'm kicking myself for falling for it several posts in a row.
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 03:03:00 - [237] Originally by: Emperor Cheney Edited by: Emperor Cheney on 05/03/2011 02:59:32 Originally by: Caldariftw123 You said yourself you don't know what an audit is, it's ok to be wrong sometimes you know. :) Don't get so angry, learn about the subject and then come back and raise any issues you then spot. What. Curious, what do you think VV and I are even arguing about? Why did VV start arguing with me? And most importantly, what do you have to do with any of this? You've made several posts in a row saying nothing. edit to add: okay, I'm done. This is clear trolling and I'm kicking myself for falling for it several posts in a row. I am not VV, I don't speak for his intentions. As for my own posts .. wtf, seriously, we spoke about audits and I questioned you about your reasons behind it, why you are bothering debating it etc. because you are not adding anything new, it becomes clear that the reason you are not adding anything new to what is an OLD debate is because you do not even know what an audit is .. and I'M the one that's trolling YOU? Do you see NO correleation at all between "I don't know what I am talking about but I'll debate it anyway" and the response you get for it?
Luxotor Minmatar	Posted - 2011.03.05 03:08:00 - [238] So glad I didn't participate in any of your bull****.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.05 03:09:00 - [239] Originally by: Caldariftw123 As for my own posts .. wtf, seriously, we spoke about audits and I questioned you about your reasons behind it, why you are bothering debating it etc. because you are not adding anything new, it becomes clear that the reason you are not adding anything new to what is an OLD debate is because you do not even know what an audit is .. and I'M the one that's trolling YOU? Do you see NO correleation at all between "I don't know what I am talking about but I'll debate it anyway" and the response you get for it? Guh, slow day at the office, I'll try once more. What is your question here? What is your point? You keep posting but I have nothing I could say in response, because you are not asking me any questions. You used to keep asking me to repost things, but now not even that. What do you want? Thanks. This continues to be the worst conversation I've had in literally tens of minutes.
Eva Blonde	Posted - 2011.03.05 05:40:00 - [240] Edited by: Eva Blonde on 05/03/2011 05:40:57 Where did the money go?

Varo Jan Caravanserai Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 06:37:00 - [241] Originally by: Emperor Cheney I would like what audits do occur to not be done by cheerleaders who can't parse data, and also not represent things the auditor cannot back up. More importantly, I would like audits that highlight their own (extreme) limitations. I haven't actually gone over VV's audits... You're making comments based on zero facts. Read some audits, then draw conclusions. Quote: Basically, I want people to have much, much less faith in the efficacy of audits. Currently, we have a blind faith situation. I agree an audit could stop obvious scams. However, I think that's just about it. I do not believe the MD community or the auditors realize this, or are willing to accept that. You're making assumptions again. There is no blind faith. There is an understanding of the limitations of an MD style audit. That's my take. Personally, as an auditor, I'm well aware of the limitations. However, I do believe they serve a useful purpose, and I know that scammers and potential scammers will take every opportunity to diss audits. There are ways to make them more effective, such as ensuring more data is made available prior to an audit. Another is to have ongoing performance audits. Bear in mind that audits are one way of raising the bar. There are others such as BPO lockdowns. Have you noticed how people are now trying to claim lockdowns are useless? They're not, if implemented properly, but that's the last thing a scammer would want. Originally by: Emperor Cheney I think that is unfortunate, as the faith in the strength of the auditing process is one component to why people get scammed here over and over. Not so. The major scams were never audited. Quite a while back a couple of people analysed offerings and showed that the vast majority of audited offerings had not resulted in scams. On another note, I suspect that many so-called scams were really due to burnout or incompetent management. Thing is, in this asinine environment, it is considered kewl to say, "I planned to scam all along" rather than saying, "Sorry, guys, I just couldn't manage it."
Graic Valente Gallente Valente Galactic Enterprises	Posted - 2011.03.05 07:16:00 - [242] "Cosmo Alt!" is now a registered trademark of Valente Galactic Enterprises. Any time you scream it out in a thread send 10 million ISK to this character. Thanks.
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.05 07:39:00 - [243] Originally by: Caldariftw123 EULA violating issues are things we cannot account for, and that if caught CCP might BAN for, as opposed to scamming which is fine. FTFY It is well known that account sharing is de facto tolerated by CCP as long as no conflicts over the ownership of accounts or assets arise.
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.05 08:58:00 - [244] Originally by: Florestan Bronstein MD crowd is gathered around a dead body. Cheney: "he's dead, let's call the mortician" Caldariftw123: "that's not constructive. Why do you say that?" Cheney: "he's objectively dead" SencneS: "We should dress him up in some fancy clothing and make sure he has somebody to talk to all day" Caldariftw123: "look, at least she is trying to help" Cheney: "you auditors told everyone you had kept him alive... now see what you've done! they all suffer from idiotic delusions" VV: "I never said he couldn't be dead - look here shows big sheet of paper: 'the auditor only guarantees that this body exists. Anything else is pure speculation.'. I only said "he might be alive." and that was just the tl;dr version of my report." Caldariftw123: "now get off your high horse, Cheney, and please help us or get out. This guy points to body has an important business meeting tomorrow and we have to make sure he's in shape when he gets there." Cheney: /facepalm Here's a joke for you: Why did the socialist study epistemology? He didn't, that's why he's a socialist. The only role of the auditor is to make known those things that can be known, because it's better to know what we can than not to know it.
Corcyrus Endymion Caldari Excessum Corporation Excessum Gaming	Posted - 2011.03.05 09:19:00 - [245] Edited by: Corcyrus Endymion on 05/03/2011 09:21:42 Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. I don't give a **** if you say you're a honest person, you're a trustworthy third party, either way you're going to scam. Everyone has a price, its just a matter of figuring out what it is. I know Grendell's got a price. I know Chribba's got a price. Whats yours? Just saying, yes everyone has a price. But if someones price can be met in an online space ship game.... Also, not surprised but I am a tad dissapoint son, in this whole situation. I frankly wonder how this reflects on people, spending so much time setting up a pointless ingame scam...
Hel O'Ween Men On A Mission	Posted - 2011.03.05 09:50:00 - [246] Originally by: The Mattius Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I have many limits and defects, possibly more than most others, but I am expecially proud of two of them: - my inability to understand why someone would scam, expecially in a game. Not the shallow "why" tied to gaining some Monopoly money, but the inner, deep "why" about they feel doing the very act. What suddenly rots and make them become like that. This also interests me. I am far from perfect in game or in real life, but i have not and never would scam, even when the game mechanics are so readily set up for people to do so. I would feel no differently stealing someones ISK or assets in game, than i would helping myself to the contents of their wallet in RL. I guess i am also rather odd in this respect You're not alone. I'm trying to be as honest and true to myself as possible. Because EVE's a game without consequences, I can live that attitude to my full liking, whereas in RL sometimes facts trump ideals. My career has come to a hold, because I don't shut up when I feel something's wrong, regardless of who my opposite is. Not too many superiors appreciate that. -- EVEWalletAware - an offline wallet manager
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.05 10:16:00 - [247] You know know what would be hilarious? If cosmo paid another dividend on his **. That would sent everyone into a tailspin. Vote KALRAND for CSM!**
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.05 11:06:00 - [248] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 05/03/2011 11:09:02 Originally by: Emperor Cheney Originally by: Caldariftw123 As for my own posts .. wtf, seriously, we spoke about audits and I questioned you about your reasons behind it, why you are bothering debating it etc. because you are not adding anything new, it becomes clear that the reason you are not adding anything new to what is an OLD debate is because you do not even know what an audit is .. and I'M the one that's trolling YOU? Do you see NO correleation at all between "I don't know what I am talking about but I'll debate it anyway" and the response you get for it? Guh, slow day at the office, I'll try once more. What is your question here? What is your point? You keep posting but I have nothing I could say in response, because you are not asking me any questions. You used to keep asking me to repost things, but now not even that. What do you want? Thanks. This continues to be the worst conversation I've had in literally tens of minutes. All I see there is you, realising you actually were being an idiot, now saying "what are you trying to say?" to me because I've called you out on it, and rather than be a grown up and say "I realise I was wrong, I'll go look into this and then come back with some good suggestions once I've actually learned about the subject" you have totally ignored it and instead started writing nonsense. I am not asking you a question anymore because you don't know what you are talking about and never did despite all the words you wrote arguing with me about a subject that I DO know about. In other words "HERPDERPDERPlolauditscauseiwanttolookcoolliketheotherlolauditcrowdLOLDERP" .. And florestan lol funny, inaccurate but funny anyway. sooo .. what was this thread about again? I heard some guy lost a couple billion isk or something, but then I got sidetracked.
Miss Rabblt	Posted - 2011.03.05 11:52:00 - [249] Originally by: Kalrand Just as an FYI: KalBonds has ZERO exposure to Cosmoray. really? And what about standard Goon scam about "pay 500mils and join us"?
