EVE Search - Avoiding SCAMS, lessons learned

All Channels

Market Discussions

Avoiding SCAMS, lessons learned

» Click here to find additional results for this topic using Google

Monitor this thread via RSS [?]

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 :: one page
Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 0 post(s)
F90OEX F9X	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:21:00 - [31] You play with fire to much, your going to get burned. Same logic applies here
Raaz Satik	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:23:00 - [32] Originally by: Ricdic People also need to stop investing willy nilly into every investment that shows up. Someone should have to build up trust and prove themselves to the investor not have funds thrown onto them. Available funds far exceeds the amount of good investments. This means that good investments get bid to silly levels and even bad investments get bought up. Sure you can put all your money in one basket (say EBank), but we all know one of the primary rules of investing is diversification (ideally in non-correlated assets). Originally by: Ricdic I generally laugh when I see a new IPO with everyone saying "reserve pending audit". These people aren't using Eve-search to check character history, checking with previous CEO's for character references or doing anything to secure their investment. They sit back and wait for someone else to do the work and then complain when they lose all their cash. If you only check the forums once a day chances are you will miss almost every good investment opportunity because they sell out so quickly. Even if you plan to do some research, you know need to get in the queue first, otherwise there probably won't be anything left by the time you are ready.
Ulstan Caldari State Protectorate	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:24:00 - [33] I have still lost more money to Fury Bank than all 'scams' combined. I don't know whether Fury Bank was technically a 'scam' or not, but at any rate, the money is gone. To me, I am now suspicious of any 'lone ranger' style investments where there isn't a group of people who can handle things if someone suffers a severe bout of dropping-off-the-face-of-the-planet syndrome. It may not fall under the set of scam avoidance rules Cosmoray outlines above, but it's definitely part of my risk avoidance rules.
cosmoray Cosmoray Construction	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:25:00 - [34] Originally by: YouGotRipped Edited by: YouGotRipped on 21/01/2009 18:15:33 Originally by: Ambo Reithe taught us the problem with rapid expansions about a year ago. People said then that from now on there would be increased scrutiny of expansions and IPOs in general. It's just the same stuff going around again. The market will recover and this won't be the last scam in MD. Rite... so how much did you lose this time? It is at least laughable that despite the community's best efforts, someone has managed to scam again, and bigtime. Xabier did run as close to a perfect SCAM as I have seen. The interesting thing to know was... 1. did he start off legit and then couldn't be bothered to return the cash or saw the size of his wallet and run 2. set up the SCAM from the very start I hope he would post and say. hats off to him if its scenario 2. At least six months of work, and a huge amount of time to pull off a huge scam. I don't think I could be bothered to put the effort in. Everyone plays the game in their own way!
Ulstan Caldari State Protectorate	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:44:00 - [35] Originally by: YouGotRipped Edited by: YouGotRipped on 21/01/2009 18:15:33 Originally by: Ambo Reithe taught us the problem with rapid expansions about a year ago. People said then that from now on there would be increased scrutiny of expansions and IPOs in general. It's just the same stuff going around again. The market will recover and this won't be the last scam in MD. Rite... so how much did you lose this time? It is at least laughable that despite the community's best efforts, someone has managed to scam again, and bigtime. This is because there is really no downside to scamming, as long as you can have multiple chars/accounts. The reputation of one of your alt accounts being trashed doesn't impact your main in the slightest, so the motivation for people to stay 'above board' really isn't there. I suspect Darkfall (if it ever comes out) will suffer from the same problems. In fact, any game where the GM's don't take an active stance against scamming will. The sandbox idea is a good and compelling one, but alt accounts allow you to not have to live with the consequences of your actions at all. And there is no way to enforce any kind of 'only one account per person' rule, so I don't see any easy solution to this.
