I don't even know where to begin...

and most importantly, reputation and history of repayments.

To the extent that the OP is suggesting that the only acceptable standard for all audits in New Eden henceforth should be that of established RL auditing firms (e.g., Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, E&Y, KPMG, or PwC). this well-thought-out proposal is something all reasonable MD readers will surely support. Such firms are, as all people know, infallible.

It raises the question which of the current failing repgrind "bond" scams is yours?

An audit tells you nothing except verifying what you have and what you do with API; everyone can do something - it doesn't mean they're going to pay you back or honor their liabilities.

And every VV audit explicitly states that there is always the risk that the guy does not pay his debts and turns business into a scam - maybe even after multiple "successful" bonds. The audit only helps to asses how much trading experience the bond starter has and what kind of profits he already made by himself.

And every VV audit explicitly states that there is always the risk that the guy does not pay his debts and turns business into a scam - maybe even after multiple "successful" bonds. The audit only helps to asses how much trading experience the bond starter has and what kind of profits he already made by himself.

And every VV audit explicitly states that there is always the risk that the guy does not pay his debts and turns business into a scam - maybe even after multiple "successful" bonds. The audit only helps to asses how much trading experience the bond starter has and what kind of profits he already made by himself.

Take this from someone who has spent many years in MD, on both sides of the law...

For the average scammer the objective is to make easy money. Making an operation appear legitimate enough to pass an audit is more work than many are willing to put in. Therefore audits are somewhat effective at reducing the number of scams that succeed.

However, the skilled and determined scammer will not be stopped by an audit. Indeed the additional trust they will obtain by having an audit done on them may actually make it easier to execute a large and effective scam.

For MD, I believe audits prevent more scams than they promote by a substantial margin and I think they are a positive and neccessary part of MD's attempt to build a viable investment market.

Audits are only one measure and they work best when combined with other things.

The MD's best defence against scams, failures and poor deals is (and always has been) the careful examination of each offering by experienced MD members who then offer extensive public criticism.

Next to that, in my opinion, is collateral. But obviously collateral doesn't work in all cases and cannot be expected to fully remove risk.

Next is limiting the total amount of investment any one person holds. This is very difficult in many cases because one player can often have many identities.

Next is the audit. It helps, but only so much.

The last and least useful measure in protecting against scams, is reputation. If someone shows a history of competence and trustworthness then that indicates a capability to be competent and honest in the future. It does not however indicate an intent or likelyhood of that person being competent and honest in the future.

And it shows.

Also, your attempt to be witty has failed.
Your attempt at being a competent auditor, however, is on an entirely different level of inadequacy

You are not disclosing the risks of audits in this game (the potential for a more elaborate scam).
And why would you? You're making some good money, preying on the ignorance of the community.

I spent months explaining the risks of audits in this game, do your homework and browse the old forums and you'll find them by the dozen.

As for "making some good money", every time somebody asks me an audit I get a pain fit because I can make WAY more while AFK than spending 2 RL days analyzing records, past posts, visiting investee POS to check if he fitted defenses, manually searching every BPC the investee owns to determine its NAV value. In the past I had also to do it for faction gear.
Imagine the fun searching 50-60 BPCs on contracts and then 15-20 faction / deadspace items because they'd turn a guy's 10B NAV into 15B.

Even in the rare case I'd get 200M, it's 200M / at least 14 hours. Now allow me to ice mine instead.


Finally, while it's obvious audits (including RL ones) cannot drill into investees brains to pre-determine if they will scam or not, please feel free to link right here how many audited (by me) investments turned into scams.

I am awaiting for you to prove your points with something better than hollow accusations.

If you do it out of the goodness of your heart

I believe that's exactly why he does it.

He also runs an EVE-based charity that sends aid through the PLEXes for good system to help out the real world when a disaster occurs. He also spends a lot of time attempting to educate and help people that really aren't worth the time.

I think of him as a benign old fool. A valuable counterpoint to some of the other characters in EVE, me included.

If you do it out of the goodness of your heart, or the love of roleplaying an auditor, then that is noble and your services are appreciated.
Personally, I do not believe that simply compiling someone's asset worth provides any form of real assurance, but if people are happy with that and you've spent all this time educating people of the fact, then I will retract my comments.

If I wanted to scam people, the first thing I would do is get VV's audit before I do so to raise significantly more capital.

An audit tells you nothing except verifying what you have and what you do with API; everyone can do something - it doesn't mean they're going to pay you back or honor their liabilities.

I also checked some of VV's audit reports, they're about as useful as the lender giving out his API key to creditors, it doesn't tell you much. Instead of trusting just the lender, you're now trusting two people and VV is 100-200m richer.

Personally, I do not believe that simply compiling someone's asset worth provides any form of real assurance, but if people are happy with that and you've spent all this time educating people of the fact, then I will retract my comments.

The idea that somehow the audits are weeding out scammers is ridiculous. The majority of offerings are never audited. Those that are will surely pass unless the scammer is an idiot. Given the large number of offerings in which the person freely admits or notes that there has been no audit (randomly selected), I can't see how it's any kind of deterrent. Nor does having an audit create a more lucrative or attractive offering than ones that don't. Other than going through the motions in some sort of role playing mode, they don't appear to serve any real purpose.

Of course, Mr.OP, if you're going to launch a scam offering, you want to do your media manipulation well in advance of the deed. This game is filled with too many smart people.

Fully agreed (re: first paragraph)

My offering, however, is not a scam :)
Only time will prove that.
If I wanted to scam, I would not be so vocal regarding my opposition to 'audits'

You're either a dumb scammer or a bad businessman. Poking people with sticks while trying to break into the market is not the best idea.