RAW23	Posted - 2011.03.05 12:03:00 - [250] Edited by: RAW23 on 05/03/2011 12:03:24 Cheney - I think part of the problem here is that you are basing your understanding of what those in favour of audits claim that audits can do on the reports provided by those who are against audits when they criticise those in favour. Over the last two months there have been literally dozens of posts claiming that the pro-audit camp thinks audits can do x, y and z, and whilst these claims are normally tackled quite quickly the constant repetition can easily lead someone to think that such claims might, in fact, have been made. This can be amplified by an occassional lack of clarity on the part of the pro-audit camp (understandable enough when the discussions cover hundreds of posts per month) that may sometimes seem to feed in to said analysis. The fact that some of us come across as cheerleaders for audits might sometimes obscure the reasons why we are cheerleaders, and we are all quite explicitly committed to these reasons. To my knowledge no one thinks that audits are any kind of silver bullet that can stop scams. They are, rather, an imperfect tool for checking some, but not all, facts about an individual or a business and by checking those facts a tool for providing investors with some extra information on which to base their risk assessments. If Rykker Bow wants to issue a new bond for 15bil, I can turn to his performance audit and see that he has third party confirmed figures showing that he was able to make a 35bil profit off a 10bil investment in one month on his last bond and this then allows me to come to a more secure conclusion about how risky I think the new bond will be than if I had only his word to go on. Obviously, part of my new assessment will be including a small risk factor of the audit or auditor being unreliable but I will generally conclude that information supported by two sources is more reliable than information deriving from a single source. Similarly, I generally want to know the NAV of someone I'm considering investing in and an auditor can provide a second source for this information too (there are clearly a number of ways in which this can be gamed but there is still reason to believe that, in general, I am more likely to get an accurate picture from two sources than from one). I also want to know that at least none of the accounts being audited has Bad Bobby on it, and an audit can confirm this as well. There are lots of other things an audit can't confirm, such as whether there is a non-audited account that DOES have Bobby on it. I am aware of these limitations and invest accordingly. But I don't want to throw away the other things just because an audit can't do everything. If you have a look at VV's actual audits you will see that they conform quite tightly to the pattern I have noted above and are full of disclaimers about what cannot be found. She is also very good at digging out details - see my own recent audit for some facts that meant that rather than the clean bill of health I was looking for what VV actually found were a number of apparently suspicious transactions that could be explained away but not verifiably. All this is noted quite scrupulously. That VV doesn't always provide the best arguments when doing the normal forum to-ing and fro-ing shouldn't really cast a shadow over her auditing ability. Some of the most intelligent people I know are really really bad at the debating society format of providing rapid and coherent answers to questions. Their minds move like icebergs, which can be embarrassing in certain contexts but, despite that, they slowly and inexorably grind their way to analyses that may be far more solid than those arrived at by the lightning-fast guys. And I think you can see something of this in the careful and methodical approach VV takes to audits. I highly recommend that you look some up as you may be pleasantly surprised.

Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.05 14:07:00 - [251] Originally by: RAW23 Over the last two months there have been literally dozens of posts claiming that the pro-audit camp thinks audits can do x, y and z, and whilst these claims are normally tackled quite quickly the constant repetition can easily lead someone to think that such claims might, in fact, have been made. The most common argument is that (somewhat sheepish) investors think an audit does x, y and z - not that the auditor or the pro-audit camp thinks it does x, y and z. Experience in MD shows that many investors are looking for very simple heuristics on whether to invest or not - EBANK/Ricdics investing was one of these, a positive audit report is another one, RAW23 investing has been cited in Signatures recently , ... People just don't like to make hard decisions when there are many risks involved and when the available information is complex and fuzzy. Audits are an especially convenient way to let someone else decide for you (and VV's frequent "investors have never lost money in an investment that was audited by me" claims do encourage them to behave like lemmings). In their current form audits act as fact checks for a small elite of investors and as the "MD seal of approval" for everyone else. Without nice audit reports investors would have to fall back on other heuristics that would hopefully be more easily debunked - in the ideal case a certain class of people would just shake their head at the complexity of investment decisions in MD and leave. Getting rid off audits would hopefully contribute to getting rid off the impression that MD investments can ever be more than an extremely risky gamble. Ironically VV is in my opinion the biggest threat to audits in MD - although she does instantly respond to any criticism with "look at my disclaimer here" she frequently overshoots the target by citing her flawless track record, making comparisons to (secure) RL, trying to prevent alternative checks with less potential for misinterpretation, ... and ends up contributing to the "audited investments are safe" attitude she tries(?) to prevent. Audits are fact checks of extremely limited value, they serve as a barrier of entry for certain low-level scams and help to enable other, more sophisticated scams. Of course some people will now respond "it is not the fault of the auditor if investors are stupid" but in my opinion the behavior of the masses is a constant that has to be planned with. Analogy: Assume I could legalize the sale of undenatured alcohol with a high degree of methanol (denaturing the alcohol might be costly or reduce some properties useful in industrial applications). Of course alcoholics all over the place would blind or kill themselves by consumption of that alcohol. I could then answer "not my fault they didn't take the warning signs on the bottle seriously enough. Darwin strikes again!". But imo I would still have acted irresponsibly as the effect of my decision to enable the sale of this drinkable, "bad" alcohol was fully anticipated by me and I recognized the necessity to protect certain people from themselves but didn't act on that realization. Currently audits still seem to do more good than bad but it is only a matter of time until this changes and cosmoray's audit-enabled scams are just the first steps of scammers using audits to gain credibility. The more people "believe" in audits the more attractive to put in the little extra effort to pass an audit. At some point MD will get rid off audits as they will only be regarded as tools that enable scammers.
Misty McGinnity	Posted - 2011.03.05 14:18:00 - [252] Originally by: Florestan Bronstein Ironically VV is in my opinion the biggest threat to audits in MD - although she does instantly respond to any criticism with "look at my disclaimer here" she frequently overshoots the target by citing her flawless track record, making comparisons to (secure) RL, trying to prevent alternative checks with less potential for misinterpretation, ... and ends up contributing to the "audited investments are safe" attitude she tries(?) to prevent. your face when (yfw) you find out he is a 40 year old unemployed software engineer: lol @ this thread, its all about the stupid audits again
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.05 14:25:00 - [253] Originally by: Misty McGinnity your face when (yfw) you find out he is a 40 year old unemployed software engineer: I am well aware that the player behind VV is male IRL but I generally refer to characters, not the people playing them.
Alain Kinsella Minmatar	Posted - 2011.03.05 15:20:00 - [254] Originally by: Florestan Bronstein At some point MD will get rid off audits as they will only be regarded as tools that enable scammers. Well, if Incarna does take off (and the expected crowd from SL, There, Blue Mars etc do come and stay) I expect audits to disappear for different reasons - Many of these migrants (like myself) are perfectly happy to raise funds the same way its done in those environments - pay US$. I've seen good operations inSL that work in teams of 2-4 and push through hundreds of RL$$ monthly, it should not take long for these folks to do the same here and earn back their original investment (in PLEX time of course). The larger ops won't come here of course, since they want the ability to 'cash out.' As has been said before (including by me), private operations don't need to reach to MD, they're more likely to point at investment threads and laugh all the way to the bank. Though some may privately find new partners that way (I see indications of that happening already).
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 16:16:00 - [255] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 05/03/2011 16:18:10 Originally by: MMe Pinkerton and VV's frequent "investors have never lost money in an investment that was audited by me" Just a little precisation: I said it once and the "audited by me" was not to show off how good I am but to limit the scope of the authority of the statistic to just me - I don't want to talk about and intrude about other auditors. Quote: lol @ this thread, its all about the stupid audits again Yeah, they have really to irk someone. I am not even that much active at them any more. Yawn. Quote: you find out he is a 40 year old unemployed software engineer: I have nothing to hide, you prove it and people appreciate that. Thanks. Also, I plan to stay "unemployed" forever. Quote: Well, if Incarna does take off (and the expected crowd from SL, There, Blue Mars etc do come and stay) I expect audits to disappear for different reasons - Many of these migrants (like myself) are perfectly happy to raise funds the same way its done in those environments - pay US$. I know this could sound pesky, but not everyone in EvE plays to make RL $$. Some play for fun, and MD investments, their challenges, the whole micro-universe around MD with its many facets are part of their fun. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Roguehalo Caldari Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2011.03.05 16:30:00 - [256] I'm not actually sure that very much money was stolen. We only have Cosmorays word for it that he was loaning out 100b+ etc etc. He's just your average 'legend in his own mind' tbh.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 16:58:00 - [257] Originally by: Roguehalo I'm not actually sure that very much money was stolen. We only have Cosmorays word for it that he was loaning out 100b+ etc etc. He's just your average 'legend in his own mind' tbh. Putting the parts of facts I know together, it seems like a "mini Bad Bobby". I.e. his alt really had stuff being researched in his own POS / made but at a certain point some trigger flipped. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Bumblefck Kerensky Initiatives	Posted - 2011.03.05 18:49:00 - [258] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha precisation If you are going to use the language of Shakespeare, Hume and Bill Bryson, please do not butcher it with home-made monstrosities like this. Thank you. ?
Jin Natha Yulai Capital Management	Posted - 2011.03.05 20:01:00 - [259] Originally by: Bumblefck Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha precisation If you are going to use the language of Shakespeare, Hume and Bill Bryson, please do not butcher it with home-made monstrosities like this. Thank you. I read in a Bill Bryson book that Shakespeare invented more than a thousand English words. IMHO "precisation" seems like a reasonably cromulent togetherant of "precise" and "clarification", especially given that it came from a non-native English speaker.
Bumblefck Kerensky Initiatives	Posted - 2011.03.05 20:12:00 - [260] Originally by: Jin Natha Originally by: Bumblefck Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha precisation If you are going to use the language of Shakespeare, Hume and Bill Bryson, please do not butcher it with home-made monstrosities like this. Thank you. I read in a Bill Bryson book that Shakespeare invented more than a thousand English words. IMHO "precisation" seems like a reasonably cromulent togetherant of "precise" and "clarification", especially given that it came from a non-native English speaker. Yes, definitely. It's quite cogent with the rules of noun-formation - and, in fact, seems to be an over-application of the rule Anyway, it's a common mistake for non-native speakers (of any language) to make when dealing with another language. Having said that though, it doesn't mean that I like it PS Nice use of 'cromulent' :) ?

Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.05 20:14:00 - [261] Originally by: Bumblefck Originally by: Jin Natha Originally by: Bumblefck Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha precisation If you are going to use the language of Shakespeare, Hume and Bill Bryson, please do not butcher it with home-made monstrosities like this. Thank you. I read in a Bill Bryson book that Shakespeare invented more than a thousand English words. IMHO "precisation" seems like a reasonably cromulent togetherant of "precise" and "clarification", especially given that it came from a non-native English speaker. Yes, definitely. It's quite cogent with the rules of noun-formation - and, in fact, seems to be an over-application of the rule Anyway, it's a common mistake for non-native speakers (of any language) to make when dealing with another language. Having said that though, it doesn't mean that I like it PS Nice use of 'cromulent' :) Can we all go back to talking like grizzled sailors again? Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Thoraemond Minmatar Far Ranger	Posted - 2011.03.05 20:37:00 - [262] Well, at least I got one [CRHC] dividend With this new information about the long term value of the shares, I am beginning to suspect that I might have overpaid, though, despite my intention to do otherwise.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.05 21:14:00 - [263] Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha on 05/03/2011 21:14:38 Originally by: Bumblefck Originally by: Jin Natha Originally by: Bumblefck Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha precisation If you are going to use the language of Shakespeare, Hume and Bill Bryson, please do not butcher it with home-made monstrosities like this. Thank you. I read in a Bill Bryson book that Shakespeare invented more than a thousand English words. IMHO "precisation" seems like a reasonably cromulent togetherant of "precise" and "clarification", especially given that it came from a non-native English speaker. Yes, definitely. It's quite cogent with the rules of noun-formation - and, in fact, seems to be an over-application of the rule Anyway, it's a common mistake for non-native speakers (of any language) to make when dealing with another language. Having said that though, it doesn't mean that I like it PS Nice use of 'cromulent' :) Excuse me, while I have no pretense about Shakespeare, I'd like to understand what did I do wrong. Precisation is the translation for "precisazione" which in my tongue means "clarification" and it's even recognized i.e. by Google translate: Google translate - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.05 21:27:00 - [264] Precision, in English. Originally Latin, and of course therefore two (or more) derivatives. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!
Thoraemond Minmatar Far Ranger	Posted - 2011.03.05 21:32:00 - [265] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Precisation is the translation for "precisazione" which in my tongue means "clarification" and it's even recognized i.e. by Google translate: Google translate Actually, that shows that Google Translate suggests "precisazione" as the Italian translation for the putatively English "precisation". If you go the other way, Google suggests that "clarification" is as the English translation for "precisazione". Also, Google Translate probably "translates" all sort of things that are not commonly considered words in order to improve the user experience (i.e., it might be better to "guess" at a meaning, rather than to return an error message). So just because Google Translate takes in a string of letters and returns something that is roughly related should probably not be read as an endorsement of the status of that string as a word. Feeding in "precisation" for auto-translation to English or Italian leads Google Translate to query whether the input is a misspelling of a French word.
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.05 21:40:00 - [266] Originally by: Thoraemond So just because Google Translate takes in a string of letters and returns something that is roughly related should probably not be read as an endorsement of the status of that string as a word. Yes, google (stop capitalising it, like god) is wrong. It also shows you it's quote brilliant translation, not word for word (which has caused wars) but rather structurally based (which has caused just as many wars, but is better). That's not to say 'precisation' can't be a word, english is very accommodating when it comes to anomalies. It's a complete bastard itself, after all. Just like you. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!
Kei Darker	Posted - 2011.03.05 22:57:00 - [267] Originally by: Ray McCormack Yes, google (stop capitalising it, like god) is wrong. Actually, Google is God, but more importantly a proper noun.
Thoraemond Minmatar Far Ranger	Posted - 2011.03.06 03:08:00 - [268] Originally by: Ray McCormack That's not to say 'precisation' can't be a word, English is very accommodating when it comes to anomalies. As you can see above, I did not comment on the status of the string of letters, but rather on the use of Google Translate as an authority. I hope that this precisation is some help.
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.06 07:18:00 - [269] Originally by: Thoraemond I hope that this precisation is some help. Yes, you have presicated sufficiently. Thank you. Not in the Exchange, don't invest!
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.06 12:11:00 - [270] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I have many limits and defects, possibly more than most others, but I am expecially proud of two of them: - my inability to understand why someone would scam, expecially in a game. Not the shallow "why" tied to gaining some Monopoly money, but the inner, deep "why" about they feel doing the very act. What suddenly rots and make them become like that. Fundamentally nothing changes, or to put it more simple, that which changes does not define the individual. Black Sun Empire

Kethas Protagonist Protagonist Ventures	Posted - 2011.03.06 13:34:00 - [271] VV, why are you still posting? I don't mean it in the passive-aggressive sense of "what you're saying makes no sense, stop bothering." I mean it in the simpler sense of "what's your goal in continuing the conversation, what do you hope to achieve." Lots of posters are arguing that audits are more bother they're worth. Some have reasonable arguments. Many don't, and some use humor to whitewash the fact. Do you think that by advocating the value of audits you'll convince some of the other camp? If so, how? If not, why keep replying? I ask because I had similar thoughts later on in my own bond thread. When someone repeats a half-baked objection that's been voiced four times before, yes, you can explain your rebuttal, but at some point it feels like you're only talking to yourself. I worry that when posters stop taking each other seriously it's a sign of a decaying forum. Tying this back to the OP: if you were a CCP dev for a day, what changes would improve the audit functionality, ideally making cosmoray's shenanigans impossible?
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company ISK Six	Posted - 2011.03.06 13:34:00 - [272] Originally by: YouGotRipped Fundamentally nothing changes, or to put it more simple, that which changes does not define the individual. We've come to a point that, when I am skim reading MD, both you and Ray are on the short list of people that I don't skip past. I don't know what this means, but it can't be good. ______________________________
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.06 14:15:00 - [273] Quote: Do you think that by advocating the value of audits you'll convince some of the other camp? If so, how? If not, why keep replying? For several reasons: 1) With all the effort I put into it, I can't stand people lazily toss random garbage over it. Plus I am one of those stupid Dom Quixotes who fight for ideals. I expect endless trolling of the next points. I want to go to bed knowing that I did my tiny part at improving people's morality, if they freely choose to refuse it is not for my lack of trying. I know that some asked me if I am unreal or just stupid. I don't know, I have been teached to be like that. 2) I have to accept audits have many limits and it makes me quite frustrated. But I don't feel it's intellectually fair for some people to add constant falsities on top of that. In some cases it's people with the face to lie while defending their own known untenable conduit. 3) Tied to the above, I hate to see evil and malice of ANY kind prevail, this fuels me to go ahead like a locomotive. Audits are a tiny, tiny, flawed, limited weapon to fight them, but that's all what I got and I have to deal with it. 4) My recipients are not those who troll or argue against audits (as in, argue beyond the obvious limits and going to try kill them completely). I know they are forked tongues and have their agendas to act like that. My recipients are the new guys, the silent people, those still not corrupted. Again, this is my part at trying making people aware that there's not just happy and laughing and succesful criminals but also those who raise their head and battle against them, both in RL and even in games. Sure they will fall and fail many, many times, but the intention is good. Because learning to be a vile bastage in game will reflect in RL behavior as well and vice versa. Even minimally, but will. There's no perfect impermeability between the two. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.06 14:50:00 - [274] Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 06/03/2011 14:56:07 Strategy of a Ponzi when threatened with Audit. In the situation that BSAC finds itself in, there are 5 strategies to proceed 1.) Maintain impasse 2.) Confess 3.) Get Audit 4.) Discredit Auditing 5.) Acquire a pseudo-audit 1.) Is no good for a ponzi, maintaining the stand-off eliminates the supply of isk that is the rationale of a ponzi. 2.) Confessing will not occur until the ponzi scheme realises its credit has been cut off forver. 3.) Getting an audit is impossible for a ponzi scheme and not an option 4.) The only real way of breaking out of the impasse, and of restoring credit, is to discredit the concept of auditing 5.) Acquiring a pseudo-audit is a possible scheme that may work if vigilance is relaxed. However it is hopeless so long as auditing remains credible. It is therefore essential to the survival of the remaining large ponzi schemes that the auditing method is discredited as this is their only means of reactivating credit. Edit: And remember that it costs 7 billion a month in interest obligations to maintain a ponzi the size of BSAC, and they may not have that much isk left. Their recent attempt to borrow 10 billion shows that they may be hoping to break out of the impasse as soon as possible.
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.06 15:01:00 - [275] Originally by: Liberty Eternal 5.) Acquiring a pseudo-audit is a possible scheme that may work if vigilance is relaxed. However it is hopeless so long as auditing remains credible. cosmoray shows how this can work - just borrow the missing assets from a friend or from an undisclosed business of yours in order to pass the audit.
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.06 15:05:00 - [276] Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 06/03/2011 15:05:45 Originally by: Florestan Bronstein Originally by: Liberty Eternal 5.) Acquiring a pseudo-audit is a possible scheme that may work if vigilance is relaxed. However it is hopeless so long as auditing remains credible. cosmoray shows how this can work - just borrow the missing assets from a friend or from an undisclosed business of yours in order to pass the audit. It's a bit different when those assets are in the hundreds of billions. Who is going to respond to "lend me 300 billion because I'm a scammer"? Also, Cosmoray could not have passed a second audit because he would have had to borrow enormously more than the assets he had on his audit 2 years ago. If he had that line of credit available to him, then don't you think that as a scammer, he would have borrowed it and scammed it already?