nether void Caldari Shrapnel Industries	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:52:00 - [36] Originally by: Ricdic http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/uncategorized/gain-trust-and-influence-people/http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/uncategorized/gain-trust-and-influence-people/[/url Truth and Corporate Blogs. Oxymoron right there. No offense intended to Ric for sure. I have respect for his intelligence and EBANK (not that I matter hehe). The article works well, but I will never trust a corporation. Money drives every corporate decision, and it is almost never in the corporation's best monetary interest to be honest about problems. You design how to deal with it first, your exit strategy, and after the decisions have already been made you go public, at the same time as executing the exit strategy. So corporate blogs are actually a scam in themselves. Overall though I like the article for a personal trust thing.
nether void Caldari Shrapnel Industries	Posted - 2009.01.21 18:56:00 - [37] Originally by: Ulstan Edited by: Ulstan on 21/01/2009 18:48:59 Edited by: Ulstan on 21/01/2009 18:48:02 Originally by: YouGotRipped Edited by: YouGotRipped on 21/01/2009 18:15:33 Originally by: Ambo Reithe taught us the problem with rapid expansions about a year ago. People said then that from now on there would be increased scrutiny of expansions and IPOs in general. It's just the same stuff going around again. The market will recover and this won't be the last scam in MD. Rite... so how much did you lose this time? It is at least laughable that despite the community's best efforts, someone has managed to scam again, and bigtime. This is because there is really no downside to scamming, as long as you can have multiple chars/accounts. The reputation of one of your alt accounts being trashed doesn't impact your main in the slightest, so the motivation for people to stay 'above board' really isn't there. I suspect Darkfall (if it ever comes out) will suffer from the same problems. In fact, any game where the GM's don't take an active stance against scamming will. The sandbox idea is a good and compelling one, but alt accounts allow you to not have to live with the consequences of your actions at all. And there is no way to enforce any kind of 'only one account per person' rule, so I don't see any easy solution to this. I suspect the 'consequence free scamming' model will not live forever, as all MMO's tend to require that your actions carry consequences in order to survive. I mean, once the player population at large learns they can scam with no risk, well, the jig is going to be up :p I imagine that in a few more years MMO players will simply not accept the formulation "Well you just have to trust the other guy and you have no means of recourse whatsoever if he breaks that trust" and will demand built in methods of ensuring security. I've heard that soon scams in games will be considered a RL crime, since the in-game money is used to convert to real life money. More and more games sell items for real cash, so it makes sense. Also, there's a big draw on a guy to scam after the bond or IPO is about to close. He's done his business. Everyone's gotten their divvies. He can return the cash or just keep it.
Fearghan	Posted - 2009.01.21 19:02:00 - [38] Originally by: nether void I've heard that soon scams in games will be considered a RL crime, since the in-game money is used to convert to real life money. More and more games sell items for real cash, so it makes sense. This will be a legal nightmare, as the servers for this game live in CCPland - this would technically be a interstate commerce crime, which implies FBI here in the states. I'm not completely sure, but I'm fairly positive that if I called my local FBI field office and complained about someone scamming me out of a billion isk (some $35 dollars on the isk market) they'd laugh at me.
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2009.01.21 19:09:00 - [39] Edited by: YouGotRipped on 21/01/2009 19:19:10 Originally by: nether void I've heard that soon scams in games will be considered a RL crime, since the in-game money is used to convert to real life money. More and more games sell items for real cash, so it makes sense. Nonsense. Isk has no value outside of this game. A more logical course would be to take legal action against isk selling for RL cash but this is laughable as well. All that CCP can do is ban the offenders.
Ricdic Caldari	Posted - 2009.01.21 19:18:00 - [40] Originally by: Raaz Satik If you only check the forums once a day chances are you will miss almost every good investment opportunity because they sell out so quickly. And who's fault would this be? Check the forums more often? If you have ever seen the real world stock market they don't wait until you are available before posting their offers/updates etc. Its why a lot of full time investors suffer depression and various fatigue related illnesses. Sleep or pop down to the shops at the wrong time and you could lose a large chunk of your portfolio. If you see a missile launcher you can buy for 50m here that normally sells for 500m do you think it's unfair that the dude who wasn't sleeping got that missile launcher before you did? Its standard "early bird gets the worm" principle and it applies to almost everything in the world. Those who go shopping in the mornings get the fresh fruit on the top of the stack whilst those who go in the evenings get the bruised, dropped, major manhandled leftovers.
