EVE Online Forum » Jita (General) » EBank scandal

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

 

Being investigates does not mean being caught...
Let me fix it for you:

In real life, if the CEO of a major investment firm steals the investors' money and flees to Seychelles Islands/input similar country here/, he'll be on the run from the CIA, the FBI, local police, etc. but no one can do damn thing about it.

Scamming in EVE is pretty much the same as in RL, you leave your past behind and hide under new indentity.

Look, the difference in EVE is, the authorities aren't even going to come after you. It's perfectly legal to scam.

You don't even have to change identities if you don't care who knows, though it would surely help if you want to escape potential retribution from players.

Originally posted by DoktorTeufel

You don't even have to change identities if you don't care who knows, though it would surely help if you want to escape potential retribution from players.

You are just starting to 'get EVE' now:

In EVE the "authorities" ARE the players.  :)  The community does a fairly good job of policing itself.

Boy I'm looking forward to saying "I told you so" to everyone I told not to give their ISK to ebank ; )

Originally posted by Taram 

You are just starting to 'get EVE' now:

In EVE the "authorities" ARE the players.  :)  The community does a fairly good job of policing itself.

Well, I already knew this. The lawless, frontier-justice, almost-anything-goes aspect is one of EVE's major selling points, in my opinion anyway.

But the simple fact is, it's a lot easier to get away with shenanigans in EVE if you have a square head on your shoulders. All it takes to completely escape player justice is an "infiltration alt," which is much easier to pull off than anything comparable in real life. Scam activities aren't actually illegalized in any set of laws by the ultimate authority in the game.

Originally posted by Enkindu

Boy I'm looking forward to saying "I told you so" to everyone I told not to give their ISK to ebank ; )

Ebank already covered the losses with their cover funds and still have lots left.  Even after over 150bil was pulled out by people who got nervous because of this. 

Like any bank Ebank always keeps enough assets to cover fairly sizeable losses.  They just tapped into it to cover this.  The KIA thing already got covered as well so investors in the bank haven't lost anything.

Originally posted by Taram

Originally posted by Enkindu

Boy I'm looking forward to saying "I told you so" to everyone I told not to give their ISK to ebank ; )

 

Ebank already covered the losses with their cover funds and still have lots left.  Even after over 150bil was pulled out by people who got nervous because of this. 

 

Like any bank Ebank always keeps enough assets to cover fairly sizeable losses.  They just tapped into it to cover this.  The KIA thing already got covered as well so investors in the bank haven't lost anything.

Reputation is everything however.. don't you think this will have an effect on the long term viability of ebank?

Personally I tend to believe that all player run "banking" in eve is either a scam waiting to happen or profoundly vulnerable to scams.

If people have done well with ebank, more power to em.

honest to God, when "riddic" of all people, started this ebank thing... i know i made comments about him on eve-o... hell, i probably made a thread about him here.

my god, the "i told you so"s that i am having...

Originally posted by Elsabolts

This guy who stole all this isk, is he in anyway related to the current administration we have here in the states.

Related? Who you you think runs BamaBank, er, I mean EBank.

This is nothing in comparison to the moon mining scandal. 

Now those folks made off with some serious RL cash.

ctrl+v to a good post

Anyone who "understands" Ricdic's actions and sees them as justifiable should be treated as a future scammer and should not be trusted with anything worth more than a Mexican peso. Ricdic mismanaged his finances and found himself in a situation not uncommon to many people in these current times. He should have stepped down and sold his computer, sold his car, moved to a house/apartment actually affordable on what must be an absolutely dismal salary, get a second job, etc etc etc etc. When **** hit the fan he made the decision of a weaker man. Stabbing friends in the back for his own benefit.

He is not a scammer. A scammer is someone who enters the field with the intention, from the very beginning, of deceiving investors via deceit, collusion, and any other tool at his disposal. Ricdic has *aggresively attacked* people deemed by him as "unworthy," "undeserving of trust" etc etc. At a critical moment in time, he backtracked on his annoyingly self-righteous mentality and *stole* from his own friends and customers. That makes him a *thief* one of the more despicable types of individuals. These are people with whom he enjoyed real life conversations, individuals who trusted him, and who followed him, all for his own, disgraceful benefit.

Actively defending, or even empathizing with, his actions should be a blindly bright red flag as to who the the actual trustworthy individuals are, and who might be prone, given a similar situation, to embark on a "less than positive but still justification" path. The truly interesting part is that Ebank, even after the "scam," is still worth a pretty hefty sum of real $USD. Given that Faildic (copywrite on the name) paved the way and "proved" that Ebank can indeed survive such a blow, I wonder, how long is it before someone else pulls the same stunt? How long before someone else faces a truly *perilous* rl situation and ops for the "lesser of two evils" out? How many hits can Ebank take before it eventually crumbles? Optimistically, not many more.