Machete Visor	Posted - 2011.03.06 15:10:00 - [277] audits do reduce the rate of scams... but not in the way being described here (of course, i skipped 5 pages, so maybe it is). Running a ponzi, like any other economic enterprise, has an opportunity cost. Notice how all ponzi build over time? We've yet to see anyone do 5B up front and walk away with it. It is always 1b, 5b, 10b, 100b... Regular audits will slow down the growth rate of the ponzi, or in some cases, completely stop it. Hence, regular auditing increases the length of time a ponzi master must run his/her ponzi to achieve some threshhold of X ISK. Since there is an opportunity cost, an economically minded player will compare that amount of time with other legitimate enterprises and make a game play decision. Lots of audits = running missions may be more profitable. Few audits = bring on the MD posts. I always watch the number of obvious scams being posted on this forum as an indicator of the relative profitability (or lack of audits). In this case, the ponzi was particularly unimpressive. 4 years to earn less than 100B. Most missioners, miners, and traders would quash that easily. In conclusion, cosmoray is a poor scammer, despite all the effort and time put in to it. I keep going back to, simple 1hr a day station trading can earn you 3B a month easy. Cheque Please is up to 14B in his obvious scam thread - thats a simple 4.5 months to out-earn. Sure, he quit for a while last time we blocked his offering from suceeding, so maybe he will get 15B in uner 5 months and outearn station trading. Which means, it is time for an audit of his operation... if only to slow down its growth.
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.06 15:26:00 - [278] Edited by: Florestan Bronstein on 06/03/2011 15:27:35 Machete, you miss that many forms of scamming do not prevent you from trading, mission running, ... The time spent by a scammer on the forums is hopefully much less than 1h/day every day (btw I spend a lot of time reading & posting on forums while I am running missions). Also cosmoray enjoyed a fair amount of respect and reputation on these forums while his Ponzi scheme was running - you don't get that by running missions. (in principle you are of course right - I just think that the cost you associate with running a scam is much too high) The best scammer is the one who builds a completely legit & profitable business and just keeps all public money once he thinks it is unlikely that he will need/get further public financing. That's the rational thing to do for the purely economically minded player and can hardly be prevented.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.06 17:02:00 - [279] Originally by: Florestan Bronstein The best scammer is the one who builds a completely legit & profitable business and just keeps all public money once he thinks it is unlikely that he will need/get further public financing. Imho the best scammer is one who does not know that he will be one. Maybe he has just a faint idea of: "one day, if the reward is big enough, who knows, I may cash out". Then, after 1-3 years the day comes and the guy realizes it's time to cash out. This is the kind of scam we are not going to stop. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.06 17:17:00 - [280] Originally by: Selene D'Celeste Originally by: YouGotRipped Fundamentally nothing changes, or to put it more simple, that which changes does not define the individual. We've come to a point that, when I am skim reading MD, both you and Ray are on the short list of people that I don't skip past. I don't know what this means, but it can't be good. Brevity Someone once said something smart about it I think, but I couldn't be bothered to read the entire play --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba

Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.06 17:30:00 - [281] Originally by: Machete Visor Running a ponzi, like any other economic enterprise, has an opportunity cost. Notice how all ponzi build over time? We've yet to see anyone do 5B up front and walk away with it. It is always 1b, 5b, 10b, 100b... Regular audits will slow down the growth rate of the ponzi, or in some cases, completely stop it. I keep going back to, simple 1hr a day station trading can earn you 3B a month easy. Cheque Please is up to 14B in his obvious scam thread - thats a simple 4.5 months to out-earn. Sure, he quit for a while last time we blocked his offering from suceeding, so maybe he will get 15B in uner 5 months and outearn station trading. Which means, it is time for an audit of his operation... if only to slow down its growth. Irony always tickles me. Didn't you go from something like 1b to 5b to 20b ... all at the same time and without an audit no less? --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.06 18:18:00 - [282] Originally by: Liberty Eternal Edit: And remember that it costs 7 billion a month in interest obligations to maintain a ponzi the size of BSAC, and they may not have that much isk left. Their recent attempt to borrow 10 billion shows that they may be desperate to break out of the impasse as soon as possible. Are you claiming that I'm borrowing 10 B to pay interests? If that is the case, then you don't expect me to pay back on April 9?
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.06 18:34:00 - [283] Originally by: Block Ukx Are you claiming that I'm borrowing 10 B to pay interests? If that is the case, then you don't expect me to pay back on April 9? If my assessment of BSAC is correct, then your planning horizon should be closing down on you as you realise how expensive it will be [what is it, nearly 100 billion a year in interest?] to keep BSAC operating. In my opinion, the "code" you are developing is kind of yourr last chance to break out of the financing impasse you are currently in. It appears to be a pseudo-audit and when it fails, I think you are likely to evaluate your costs and pull the plug. So borrowing 10 billion is what you need to tide BSAC over and pay interest while you play out your last cards. I may be wrong, but it's consistent with your gaming options and with the length of time you have remaining to keep playing it out before you start losing larger and larger amounts of isk. It's also going to take more to rebuild confidence in BSAC than "setting and fulfilling expectations"
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.06 18:46:00 - [284] Originally by: Liberty Eternal So borrowing 10 billion is what you need to tide BSAC over and pay interest while you play out your last cards. So you are basically claiming that I will not pay back investors on April 9. Is this correct? Are you aware that I have never in almost 5 years defulted to investors ? BSAC Stock Exchange - EVE's only real-time stock exchange
Liberty Eternal	Posted - 2011.03.06 18:53:00 - [285] Edited by: Liberty Eternal on 06/03/2011 18:53:42 Originally by: Block Ukx So you are basically claiming that I will not pay back investors on April 9. Is this correct? Are you aware that I have never in almost 5 years defulted to investors ? I'm aware that in nearly 5 years you have taken on more and more isk without having your accounts verified. As I described above, whether you pay back or not will depend on your gaming options. You could easily resolve this situation by getting an audit but you have chosen not to, and to instead follow a strategy of criticising audits while simultaneously "coding" a pseudo-audit [which is actually a contradictory position in itself - as if audits are worthless, why code the equivalent?]. Your strategic choices are, to me, incomprehensible from any angle except that you are running a ponzi. However, aA ponzi comes with commitments - time, coding effort, interest payments. As your planning horizon closes down, its no coincidence that the amount you asked for has reduced as well, or is it? So I think there's a good chance you may throw your hand in within a month and run even with the 10 bil. Or you may think your strategy will work in which case you could hold on longer. We'll see.
Block Ukx Forge Laboratories	Posted - 2011.03.06 18:59:00 - [286] You know perfectly well that I will paid back investors on April 9. BTW, 5,657 Bonds left. BSAC Stock Exchange - EVE's only real-time stock exchange
Cheque Please Hot Like Mexico	Posted - 2011.03.06 19:07:00 - [287] Originally by: Block Ukx You know perfectly well that I will paid back investors on April 9. I know perfectly well that you will paid back inves-- AH! mind control /waves hand This is not the ponzi we're looking for --- RL Meeting w/ Chribba
Drab Cane Carbenadium Industries	Posted - 2011.03.07 08:40:00 - [288] My favorite posts in the thread: Originally by: Kethas Protagonist VV, why are you still posting? Originally by: Liberty Eternal The only role of the auditor is to make known those things that can be known, because it's better to know what we can than not to know it. Originally by: Cosmoray Anyone can get past an audit. Originally by: Cosmoray I would have been dead in the water with continuously tracked API data. Originally by: Ambo Just goes to show (yet again) - if it's not collateralised, don't expect to get it back. Originally by: Florestan Bronstein The best scammer is the one who builds a completely legit & profitable business and just keeps all public money once he thinks it is unlikely that he will need/get further public financing. Originally by: SencneS While I do like your attitude, a supporter of Audits are an illusion ideology. I have to inform you that people that "invest", no that's not right term... People that GAMBLE on a another persons honesty around here actually DO have 20B to park somewhere. Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. The idea behind the audits and other safeguards is to make the scammers work for their money. Audits are not guarantees - never were. Investors should realise that they are gambling with their ISK when they invest, and that there is no such thing as a safe investment. CCP should never make these types of investments 'safe', because they represent the equivalent of 0.0 space - the wild frontier. Enter at your own risk. As for whether scammers are 'bad' or 'evil' - that's a personal judgement call, a personal opinion. Some scammers are like that in RL, some just play a scammer on EVE, some players would never choose to scam in RL or EVE. Individual tastes. ----------------------------------------------- - Who Dares, Wins
Kethas Protagonist Protagonist Ventures	Posted - 2011.03.07 10:13:00 - [289] Drab, did you read anything in my post after the first sentence?
Caldariftw123	Posted - 2011.03.07 11:39:00 - [290] Edited by: Caldariftw123 on 07/03/2011 11:44:10 Originally by: Drab Cane Investors should realise that they are gambling with their ISK when they invest, and that there is no such thing as a safe investment. CCP should never make these types of investments 'safe', because they represent the equivalent of 0.0 space - the wild frontier. Enter at your own risk. This is one thing I've never liked or agreed with. The idea that "CCP should not make any safe investments, that's not the way of things, it's like 0.0" fact is CCP never set the game up with these out of game investments in mind, it's an invention of the player base. What CCP should have done is seen the playerbase make the first move, see the growing demand for it, and then "taken the ball and ran with it" by creating tools to help us improve on it. What we have right now is a forum post where you type the name of someone and the amount of isk they gave you, and then later on you type out another post saying how much you sent back. That is **ing pathetic, CCP have put zero effort into taking onboard the desires of the player base in this instance, this player created meta game over on MD, and coded the tools with which to do it properly. edit: I am not saying they should make it safe, make scamming an investment exploitable or something, I also know that even if they DID try and make an investment safe there would be ways to get around it. I just wish they'd create some tools for us to actaully do it with, some way of tracking things, some publicly available information on shareholders and dividends, a bond system where actual bonds can be traded, the ability to trade shares on the market, SOMETHING. This is where Block and BSAC should turn up and advertise his website, but the fact is that still leaves the whole thing exploitable to a fraudulent third party taking EVERYTHING, a hacking getting into his website, and the limited number of people that access it - a CCP, in game, coded "stock exchange" would eliminate most of that, and then all we'd be left with is the "Do I trust the company to continue paying dividends, or honour the buyback?" and that would be where this game should be, that is the legitimate EVE line to hold - but to not even have the tools in the first place to look at, trade, and make these decisions .. well CCP have been **ing lazy and it's annoying. They've barely touched the corporate interface, POS interface, etc. it's shameful.