MailDeadDrop Globaltech Industries	Posted - 2009.01.21 19:21:00 - [41] Originally by: Ulstan This is because there is really no downside to scamming, as long as you can have multiple chars/accounts. The reputation of one of your alt accounts being trashed doesn't impact your main in the slightest, so the motivation for people to stay 'above board' really isn't there. I suspect Darkfall (if it ever comes out) will suffer from the same problems. In fact, any game where the GM's don't take an active stance against scamming will. The sandbox idea is a good and compelling one, but alt accounts allow you to not have to live with the consequences of your actions at all. And there is no way to enforce any kind of 'only one account per person' rule, so I don't see any easy solution to this. I suspect the 'consequence free scamming' model will not live forever, as all MMO's tend to require that your actions carry consequences in order to survive. I mean, once the player population at large learns they can scam with no risk, well, the jig is going to be up :p I imagine that in a few more years MMO players will simply not accept the formulation "Well you just have to trust the other guy and you have no means of recourse whatsoever if he breaks that trust" and will demand built in methods of ensuring security. I simultaneously agree and disagree with you, on different aspects. But I'll take your conclusion first: I disagree that we must have "built-in methods of ensuring security". I believe that we simply need more diverse mechanisms of retribution. Eve needs a civil justice system. The investors in [CRTF] should be able to bring civil suit against evn7289. The judicial system should have judicial discovery access to evn7289's data and the power to compel the SCC to freeze or transfer ISK from his wallet and assets from his hangars. MDD
Dawts Federal Defence Union	Posted - 2009.01.21 19:25:00 - [42] Edited by: Dawts on 21/01/2009 19:26:16 Originally by: nether void Edited by: nether void on 21/01/2009 18:56:47 Originally by: Ulstan Edited out the pyramid of quote death I've heard that soon scams in games will be considered a RL crime, since the in-game money is used to convert to real life money. More and more games sell items for real cash, so it makes sense. Also, there's a big draw on a guy to scam after the bond or IPO is about to close. He's done his business. Everyone's gotten their divvies. He can return the cash or just keep it. Shouldn't it be RL money converted to IG money? In that case the IG money actually belongs to CCP and it no longer contains any value outside of the game, I don't think that it's a very strong case, but thats just my opinion, and I'm not a lawyer so who knows with the legal system the way it is.
Sophie Daigneau CAPITAL Assistance in Destruction Society GoonSwarm	Posted - 2009.01.21 19:45:00 - [43] Edited by: Sophie Daigneau on 21/01/2009 19:45:02 You forgot to mention don't invest with Goons under any circumstance.
YouGotRipped Ewigkeit	Posted - 2009.01.21 20:14:00 - [44] Edited by: YouGotRipped on 21/01/2009 20:14:19 Originally by: Sophie Daigneau You forgot to mention don't invest with Goons under any circumstance. That too.
Amarr Citizen 155 Alternative Methods Research Group	Posted - 2009.01.21 20:30:00 - [45] Truth be told, a lot of these scams set off warning lights to those of us that do spend a lot of time on these forums each day. I can't speak for others but I know that around the time that we had an influx of new people coming on and throwing around the term "market elites" I stopped responding as much as I used to because I simply got tired of it. I'm not a market elite, but when I would point out something that looked suspicious I was called a "market elite" and that I needed to give people a chance and let them prove themselves. IMO, these recent scams were pulled off at the perfect time when the "market regulars" were not responding and for the most part avoiding trying to be helpful(even if in a rude or mean tone) due to the fact that for a couple of weeks they couldn't say anything without being called "market elites" and then were bad-mouthed. My 2 cents. Oh and I didn't lose anything to these scams in case anyone was wondering. Quote: Ricdic (about starting ebank, July 2007): Think of it as a miniature EIB done right. I cannot see this getting anywhere near 700b any time in the future tbh.