EvE has ALWAYS been full of drama! since release and the first gate camp in Obe! Since m0o ran amuck and had it out with the devs with the devs flyin concord Battleships!  since Curse Alliance was formed. SInce the Red Coursairs attacked Free Stars Coalition.......geez I could go on and on! 

Scams and rip offs have been an on going theme in EvE since T-20(Dev) got caught cheating. Just add this to a list.

Here's my suggestion. find a locator Agent get a group and camp him in station. see how he likes being locked down 24/7 in station.

IT can happen and has. I can't remeber what his name was but there was an independent running around in the great wild lands and got caught between a Curse Allianc vs Evolution/stain alliance camp in E02.....Dude was locked down for 3 months.

So let me get this straight, the guy that stole all the Isk did it due to RL money troubles?

Eve is only a video game, I guess If I was about to lose my home or car in RL i would do the same.

RL> In game life.

Tbh the guy should have focused more on his RL to avoid his financial situation, That 5k won't last him long in the real world and in a month or so he will be broke and have nothing in game if he doesn't fix his RL situation.

We need an EvE Czar he would be in charge of CEO pay and isk regulation.

Originally posted by DoktorTeufel

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

 

Being investigates does not mean being caught...
Let me fix it for you:

In real life, if the CEO of a major investment firm steals the investors' money and flees to Seychelles Islands/input similar country here/, he'll be on the run from the CIA, the FBI, local police, etc. but no one can do damn thing about it.

Scamming in EVE is pretty much the same as in RL, you leave your past behind and hide under new indentity.

 

Look, the difference in EVE is, the authorities aren't even going to come after you. It's perfectly legal to scam.

You don't even have to change identities if you don't care who knows, though it would surely help if you want to escape potential retribution from players.

  Semantics...

But is it not players that are the authorities in this game?

So in a sense the authorities are going to come after you.

Originally posted by JGMIII

So let me get this straight, the guy that stole all the Isk did it due to RL money troubles?

Eve is only a video game, I guess If I was about to lose my home or car in RL i would do the same.

RL> In game life.

Tbh the guy should have focused more on his RL to avoid his financial situation, That 5k won't last him long in the real world and in a month or so he will be broke and have nothing in game if he doesn't fix his RL situation.

 

Real life is more important than any game to be sure.

But need does not move the line between right and wrong.

Dishonesty is a part of life in eve, but what this guy did was not a part of game mechanics.  It was a sleazy RL move.  At best this guy needs a psychiatrist.

I've never really been able to even 'pretend' dishonesty in eve... I tried to be a pirate a long time ago but the resultant self-loathing ended that before it even started....

And before you tell me "pirating is not dishonest!" I see it as nothing more than killing people you've never met and stealing their stuff.

Originally posted by Enkindu

Originally posted by Taram

Originally posted by Enkindu

Boy I'm looking forward to saying "I told you so" to everyone I told not to give their ISK to ebank ; )

 

Ebank already covered the losses with their cover funds and still have lots left.  Even after over 150bil was pulled out by people who got nervous because of this. 

 

Like any bank Ebank always keeps enough assets to cover fairly sizeable losses.  They just tapped into it to cover this.  The KIA thing already got covered as well so investors in the bank haven't lost anything.

Reputation is everything however.. don't you think this will have an effect on the long term viability of ebank?

Personally I tend to believe that all player run "banking" in eve is either a scam waiting to happen or profoundly vulnerable to scams.

If people have done well with ebank, more power to em.

Actually I know quite a few people who have several hundred mil a month incomes from their investments in EVE Bank (and other IPO's as well) in fact I know at least one player who pays for both his account just with interest from his investments :)

That said you are correct.  Reputation IS everything and I do think this will hurt Ebank in the short term... long term?  As long as this doesn't happen again (at least for a while) they should be fine.  Personally I don't use Ebank because, as I stated earlier, the ROI isn't high enough for my tastes and it takes too long to get the money back out if you put more than a couple bil in.

But it's been a solid venture for quite some time now.  I believe they do plan to start divesting some of their investors and cutting down on the size of Ebank though so that they can ensure better accountability.  I recall seeing a post from one of their directors about it.

Originally posted by JGMIII

So let me get this straight, the guy that stole all the Isk did it due to RL money troubles?

Eve is only a video game, I guess If I was about to lose my home or car in RL i would do the same.

RL> In game life.

Tbh the guy should have focused more on his RL to avoid his financial situation, That 5k won't last him long in the real world and in a month or so he will be broke and have nothing in game if he doesn't fix his RL situation.