Lederstrumpf	Posted - 2011.03.07 13:05:00 - [291] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Imho the best scammer is one who does not know that he will be one. Maybe he has just a faint idea of: "one day, if the reward is big enough, who knows, I may cash out". Do you have 'just an idea' yourself? "If VV is involved in any way, do not invest any ISK!" is part of my investment plan. I don't trust you. Assuming you're not involved in setting up scams you nevertheless must recognize the role of an auditor can be abused in specific ways as a dedicated tool for decepion. And you'd be in a conflict of interest trying to earn ISK/reputation by doing audits whilst going full disclosure about the risks of audits getting abused, no?! I can understand your attitude of defending audits. But audits are tools. They can be used and abused like knifes.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.07 13:55:00 - [292] Originally by: Lederstrumpf Do you have 'just an idea' yourself? Quoting myself from some pages ago in this thread: Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I have many limits and defects, possibly more than most others, but I am expecially proud of two of them: - my inability to understand why someone would scam, expecially in a game. Not the shallow "why" tied to gaining some Monopoly money, but the inner, deep "why" about they feel doing the very act. What suddenly rots and make them become like that Originally by: Lederstrumpf "If VV is involved in any way, do not invest any ISK!" is part of my investment plan. I don't trust you. You are fully entitled to your opinion. It's not like I can show you some Holyness Certificate including no-scammy-DNA analysis. Originally by: Lederstrumpf And you'd be in a conflict of interest trying to earn ISK/reputation by doing audits whilst going full disclosure about the risks of audits getting abused, no?! All of this would be OH SO BETTER if the wood heads on MD would start paying auditors as investors and not leave the burden on (the usually poor) investee, who has not only to ask for money but also to preemptively shell out other money for the audit. But one thing I am quite certain, check the posts of mine related to i.e. publishing full API keys to see me listing the big risks that that would unleash. These risks add on top to the others unique of audits, which I think I listed about 100 times in the last 2 years. As for defending audits, sure I do. I consider them better than just randomly throwing billions to any new random name who believes MD is Jita local. Better does not mean they are the snake oil. They are better than the absolute ZERO otherwise we got. More than this, I learned talking about audits is like talking aabout religion and politics. People will just throw hot sh!t depending on their opinion and no one will ever convince the other. Originally by: Lederstrumpf But audits are tools. They can be used and abused like knifes This is quite obvious to anyone who is not just trying to troll. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
Drab Cane Carbenadium Industries	Posted - 2011.03.07 19:24:00 - [293] Edited by: Drab Cane on 07/03/2011 19:25:42 Originally by: Kethas Protagonist Drab, did you read anything in my post after the first sentence? Absolutely. VV did an audit on Cosmoray's character, and accurately reported what he found. That is the extent of his responsibility, as it would be for any auditor. Personally, I feel that VV gets too defensive at times. After a certain point he's just responding to baiting by the trolls, which is really just a waste of his time and energy. Edit: e.g. see above posts ----------------------------------------------- - Who Dares, Wins
Mas Cream Monetary Allocation Certified Securities Inc. II	Posted - 2011.03.07 21:00:00 - [294] Is Vaerah really a girl though? http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1476258Buy Shares in Eve Online's SECOND FIRST FAKE SCAM
Trader Hansen Failure Assured	Posted - 2011.03.07 21:14:00 - [295] Can I have my ISK back? Oh wait... I never invested. My bad.
Drab Cane Carbenadium Industries	Posted - 2011.03.07 21:36:00 - [296] Originally by: Mas Cream Is Vaerah really a girl though? I have no clue - I tend to use 'he' out of habit. ----------------------------------------------- - Who Dares, Wins
Xemoxa	Posted - 2011.03.08 00:47:00 - [297] Originally by: Liberty Eternal Originally by: Block Ukx Are you claiming that I'm borrowing 10 B to pay interests? If that is the case, then you don't expect me to pay back on April 9? If my assessment of BSAC is correct, then your planning horizon should be closing down on you as you realise how expensive it will be [what is it, nearly 100 billion a year in interest?] to keep BSAC operating. In my opinion, the "code" you are developing is kind of yourr last chance to break out of the financing impasse you are currently in. It appears to be a pseudo-audit and when it fails, I think you are likely to evaluate your costs and pull the plug. So borrowing 10 billion is what you need to tide BSAC over and pay interest while you play out your last cards. I may be wrong, but it's consistent with your gaming options and with the length of time you have remaining to keep playing it out before you start losing larger and larger amounts of isk. It's also going to take more to rebuild confidence in BSAC than "setting and fulfilling expectations" For the love of god man your speculation and imagination has run rampant regarding BSAC. Do you have any shred of credible evidence that the things you are speculating are happening in your posts are actually happening? Just throwing around random allegations based purely on the fact that he hasn't done an audit is dumb and unprofessional. You tell the guy he needs more than setting and fulfilling expectations to rebuild confidence but BSAC doesn't have any problem raising isk. He's set and fulfilled expectation for the last 5 years. Meanwhile you just showed up recently and spout annoying libertarian drivel and constantly remind people that audits are some magical security tool they clearly are not. You're a child, grow up. Actually do something impressive here besides station trade (which a monkey could do btw) and then maybe you'll be worth listening to. I mean hell, even if BSAC was a ponzi, running such a large and complex scam would be a lot more impressive and interesting than anything you've ever said or done!
Internet White Knight	Posted - 2011.03.08 01:06:00 - [298] Originally by: Mas Cream Is Vaerah really a girl though? And does it make a difference to how trustworthy s/he is? Are females perceived to be more trustworthy? Is that a reflection of how women actually are in real life? I'm inclined to believe women are just as conniving and deceptive as men, if not more so.
Xintri Ra'Virr	Posted - 2011.03.08 09:09:00 - [299] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha Quote: Do you think that by advocating the value of audits you'll convince some of the other camp? If so, how? If not, why keep replying? For several reasons: 1) With all the effort I put into it, I can't stand people lazily toss random garbage over it. Plus I am one of those stupid Dom Quixotes who fight for ideals. I expect endless trolling of the next points. I want to go to bed knowing that I did my tiny part at improving people's morality, if they freely choose to refuse it is not for my lack of trying. I know that some asked me if I am unreal or just stupid. I don't know, I have been teached to be like that. 2) I have to accept audits have many limits and it makes me quite frustrated. But I don't feel it's intellectually fair for some people to add constant falsities on top of that. In some cases it's people with the face to lie while defending their own known untenable conduit. 3) Tied to the above, I hate to see evil and malice of ANY kind prevail, this fuels me to go ahead like a locomotive. Audits are a tiny, tiny, flawed, limited weapon to fight them, but that's all what I got and I have to deal with it. 4) My recipients are not those who troll or argue against audits (as in, argue beyond the obvious limits and going to try kill them completely). I know they are forked tongues and have their agendas to act like that. My recipients are the new guys, the silent people, those still not corrupted. Again, this is my part at trying making people aware that there's not just happy and laughing and succesful criminals but also those who raise their head and battle against them, both in RL and even in games. Sure they will fall and fail many, many times, but the intention is good. Because learning to be a vile bastage in game will reflect in RL behavior as well and vice versa. Even minimally, but will. There's no perfect impermeability between the two. This is the worst bunch of bullsht i ever read. I don't trust anyone especially when it comes to money. Saying "I'm samaritanian guy with gold heart" is highly suspicious to me. Giving anyone your ISK without proper collateral ( i give you 2B you give me your PBO worth exacly the same - no thrid party bullsht ) is actually throwing them away. Without Bonds implemented game mechanic made by CCP i wouldn't touch Bonds investments. Also there is no such a thing like morality when it comes to money and market. If i make money on market that's means someone loosing it.