Raaz Satik	Posted - 2009.01.21 21:03:00 - [46] Originally by: Ricdic Originally by: Raaz Satik If you only check the forums once a day chances are you will miss almost every good investment opportunity because they sell out so quickly. And who's fault would this be? Check the forums more often? If you have ever seen the real world stock market they don't wait until you are available before posting their offers/updates etc. Actually they do. IPOs are announced weeks before the actual issuance and are not sold on a first come first served basis. Earnings are more often than not issued after the market closes so that people have time to digest them before the stock reopens 12 hours later. Additionally RL many markets are not 7x24 like EVE. Originally by: Ricdic If you see a missile launcher you can buy for 50m here that normally sells for 500m do you think it's unfair that the dude who wasn't sleeping got that missile launcher before you did? Its standard "early bird gets the worm" principle. I'm not claiming its unfair in any of this, I'm just making an observation. I agree with your early bird analogy, I was just pointing out that one of the big reasons 'reserve pending audit' (which was your original point) happens is that it gets them a "early bird" spot in the queue, while buying them time to research/see what happens. They have nothing to lose. If they later decide to back out for whatever reason, there is no consequence to them pulling their bid.
Nikumo Nikado	Posted - 2009.01.21 21:16:00 - [47] Originally by: Ricdic Originally by: Astarte Nosferatu Nothing prevents ... or yes, you Ricdic, to scam. I will nevar scam, trust me. To Ricdic's credit, I will say here now that for when Ricdic DOES scam, he can honestly say he never said " I will never scam". Spelling mistakes for the win!
Selene D'Celeste Caldari The D'Celeste Trading Company	Posted - 2009.01.21 23:09:00 - [48] Originally by: Sophie Daigneau Edited by: Sophie Daigneau on 21/01/2009 19:45:02 You forgot to mention don't invest with Goons under any circumstance. Hey Sophie =D
Kakalwe Brunel	Posted - 2009.01.21 23:26:00 - [49] Edited by: Kakalwe Brunel on 21/01/2009 23:26:48 I think there is a big problem with this 'lessons learned' thread. The lessons will never be learned because of the regular influx of new people. Although some MD regulars get burned, the majority of IPO invesors are new to the forum. When the next scammer comes along his target market will be people who have never heard of Xabier, never mind Reithe
Loney CyberDyne R-D	Posted - 2009.01.22 00:27:00 - [50] Edited by: Loney on 22/01/2009 00:27:40 -edit fix important typo Originally by: Kakalwe Brunel The lessons will never be learned because of the regular influx of new people. I dissagree. Lessons will be learned, but as you said everyone has to learn the lesson for themselves (including the newbs). Yes, Even I got scamed once... many years ago (about 3.5 years) out of 23 billion isk (probally equivalient to 2.3 trillion in todays market). At the time it was only 1/3 of my wealth, but it hit me hard, and almost made me quit eve (took a 2 month break though). Morale of the story is... there is nothing you can do to prevent scaming, though you can minimize it by investing ONLY a protion of your wealth in trustworth people (such as myself, lol, Seriously though!). Check us out!
LaVista Vista	Posted - 2009.01.22 04:55:00 - [51] Originally by: Loney I dissagree. Lessons will be learned, but as you said everyone has to learn the lesson for themselves (including the newbs). I disagree. Look at world history. Those damn fools playing real life NEVER learns. Leave alone EVE. I have been here long enough to see a number of scams going down. Do we ever learn? No, we don't.
Kitchie Gallente Kitchie's Logistics and Marketing Corp	Posted - 2009.01.22 05:40:00 - [52] I think everyone who comes into MD and invests in a bond or IPO knows that a scam is possible, even the newbs. But everyone who walks into a casino also knows that the odds are stacked against them and they still hand over their money in the hope/belief that they are better or can beat the system. I think a lot of people here want the thrill of picking a "Win" investment, knowing that a scam is possible but believing that they've used whatever smarts they believe they have to have chosen the right one. The risk of being scammed, or burnout or whatever, is actually what gives the thrill, otherwise people would just plop their surplus ISK into EBANK or DBANK and sleep nights Even the vets here are proud of their records and oft quote how rarely they've been scammed, it's considered a skill but at the end of the day, it's still gambling and that's where the fun lies - beat the scammers!