 

supposedly.

but look at it this way.. if you were doing damage control for ebank... which sounds better?  which would draw more empathy from other players and allow you to keep your doors open?

1 the founder of ebank just stole a shitload of isk because... he's a scumbag.

2 the founder of ebank (living in australia i believe) stole a lot of isk because he's hit hard financial times irl...

Originally posted by Enkindu

Originally posted by JGMIII

So let me get this straight, the guy that stole all the Isk did it due to RL money troubles?

Eve is only a video game, I guess If I was about to lose my home or car in RL i would do the same.

RL> In game life.

Tbh the guy should have focused more on his RL to avoid his financial situation, That 5k won't last him long in the real world and in a month or so he will be broke and have nothing in game if he doesn't fix his RL situation.

 

 

Real life is more important than any game to be sure.

But need does not move the line between right and wrong.

Dishonesty is a part of life in eve, but what this guy did was not a part of game mechanics.  It was a sleazy RL move.  At best this guy needs a psychiatrist.

I've never really been able to even 'pretend' dishonesty in eve... I tried to be a pirate a long time ago but the resultant self-loathing ended that before it even started....

And before you tell me "pirating is not dishonest!" I see it as nothing more than killing people you've never met and stealing their stuff.

um, i think you've got the definition of pirating correct.

no one said that douchebags DON'T play eve.

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Enkindu

 Real life is more important than any game to be sure.

But need does not move the line between right and wrong.

Dishonesty is a part of life in eve, but what this guy did was not a part of game mechanics.  It was a sleazy RL move.  At best this guy needs a psychiatrist.

I've never really been able to even 'pretend' dishonesty in eve... I tried to be a pirate a long time ago but the resultant self-loathing ended that before it even started....

And before you tell me "pirating is not dishonest!" I see it as nothing more than killing people you've never met and stealing their stuff.

 

um, i think you've got the definition of pirating correct.

 

no one said that douchebags DON'T play eve.

You'd be amazed at the number of times people have told me "hey man I'm an HONORABLE pirate!"

Originally posted by Enkindu

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Enkindu

 Real life is more important than any game to be sure.

But need does not move the line between right and wrong.

Dishonesty is a part of life in eve, but what this guy did was not a part of game mechanics.  It was a sleazy RL move.  At best this guy needs a psychiatrist.

I've never really been able to even 'pretend' dishonesty in eve... I tried to be a pirate a long time ago but the resultant self-loathing ended that before it even started....

And before you tell me "pirating is not dishonest!" I see it as nothing more than killing people you've never met and stealing their stuff.

 

um, i think you've got the definition of pirating correct.

 

no one said that douchebags DON'T play eve.

 

You'd be amazed at the number of times people have told me "hey man I'm an HONORABLE pirate!"

 

There are people in EvE that take the game way too seriously. because of all the work it takes they don't do well when they get ganked over and over and or get scamed. this is just another example.

i remember when the ebank threads first started on eve-o...

one guy was talking about... "oh a friend of mine was saying how gullible and stupid people are..." and went on and on... the tl:dr version of what he was saying, is that riddic was trash talking offline, about how he could scam everyone out of billions of isk, with ANOTHER bank scam.

he hinted at "the friend" being riddic, so much so, that riddic had one of his emo meltdowns about it.

the guy said "give it time, a year or so probably".

don't know if people remember all that talk.   i know another bank scam, where someone supposedly had real life troubles... was in a hospital after a car wreck.... but no, really, THIS time, the scammer REALLY DID have real life problems.

it's sad, funny, and retarded, all rolled together.

yet, people STILL put billions into ebank.

Originally posted by vader999


Just because its pixels in a game doesnt mean it wont cause deep mental scarring on the victims.

Erm... one would point out that if pixels in a game can cause deep mental scarring on the victims then they have MUCH bigger issues than getting killed by someone in a video game and need to seek serious mental help for whatever it is that is their real issue.

I use DBank, which had it's only scandal a few months back. In your ship the only safe spot is a station, with your ISK it's YOUR wallet. Don't fly what you are not prepared to have blown-up and don't invest which you can not afford to loose.

Since this scandal the idea of CCP creating some sort of NPC/Central Bank has started cropping up (again), personally I think that's a bad idea but wanted to know what others thought of such an idea?

Oh and anyone doing bank runs on EBank and moving those funds to DBank, see'ya at the next Dbank scandal!

Originally posted by Taram

Originally posted by vader999


Just because its pixels in a game doesnt mean it wont cause deep mental scarring on the victims.

 

Erm... one would point out that if pixels in a game can cause deep mental scarring on the victims then they have MUCH bigger issues than getting killed by someone in a video game and need to seek serious mental help for whatever it is that is their real issue.