Hel O'Ween Men On A Mission	Posted - 2011.03.08 10:06:00 - [300] Originally by: Block Ukx Originally by: Liberty Eternal Edit: And remember that it costs 7 billion a month in interest obligations to maintain a ponzi the size of BSAC, and they may not have that much isk left. Their recent attempt to borrow 10 billion shows that they may be desperate to break out of the impasse as soon as possible. Are you claiming that I'm borrowing 10 B to pay interests? If that is the case, then you don't expect me to pay back on April 9? As you said yourself (which was perhaps the most damaging thing an entrepreneur could have said about himself) in this very thread: "Everyone has a price." So, don't blame people that try to figure out your price. -- EVEWalletAware - an offline wallet manager

Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.08 11:39:00 - [301] Originally by: Drab Cane Personally, I feel that VV gets too defensive at times. After a certain point he's just responding to baiting by the trolls, which is really just a waste of his time and energy You are right on both accounts, it's part of my defects. It also tends to happen a whole more lot when I am tired, for some reason I become more negative and brawl-happy then. Originally by: Xintri Ra'Virr I don't trust anyone especially when it comes to money That's allright. Quote: Saying "I'm samaritanian guy with gold heart" is highly suspicious to me. As you might easily find out in dozens posts of mine, I tend to admit many of my defects. I am not too knowledgeable about "samaritans" but they seem to be "arrived to perfection". Mine is an ongoing struggle, the intentions is here, the results... are modest. The only thing I like is that I dare to try, where many others just give up and "adapt to the flow". Quote: Giving anyone your ISK without proper collateral ( i give you 2B you give me your PBO worth exacly the same - no thrid party bullsht ) is actually throwing them away This is where the "adapt to the flow" applies. Human brain is adaptive, the more it experiences something the more it believes it's true. But from "believe" to "is" true theres difference. If your experiences sucked it's so bad, but does not mean it's always true. You are self-limiting your possibilities, maybe breat possibilities by blanket locking out anyone because "they are all* like that". The great investor is the one who indeed recognizes the bad apples but then goes forward and can also see the good ones. Quote: Also there is no such a thing like morality when it comes to money and market. If i make money on market that's means someone loosing it You are putting together two different concepts (or more). Markets have no morality indeed. Markets and traders are made of people who "signed up" for the challenge, they know and accepted they will win or lose. The scammers and thieves, though, are not traders. They don't sign up any challenge, they actually take without giving or even risking. Now your opinion is that "Giving anyone your ISK without proper collateral is actually throwing them away" but this applies only to the latter, a distinction you don't make. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.08 15:57:00 - [302] Originally by: Hel O'Ween So, don't blame people that try to figure out your price. Here is mine... The projected cost of PLEX from now until I die multiplied by two, + projected cost of owning a Office and "bar" when Walking in stations becomes active over the same finish date + 100,000,000,000 ISK. For giggles I've calculated that out given expectations and averages Average age of Caucasian male on death is 78 I gave a 1.2% price increase of PLEX yearly I added 100 Billion to the end of that 487,711,159,914.98 ISK Then theorized about the cost of an office and bar in Jita over the same time period. 510,667,824,504.38 ISK So my price is - 998,378,984,419.36 ISK Interesting point here, each month that passes the price decreases instead of increases like most other people. Of cause it's subject to change based on PLEX Market price... This also assumes I buy the Plexes once a month which is unlikely to be the case, I would most likely buy the quantity of PLEXes I require up front so there would be a reduction there. With a 10% room for error I would say anywhere between 900 Trillion and 1.1 Quadrillion ISK with a reduction of about 2B per month for each month up until the expected age of death. Amarr for Life
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.08 16:05:00 - [303] Originally by: SencneS So my price is - 998,378,984,419.36 ISK With a 10% room for error I would say anywhere between 900 Trillion and 1.1 Quadrillion ISK with a reduction of about 2B per month for each month up until the expected age of death. You mean 900 Billion to about 1 trillion, given your numbers. Oh, how much was lost when ebank imploded? Vote KALRAND for CSM!
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.08 16:32:00 - [304] Originally by: Kalrand Originally by: SencneS So my price is - 998,378,984,419.36 ISK With a 10% room for error I would say anywhere between 900 Trillion and 1.1 Quadrillion ISK with a reduction of about 2B per month for each month up until the expected age of death. You mean 900 Billion to about 1 trillion, given your numbers. Oh, how much was lost when ebank imploded? If I actually had access to that amount of ISK, which everyone at EBANK past and present can confirm, then I would be suspect.. Too bad for you that I didn't have access to anywhere NEAR that sum. Here we go, transparency time!!! At any given moment the most ISK I had a in my hands was between 20-30B ISK while processing Withdrawals after Riddic's scam was discovered. I can produce a list of all those people I processed a withdrawal for, along with EMMA records. Hexxx issued me that ISK from his EBANK Hexxx account, to my EBANK SencneS account which has been logged multiple times and recorded on both EBANK's site, EMMA, and Ray's personal audit of each EBANK Director. Prior to that the only ISK I had access to was about 12B when purchasing some shares. Not once have I had access to anything worth more then 50B, however I was in a corporation with Ray and AC155 which at one point did have over 200B ISK in their divisional wallet. Assuming Ray and AC155 have some sort of corporate wallet tracking like EMMA, those two plus myself can audit the amount of ISK used. I was issues 1B ISK to do as what Ray describes as the most horrible task imaginable, and turned it into about 50B. It was often the profits I made was used to buy materials for Ray's major profit generation when he wanted to start production earlier then when sales from the previous production run had not completely sold yet, I don't know exactly how much I made but I'm thinking about 50B. Assuming I had taken every single ISK I've ever had access to, I'd only have maybe 300-400B. The wee small problem with that is I've have been caught, very easily, and it's about half my price to scam. Amarr for Life
Kalrand GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.03.08 16:47:00 - [305] Originally by: SencneS :words: I was also pointing out that your math was off by three orders of magnitude, and firmly within the levels that a player can grab. Also, why did you come back like two weeks ago and start posting a ton again? Vote KALRAND for CSM!
Gillaboo	Posted - 2011.03.08 16:50:00 - [306] <meh> Yet another elitist "but I'm special, the rules only apply to other people" ****tle. -------------------------------------------------------- This space For Rent.
SencneS Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks	Posted - 2011.03.08 17:07:00 - [307] Originally by: Kalrand Also, why did you come back like two weeks ago and start posting a ton again? I never left, just was avoid posting on MD for a while, but I'm back in full swing. Amarr for Life
zafonic	Posted - 2011.03.11 03:04:00 - [308] isn't hegel engel a cosmorey alt? currently selling lots of t2 bpos in sell channel
Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.16 15:33:00 - [309] Sorry for anyone if this bumps an old topic no one wants to see again. Originally by: Emperor Cheney Were I to give audits, there is very little (I've posted it twice already) that I would feel comfortable signing off on, and even then I would include a whole lot of disclaimers. Originally by: Caldariftw123 So you would basically do nothing? As a bonafide MD Elite I can say that Emperor Cheney is 100% right about the uselessness of Eve Auditing in comparison to RL Auditing. As one of the people who helped start the "auditing industry" I can say, firmly, that being an auditor is like being a mine field inspector whose only tool is a hammer. In equal measure, so as to display my lack of sympathy for auditors, many audits have been fabricated by "inside" men/alts. Cosmoray's story sounds vaguely plausible but to me it simply sounds like what happened to Ricdic. Instead of being labeled as "failure" the brass ring of "Mastermind" was grabbed for instead. I will admit that he did successfully state many lies over time that made Cosmo seem bigger than he was however the actual impact of those lies was minimal. I did not trust him any more for the substance of those statements than I would have for the substance of his thoughts. For me, what earned my respect of Cosmo was not his forum fu or claims. It was the substance of his thoughts and analysis. VV: Stop defending yourself. Auditing serves a unique and worthwhile service but only to reasonable and rational individuals. Which may explain why so many burn auditors in effigy when things go bad - they are all idiots. EC: You are mostly right but me thinks for the wrong reasons. It is a common axiom that RL philosophies and processes do not apply well to Eve. So while your RL professional sensibilities may shudder in the face of what goes on in Eve two truths are self evident by the nature of this medium: This is not RL so what you say is not entirely relevant & you could well be full of ** about what you do for a living. Add those two together and you may understand your level of efficacy here. PS: Chribbe, Ray, Torn, are among my top names for people I absolutely trust. I don't always agree with them, don't always like them. But I do trust them. For the record, Cosmo was not on my list. I did buy cosmo shares in the beginning (2 bill I think) but that's all I bought way back in the beginning. Just because someone is popular or well known is NOT a reason to trust them (this includes me thank you). All investing is a risk as you can never know when someone finally decides "I'm done". Until that point invest in people who have proven to borrow money, maintain dividends and payments, and finishes up by the successful closing of the project. (Ray's stepping down from BMBE is a fina example as well as Ray handed off a thriving concern to the next guy and not a house of .) As VV has said, the current tools for investing in Eve favor the criminal not the honest. So, to qoute my unfinished guide to investing: Quote: There is only one person responsible for your decision to invest is You. Factoring in advice from other people, no matter how informed, respected, or educated, is not an excuse for you to shed yourself of responsibility in your choices. If you are not prepared to lose, you are not prepared to gamble nor invest. This is very very important and yes you should be very very paranoid. It is not really paranoia since there really are people out to get you**. Once they've got you they won't be satisfied until they shove it down your throat, phallic style, and make you gag on it. No, I'm not joking. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.16 16:25:00 - [310] @Shar. You are one of the few I respect a lot, I hope you'll keep posting even if I know the latest crop of trolls could really push you off here again. - Auditing & consulting When looking for investors, please read http://tinyurl.com/n5ys4h + http://tinyurl.com/lrg4oz

Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.16 16:57:00 - [311] Originally by: Vaerah Vahrokha I hope you'll keep posting even if I know the latest crop of trolls could really push you off here again. Many of the detractors in this thread do not, imho, qualify as trolls. (Though Mcglinty is one - unashamedly =)) I just have trouble finding the time to winnow through the Eve forums for gem threads. So I commonly don't. Went to do my CSM vote (lord knows why) and saw only two I would vote for: Seleene and Sokrates. Seleene I'm aware of and I've flown combat operations with Sokrates in my time. What got me here, to this thread, was the fact that Manalapan is running. In that thread, go eve search, Cosmo was mentioned as scam so I had to search for this. Of course my shock really is how so many people try curling history into something more presentable for themselves then events really were. Cosmo might be a fine example, Ricdic is a good one, and Manalapan is dead on example. Now he admits to scamming though in truth it was just various levels of incompetence (not entirely his!) that was the cause of dBank's failure. I think he could have survived that with credibility intact actually. But it was too much effort and would've looked vaguely like the wind down road of eBank. Just not as bitterly drawn out or as disappointing an ending. (Not a judgment of Ebank - just the whole affair.) But, well, CSM is as much about populism as it is about intent. So for Manalapan it is better to grab bragging rights then mea culpas. Any surprise there? So, no trolls have ever made me leave the forums. But then no troll is attractive enough to have me stay if trolling is all there is to be had. Meh. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.