Raskaloth	Posted - 2009.01.22 07:03:00 - [53] Edited by: Raskaloth on 22/01/2009 07:04:06 Originally by: LaVista Vista I disagree. Look at world history. Those damn fools playing real life NEVER learns. Leave alone EVE. I have been here long enough to see a number of scams going down. Do we ever learn? No, we don't. I would have to agree that it is doubtful that the community will ever learn. Hell, I even hope the community will never learn. Too tight investment criteria would most likely kill the secondary market in EVE. Yes, there are many shady investments floating around MD these days, many of them either not so well planned or plain out scam attempts. I personally let any new investment offer run its course for page or two of MD regular grilling before making any decisions about investing. Though I feel I have some grasp on what is happening on the market in general, I know there are several more experienced people around, who have a good grasp on what will work and what wont. But if the criteria on investment on the behalf of people who are trusted and their opinions held in high regard tightens as much as it would seem, soon there wont be anyone left to invest, except on low return established businesses. And this will be, in my opinion the end of working secondary market. Any new venture has it's risks, magnified in EVE by the fact that we have no "actual" means of punishing the person failing us, due to multiple accounts etc. But still, as in the real stock market, diversifying is gold. Sure, I would prefer to invest on people such as PP, cosmo and LoW if possible and they offered similar returns as some of the new investments but they dont have to. So maybe Ill invest most of my iskies on "safe" ventures like this but I also keep amount I am willing to lose, due to failure or scam to more profitable, new ventures. Unless people are willing to do the same in the future, is there any secondary market left to speak of? New offers by large known entities will still fill out without question, but it doesnt help the market grow per se, just keeps same money spinning around not creating new opportunities for new, possible even legit players. Hmm, wall of text.. maybe Ill stop my rant now. -Rask
Dagda Morr Seppuku Warriors	Posted - 2009.01.22 11:01:00 - [54] I got caught in the Citadel scam, only 100m so I'm not down as much as most people. The biggest thing I've learned is that I have been a lazy investor and as such have been burned. I saw good investments pass me by so I jumped on the firt that came along, "ooked"reasonable and had an audit. Insufficient research on my part and acting like a lemming is the real problem. Ignoring advice of people who are far better at this than me has cost me, yet another lesson learned. It's all well and good taking a punt on an unkown against general opinion - but not for the amounts that some have asked for. So all in all, be cautious, do my own research is what I've learnt
Mr Horizontal Gallente KIA Corp KIA Alliance	Posted - 2009.01.22 12:08:00 - [55] Originally by: LaVista Vista Originally by: Loney I dissagree. Lessons will be learned, but as you said everyone has to learn the lesson for themselves (including the newbs). I disagree. Look at world history. Those damn fools playing real life NEVER learns. Leave alone EVE. I have been here long enough to see a number of scams going down. Do we ever learn? No, we don't. There's no agree/disagree here. Investing RL and in Eve is a gamble. An educated one, granted, but just like people investing in the Madoff ponzi looked at it with the fact you had a AAA-rated head of NASDAQ running it, and returning consistent and realistic returns for nearly 30 years. You damn right that would suck people right into the scam, because the convincers are so brilliant. Sure, you can ask where is the due diligence and where's that or the other, but at the end of the day, people look at the bottom line, and that bottom line was brilliant. In all honesty, Xabier looked, behaved and acted like a genuine marketeer, interested, knowledgeable and seemingly highly motivated to succeed as an IPO. Again, the pretence and the bottom line were the key factors, and he pulled in investors. Like cosmo said at the beginning, this was a perfect scam, he was audited, he actually ran the business he was presenting, and there is nothing, absolutely bugger all we can do avoid it, because the convincer was too good. Thankfully, I didn't invest, so I've not lost anything... in fact there are only 3 scams that have hit me are FRPB, Fury and Reithe, and the only one of those that hurt me was Fury, but despite that I made so much moeny on FRPB pre-scam that it shrouded any loss from all 3. But in truth that's the gamble about investing. Diversify your portfolio, only invest what you can lose, and accept the fact you win some and lose some. And that's it: play safe, and live by your own rules and you'll do well. Risk too much, it will bite you in the ass one day.