Fitz VonHeise Eye Bee Em Stellar Defense Alliance	Posted - 2011.03.16 17:47:00 - [312] I don't come to MD all that much but when I do it usually means that I am in need of adding one more Thief to my list of Thieves. I have been scammed a few times like most of you and my conclusion is that there is no one in this game that I would trust with isk but those that have a vested interest in keeping their name trusted by ongoing 3rd party transactions. There is no possible way to keep someone honest in Eve unless they choose to be that way: and too many times people choose the opposite. I'm not sure if my list does much to help out but if it stops one person from trusting a scammer then that is all to the good. (And it helps me keep all the names in one place) If you know of any of Cosmoray's alts names please let me know so I can add those to the list. Services I Provide: Alliance Creation ● Caldari Standings ● Thieves Of EvE ● My Links ● POS Setups What Makes Me Tick
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.16 18:48:00 - [313] Originally by: Shar Tegral Of course my shock really is how so many people try curling history into something more presentable for themselves then events really were. Cosmo might be a fine example, Ricdic is a good one, and Manalapan is dead on example. DonÆt try to frighten us with your sorcerer ways, old man. Your sad devotion to moral precepts that have no foundation in the real world is what determined me to scam you in the first place. "He who wants to do good knocks at the gate: he who loves finds the door open." R.T. Black Sun Empire
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.16 19:07:00 - [314] Originally by: Fitz VonHeise If you know of any of Cosmoray's alts names please let me know so I can add those to the list. gnomer & Irgazin are on the same account as cosmoray (as per the API key he had posted here)
Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.16 19:12:00 - [315] Originally by: YouGotRipped Your sad devotion to moral precepts that have no foundation in the real world is what determined me to scam you in the first place. So it is my out of game spiritual beliefs that encouraged you to do naughty things in game and you call me sad? <sigh> If it helps you sleep at night please enjoy rubbing that 1 billion isk all over your body. With judgment values as you display, it'll be the only thing/person (besides yourself) that you'll ever get to rub on it. PS: I know, I just made you happy. Consider it a belated Christmas present and enjoy. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.16 19:28:00 - [316] Originally by: Shar Tegral Originally by: YouGotRipped Your sad devotion to moral precepts that have no foundation in the real world is what determined me to scam you in the first place. So it is my out of game spiritual beliefs that encouraged you to do naughty things in game and you call me sad? <sigh> In your case, yes. Originally by: Shar Tegral If it helps you sleep at night please enjoy rubbing that 1 billion isk all over your body. With judgment values as you display, it'll be the only thing/person (besides yourself) that you'll ever get to rub on it. PS: I know, I just made you happy. Consider it a belated Christmas present and enjoy. Happy? hahah Self-sufficiency, self-control, utility, finality. Black Sun Empire
Tehg Rhind	Posted - 2011.03.16 19:28:00 - [317] There's a great quote from a great movie called "Way of the gun" that goes something like this: 15 million dollars is not 'a lot of money' it's motive with a universal adapter. Here's how we apply that quote to this story: 200 billion ISK over 4 years is not a lot of ISK. Period. Seriously, this isn't that much. Therefore, the idea that an auditor would risk rep by getting a slice of that isn't logical in the slightest. Second. There seems to be a belief by some people here that investing, security, risk analysis etc are all binary systems. Auditing works 100% or it doesn't. Bonds are 100% safe or they aren't. Anyone who honestly believes that should just go ahead and turn off their anti-virus and use IE 6 to browse the web, because there are exploits to all security systems. The purpose of auditing (or any risk mitigation system) is removing the path of least resistance for the crook. Period. You can scam ANY audit if you work hard. So please, if you feel strongly about the worthlesness of audits then go ahead and ride a motorcycle without a helmet, because lots of crashes would be fatal anyways. As for the idea that bonds are broken, yet again it's not a binary system. Raw made a great argument for this. If you perform simple risk mitigation tasks like diversifying your investments and requiring audits then you can absorb the losses caused by scams. Anyone who has traded more than a week should know this, even if they don't touch bonds. Do you station trade in only a single item and not look for signs of market manipulation? Or, do you just never station trade because market manipulation exists? No, you mitigate your risks through diversification and research. This thread gets a gold star for being filled with 100 colors of fail.
Fitz VonHeise Eye Bee Em Stellar Defense Alliance	Posted - 2011.03.16 19:34:00 - [318] Originally by: Florestan Bronstein gnomer & Irgazin are on the same account as cosmoray (as per the API key he had posted here) Added. Thanks!
Fitz VonHeise Eye Bee Em Stellar Defense Alliance	Posted - 2011.03.16 19:44:00 - [319] Originally by: YouGotRipped Your sad devotion to moral precepts that have no foundation in the real world is what determined me to scam you in the first place. Dang! I missed another scam?? So where is the orginal link about that?
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.16 21:10:00 - [320] Originally by: Fitz VonHeise Originally by: YouGotRipped Your sad devotion to moral precepts that have no foundation in the real world is what determined me to scam you in the first place. Dang! I missed another scam?? So where is the orginal link about that? My guess is your only a few years late to notice that one

YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.17 10:11:00 - [321] I don't think Shar realized that I was only trying to help him... screw you guys, I'm going home! Black Sun Empire
Florestan Bronstein Amarr Taishi Combine	Posted - 2011.03.17 10:50:00 - [322] Originally by: Fitz VonHeise Originally by: YouGotRipped Your sad devotion to moral precepts that have no foundation in the real world is what determined me to scam you in the first place. Dang! I missed another scam?? So where is the orginal link about that? Linkage June 2009^^
Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.17 15:32:00 - [323] Originally by: YouGotRipped I don't think Shar realized that I was only trying to help him... screw you guys, I'm going home! Truly told mate, I did. I know that you don't truly hold for the animus you display on the forums. Your trolling me was our mutual form of greeting and I responded to you in kind but only in kind. Personally I don't even feel like you scammed me. You paid back most from what I remember and just stuck to it to a few annoyances. In my case I saw it as a slap with little impact and the same level of harm intent. Since then you only bring it up rarely and more in the manner of good-natured ribbing. (Though with your consistent animus addition.) Hmmmm.... too many posts in one month. Later all. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.
Bulldug Starlight Enterprise	Posted - 2011.03.18 00:40:00 - [324] Originally by: cosmoray Why did I stop, boredom mainly. I tried to give the game away but it took some pushing to get caught Omg, there is a big difference between a 'greedy scammer' and sociopathic behaviour. Abusing people's trust 'just for fun' is borderline to sociopathic behaviour. Stealing 100b+ isk from people only to give it away are morally insane. No you are not a 'big scammer', just morally insane m8. Originally by: Brock Nelson On a more serious note, this just proves one thing. Everyone has a price. I don't give a **** if you say you're a honest person, you're a trustworthy third party, either way you're going to scam. Everyone has a price, its just a matter of figuring out what it is. I know Grendell's got a price. I know Chribba's got a price. Whats yours? Not entirely, this ponzi scheme/game just proves that EVE attract alot of sociopaths that have to much free reign to abuse people's trust with no consequence to their real life identity. Abusing trust with all the social engineering 'just for fun' is sociopathic behaviour..Apparently this ponzi scheme was just 'a game' for cosmoray. No 'greedy scammer' would steal money only to give it away later. But a sociopath would sometimes want to get caught just for the attention and fame. There are plenty of honest and trust worthy people in EVE but unlike all the sociopaths they are not attention seekers so you dont see these people in the same spotlight as much. No, it's not easy to spot a sociopath because they blend very easily into any social group with the people pleasing routine as a methodology of survival and winning social acceptance. To much flattering and charming behaviour should be a good warning sign that you might be dealing with a sociopath. Personal, I would never trust anyone, not even friends if they tried to flatter my ego. Sociopaths are everywhere and many also become leaders and CEOs because they are addicted to attention and fame. Aneu Angelus are also a classic example of that in EVEs history. It's estimated that at least 4% of the population is a sociopath that are morally insane. What is creepy about these people are that they are great actors and masters of manipulation. Because of their skills in social engineering they can easily infiltrate any position of power to get what they want.
Misty McGinnity Mystify Trading Company	Posted - 2011.03.18 00:44:00 - [325] Originally by: Bulldug Sociopaths are everywhere and many also become leaders and CEOs because they are addicted to attention and fame. Aneu Angelus are also a classic example of that in EVEs history. It's estimated that at least 4% of the population is a sociopath that are morally insane. What is creepy about these people are that they are great actors and masters of manipulation. Because of their skills in social engineering they can easily infiltrate any position of power to get what they want. its estimated that 100% of people that read this, just became more stupider. sh** its had an effect already.
Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.18 00:59:00 - [326] Originally by: Bulldug Sermon I applaud your vigor however I wonder about the need for such a strong sermon. Not to mention such a righteously indignant position as well. I guess I'll say I agree with you in spirit even though I don't agree with the lecture you have provided. One thing your lecture does not include, me thinks, is that Eve encourages, nay, embraces sociopathic behavior. Instead of vilifying scammers it glamorizes them. So I'd say that it is not so much that we have a higher percentage of sociopaths amongst us as we simply have a culture of attention deficients seeking attention. Now if that is sociopathic, then I'd posit the so called average is much much larger as it is an endemic problem in Western society. (I don't know about others, sadly.) But I don't think this was the thread to lay this down in. Ironically, your post is more reward for the fame seeker. (That is if this wasn't troll bait.) PS: Really have to stop reading these forums, I just get baited to post. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.
Emperor Cheney Celebrity Sex Tape	Posted - 2011.03.18 02:57:00 - [327] This is a game, not real life, and psychological diagnosis don't apply for character to character interactions. Would you say a role player with multiple characters suffers from multiple personality disorder? Would you say a player of FPS games has homicidal tendencies? Destructive play-styles are in no way indicators of real life mental illness. To change the subject a bit- Bad sportsmanship does exists. Throughout this game people focus on being a good "person" in a spaceship game where the deaths of millions of NPCs are a fundamental game mechanic, but the game would be nicer for everyone if we all just tried not to be ****s to each other. Do piracy, run a scam, be a victim, or whatever, but at the end people should keep in mind that this is just a game and try to be decent to each other on an interpersonal level.
pocketbattleship	Posted - 2011.03.18 04:03:00 - [328] Edited by: pocketbattleship on 18/03/2011 04:03:44 Originally by: Shar Tegral ...Eve encourages, nay, embraces sociopathic behavior. Instead of vilifying scammers it glamorizes them. So I'd say that it is not so much that we have a higher percentage of sociopaths amongst us as we simply have a culture of attention deficients seeking attention. Now if that is sociopathic, then I'd posit the so called average is much much larger as it is an endemic problem in Western society. (I don't know about others, sadly.) You just hit the nail on the head. EVE is a place where people come to do something they can't do in real life, and I think in many cases their desire is to get attention and feel like a big deal. ...heck that's half the reason i'm writing this post...
Jon Taggart State War Academy	Posted - 2011.03.18 07:13:00 - [329] The chance of scamming over a period of time in these sorts of ventures is pretty much guaranteed. Players will inevitably burn out and want to go out with a bang, or in this case, a scam. It's been happening for years. I'm not an alt
Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.18 11:34:00 - [330] Originally by: Emperor Cheney This is a game, not real life, and psychological diagnosis don't apply for character to character interactions. {...} Destructive play-styles are in no way indicators of real life mental illness. Totally agreed. For a time I roleplayed a muckraker. It was fun to indulge my inquisitive nature under the guise of journalism. I can readily see people using virtualized conflict to help resolve (or relieve) stresses in their life. Originally by: Emperor Cheney Do piracy, run a scam, be a victim, or whatever, but at the end people should keep in mind that this is just a game and try to be decent to each other on an interpersonal level. I recently went to the Pax East Player Gathering in Boston. Carpooled with two other Eve players. Aydala is an unashamed Eve greifer who delights in upsetting the days of players who would do nothing but mine or rat endlessly in safe zones. A fine example of under-appreciated players. WTF you say? Without Smaug "The Hobbit" would've been a mediocre travel book on Middle Earth. In needs to be said, often - and I have said it often, that any form of entertainment is only as good as its villains. Have a wimp or mediocre villain, you come away with little in the sense of heroic accomplishment. That being said the essential truth here, using literary references, is people like Cosmoray are more like Saruman than Smaug. Whatever their original intentions were doesn't really matter. It is in the end they are, truly, poor caricatures of decent people. Examples of self deluded grandeur that many other small minded/hearted people want to emulate. Mostly because it is hard work being heroic even if you gain little fame/reward from it. But they are still the marks by which evil is measured to the overall benefit for the rest of us. After all, just as RL has some effect upon gameplay activity should not gameplay have effect upon our RL behaviors? If not a venue for self expression, discovery, and improvement what is the existential point of it all? PS: Back to Aydala - In person he's vibrant, boisterous, and worth knowing. Probably the kind of guy you'd want in your foxhole - at least from my experiences being under fire and in actual foxholes. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.

Magnu Stormhawk Stormhawk Enterprises	Posted - 2011.03.18 11:49:00 - [331] Originally by: Shar Tegral people like Cosmoray are more like Saruman than Smaug. I picture him more like Gollum.
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.18 12:12:00 - [332] Edited by: YouGotRipped on 18/03/2011 12:12:33 Originally by: Shar Tegral Originally by: YouGotRipped I don't think Shar realized that I was only trying to help him... screw you guys, I'm going home! Truly told mate, I did. I know that you don't truly hold for the animus you display on the forums. Your trolling me was our mutual form of greeting and I responded to you in kind but only in kind. Personally I don't even feel like you scammed me. You paid back most from what I remember and just stuck to it to a few annoyances. In my case I saw it as a slap with little impact and the same level of harm intent. Since then you only bring it up rarely and more in the manner of good-natured ribbing. (Though with your consistent animus addition.) Hmmmm.... too many posts in one month. Later all. Even a good deed is a positive manifestation of an ego, without the appropriate state of mind... a perpetual chemical unbalance in your brain at the very basis of your judgmental values. Oh and... your self-chastising and self-righteousness are just another form of attention whoring, yo! To cut a rant short, let me answer to that burning question that has been plaguing MD since the dawn of time: Would I trust you with my isk? Yes, anytime, but that only shows how much consideration I have for this game than your judgmental values. JESUS! Black Sun Empire
Shar Tegral	Posted - 2011.03.18 13:51:00 - [333] Originally by: YouGotRipped Oh and... your self-chastising and self-righteousness are just another form of attention whoring, yo! Bad logic there. The act of speaking draws attention but that does not equal attention seeking. Originally by: YouGotRipped Would I trust you with my isk? Because even though you hate it you want to believe. The real question, me thinks, is: Would I even take your isk? That, in itself, demonstrates the difference I stand for. While all isk fits easily into my wallet not all sources of it is without taint. While you may believe that this is some form of chemical imbalance or delusion - it is shockingly consistent is it not? PS: The Eve forums are really not the venue for your religion-trolling. Keeping the bile nice and personalized at me is the decent thing to do. The other just gives report ammo. Wealth, howsoever got, in Eve makes Lords of morons and gentlemen of thieves; Aptitude and intellect are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money that grants fame.
Varo Jan Caravanserai Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.18 14:41:00 - [334] Originally by: Magnu Stormhawk Originally by: Shar Tegral people like Cosmoray are more like Saruman than Smaug. I picture him more like Gollum. He reminds me of Grfma Wormtongue.
Mortania Minmatar Kinetic Cartel Shadow of xXDEATHXx	Posted - 2011.03.18 18:01:00 - [335] In reading through, the sad part is it seems like he made more money doing IER than he ever did scamming, by a large quantity. As long as you had fun, though. --- Destroying asteroids one at a time, to make the universe safer.
Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.18 21:41:00 - [336] Originally by: YouGotRipped JESUS! Yes? I agree that shooting people with a headache in the head is a good idea, because it will stop their headaches.
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company ISK Six	Posted - 2011.03.19 00:06:00 - [337] Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: YouGotRipped JESUS! Yes? If you're Jesus then when is the second coming of EBANK? ______________________________
Vaerah Vahrokha Minmatar Vahrokh Consulting	Posted - 2011.03.19 10:20:00 - [338] Originally by: Selene D'Celeste Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: YouGotRipped JESUS! Yes? If you're Jesus then when is the second coming of EBANK? It has to resurrect first. ... apparently it'll take longer than 3 days. Auditing \| Research \| 3rd Party \| Collateral Holding \| EvE RL Charity
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.19 10:22:00 - [339] Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: YouGotRipped JESUS! Yes? I know my own son quite well , you ain't him.
Zeta Zhul Caldari Preemptive Paranoia	Posted - 2011.03.19 17:01:00 - [340] Originally by: flakeys Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: YouGotRipped JESUS! Yes? I know my own son quite well , you ain't him. Dad! Oh hey btw I got this great idea for a bank .....

Ray McCormack Nordar Innovations.	Posted - 2011.03.19 20:15:00 - [341] Originally by: Selene D'Celeste If you're Jesus then when is the second coming of EBANK? Unfortunately the second coming accidentally in my pants. I agree that shooting people with a headache in the head is a good idea, because it will stop their headaches.
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.19 20:52:00 - [342] Originally by: Ray McCormack Originally by: Selene D'Celeste If you're Jesus then when is the second coming of EBANK? Unfortunately the second coming accidentally in my pants. I get that a lot recently , so far bothers the wife more then me luckily .
Graic Valente Gallente Valente Galactic Enterprises	Posted - 2011.03.20 10:15:00 - [343] I think this topic has now been milked for all it's worth. ....
flakeys The Great cornholio's	Posted - 2011.03.20 10:54:00 - [344] Originally by: Graic Valente I think this topic has now been milked for all it's worth. .... I disagree , it has been milked for WAY more then it's worth.
Companion Qube Minmatar Electron Conservation Inc	Posted - 2011.03.20 10:56:00 - [345] Originally by: flakeys Originally by: Graic Valente I think this topic has now been milked for all it's worth. .... I disagree , it has been milked for WAY more then it's worth. Gentlemen, You forget that this is EVE-O. Here we leave no dead horse unbeaten. drunkpoasting best poasting
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2011.03.20 11:01:00 - [346] Edited by: YouGotRipped on 20/03/2011 11:02:20 Originally by: Companion Qube Originally by: flakeys Originally by: Graic Valente I think this topic has now been milked for all it's worth. .... I disagree , it has been milked for WAY more then it's worth. Gentlemen, You forget that this is EVE-O. Here we leave no dead horse unbeaten. I don't know about you guys but I'm prepared to wait more than 3 days. Then beat Him to death again. Black Sun Empire
Companion Qube Minmatar Electron Conservation Inc	Posted - 2011.03.20 11:04:00 - [347] Originally by: YouGotRipped Edited by: YouGotRipped on 20/03/2011 11:02:20 Originally by: Companion Qube Originally by: flakeys Originally by: Graic Valente I think this topic has now been milked for all it's worth. .... I disagree , it has been milked for WAY more then it's worth. Gentlemen, You forget that this is EVE-O. Here we leave no dead horse unbeaten. I don't know about you guys but I'm prepared to wait more than 3 days. Then beat Him to death again. As long as you're beating him at least once every 90 days I think that will work fine. drunkpoasting best poasting


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