Stardust CEO Stardust Manufacturing	Posted - 2009.01.22 13:14:00 - [56] I'm pretty sure LaVista was saying he disagrees with the part where Loney says lessons will be learned.
Kazuo Ishiguro House of Marbles Zzz	Posted - 2009.01.22 15:41:00 - [57] Originally by: Ricdic Kazuo currently has a couple of operations running under him with locked down stocks and they don't have a single problem. Just one, presently, but if demand warrants it I could potentially secure a few more BPO-based schemes using separate corp divisions. --- Can't afford that BPO? Look here. 20:1 mineral compression The EVE f@h team
nether void Caldari Shrapnel Industries	Posted - 2009.01.22 16:06:00 - [58] Originally by: Kazuo Ishiguro Originally by: Ricdic Kazuo currently has a couple of operations running under him with locked down stocks and they don't have a single problem. Just one, presently, but if demand warrants it I could potentially secure a few more BPO-based schemes using separate corp divisions. Not saying you would, Kazuo, but the potential for scam is still there if Kazuo ever decided to just keep the BPOs. I really don't think Xabier was a scam at first, but he realized how much less work it was to just keep the money and stop 'working'. That's one of my fears with the 'secured collateral' approach. Sure the risk for scam is very low from a trusted regular, but it's still not fool proof. And worse for me anyway is if I decide to run an IPO I know I'm not going to scam myself out of prints, so it makes it a little tough to have someone else hold them while I hold all the risk of them scamming. If they steal the public BPOs, I'm still on the hook to pay for all of them. That's not a good place to be for a legit IPO, especially one you could have fully financed yourself. Undo risk, really, while at the same time doing all the work? I don't really see much benefit for the person running that IPO. The only benefit would be if you ever wanted to run a FRIGGIN HUGE project where you needed billions of dollars. Those projects seem pretty few and far between on a personal level, so if you probably will never have a project like that (LOTS of overhead to keep that running - running alt accounts or real people), then it doesn't make a lot of sense to run anything public. At a crossroads.
MilowFV Echo Heavy Industries	Posted - 2009.01.22 16:17:00 - [59] Also it looks like eve and RL have similar consequences, I mean isn't Madoff still under house arrest?
Ulstan Caldari State Protectorate	Posted - 2009.01.22 16:27:00 - [60] Originally by: MailDeadDrop I simultaneously agree and disagree with you, on different aspects. But I'll take your conclusion first: I disagree that we must have "built-in methods of ensuring security". I believe that we simply need more diverse mechanisms of retribution. Eve needs a civil justice system. The investors in [CRTF] should be able to bring civil suit against evn7289. The judicial system should have judicial discovery access to evn7289's data and the power to compel the SCC to freeze or transfer ISK from his wallet and assets from his hangars. MDD Yes, I'm not at all sure what (if anything) should be done to make scamming 'harder', I simply find it interesting that scamming in such MMO's is risk free, and high payoff. I theorize we'll see an increase in scamming until something is done about it, simply because the common denominator of player won't like it. As you say, this could go two ways: greater securities built in to prevent scams, or greater ways to 'seek revenge' on scammers. Right now there's really nothing - the scamming char can simply xfer his funds to someone else and delete. Any successful restitution abilities to fight scamming would somehow need to allow you to yank 'your' ISK from someone elses wallet, even if it has been laundered all over the place...and my theory is that if such detailed isk tracking code existed, it would be easier to simply prevent the scam from occurring in the first place :p In real life if you scam, the law makes you give it back. If there is no law, a posse rounds up and hunts you down. There is no real life comparison to being able to commit crimes with one body and discard it when it has served its purpose, and then transfer the proceeds of your crime to another law abiding body who can then live in comfort off of them. I submit that if such an ability existed in real life, we'd descend pretty quick into utter chaos and anarchy :p

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 :: one page
First page \| Previous page \| Next page \| Last page

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. EVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CCP hf. has granted permission to EVE-Search.com to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with, EVE-Search.com. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.