Posted - 2009.06.11 11:15:00 - [301]

 

Originally by: Cergorach

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Edited by: Cergorach on 11/06/2009 08:48:17

Originally by: Proton Power

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I agree if they would have posted it when I told them they should it would have been much differnt. Instead they left it to me.

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It seems your forgetting to breath out, all that hot air is going into your head, making it swell beyond measure. You need to stop speaking and let the air out, because your head might burst...

In RL a bank doesn't publish any information about defaulted loans or employees that stole money to it's customers, they may note losses to share holders in the quarterly reports though, but without any details. Are any of you share holders? No, your all customers.

PP is nothing more then a whistle blower, and a bad one at that. His actions are aimed at Ebank (and it's remaining folks that run it), the folks at Ebank did nothing wrong, Ridic is the one that did something wrong. Most of what he did wrong is an internal matter (scamming money and the loan part). The only thing that should have been made public is the fact that Ridic was banned from EVE and people shouldn't send isk to him any more.

But do you know how long it takes in RL for a bank to issue such a statement (officialy)? And that's thousands of folks working full time, this is folks who play a game.

I remember PP as someone who's posts where worth reading, I either misremember, he's having a crisis, or his true face is revealed. I can only think he has another agenda when reading his recent posts, what it is I can only speculate at, but doing that is a waste of my time and yours.

All I see is another Ridic in the making.

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*You do know this is a game and not RL right? Just want to make sure.

*How can this benifit me any? Explain the agenda? If I owned another bank and wanted to hurt EBANK MAYBE but even that would be stupid since people tend to not trust the market at all when things like this come out.

*EBANK should have posted a quick summary soon as they knew what was going on, they didn't, I did. Some may not like it, others seem to like it, nothing that will change what I did, and I still don't feel bad about it, actually see'ing some of the msg's here and then some of the stuff in Eve mail and such, I feel even better I did what I did. Shame I will lose a few friends, but were they really my friends anyway if they let somthing silly as a game destroy that?

Posted - 2009.06.11 11:25:00 - [303]

 

Originally by: Leowen

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About 4 months ago Ric asked me to join him on a market play in the Ferrogel ... He was very cagey at the time about his source of funding for said play, I don't know exactly how much he put in but I'm pretty confident it was 100B+...

EDIT: ... Ricdic could have got away with an awful lot more than 200B or so if he'd wanted to. General feeling in this thread is that Ric is the bad guy, he got away with all he could, and hurrah for EBANK mechanisms protecting the other 2T or so.

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I don’t think they know how much Ridic embezzled. My understanding is that the 200 B was cash he had with him. This is why I keep telling EBANK to get a reliable internal audit done.

Posted - 2009.06.11 11:35:00 - [305]

 

Originally by: Proton Power

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I suck at quoting so this will probably end up wrong. I agree the milking part was a bad on my part, I was upset at that point based on conversations ingame with other EBANK Staff, and my sources that gave me a lot of the information. Plus I feel wierd about Ric doing this, I feel very bad for him in the sense of his family and such, and almost happy that he did this if it trully helped his family, and no I don't want people to scam, but rather it be for this than 2 titans that he would lose 2 days later if that makes sense.

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I've been likening it to the difference between manslaughter and first-degree murder. While they both involve something that absolutely must be punished, one is significantly less morally reprehensible than the other. But, to emphasize, I still consider both to be a crime.

MP

Posted - 2009.06.11 11:37:00 - [307]

 

IMPORTANT PLEASE.

The statement was sent to me by Ricdic for the forums.

Personal Statement
____________________

Ok so by now everyone knows what I have done. It is correct that I took approximately 230b off EBANK. It is also true that I engaged in RMT trading on this sum of funds. Most was successfull, the RMT character I was using was banned with about 40b cash on hand.

Now, this only happened over the course of last week and lasted about 3 days. I took the funds off EBANK Ricdic in sections, and labelled each transfer description as "EBANK Transfer" (to distinguish between RMT and other - "EBANK Withdrawal" is for customers, "Teller Funds" is stocking other tellers. I knew the bubble would burst (actually expected it to burst a lot faster) so wanted to have a clear indicator on what I took available.

There is no justification or excuse that would make up for what I done. I had an incredibly hard decision to make, the choice between family and video game. The outcome would have been far worse had I chosen Eve. This still doesn't justify it. I have every belief that the current staff will be able to pull things up and ensure no losses, and it might actually encourage some of them to pull their fingers out. A lot have been hiding under the EBANK wing with almost zero participation. Those who EBANK customers should really be thanking are SentryRaven (forum and teller duties, Mr Horizontal and Hexxx (coding extroadinaires), and quite possibly the biggest asset EBANK has ever had (on an ingame/board level) Athre (teller and general duties).

I see a lot of praise shooting out for people like LaVista and it makes my blood boil (always had). When EBANK started, he spent about two days coding a crappy website, which ended up being ripped up and replaced with the Hexxx and Horizontal sites. For this two days work he was paid a sum of close to 8 billion isk. I, as CEO of EBANK, doing all daily tasks, writing the whole T&C, answering thousands of evemails, actioning thousands of withdrawals, wasn't paid that for my entire tenure or two years in EBANK.

Since then, LV has done absolutely nothing. He was actually supposed to be an auditor and monitor teller funds, suspicious withdrawals etc. He should have been the one who saw the money moving from EBANK Ricdic and immediately raised flags but his duty was never done. He has since provided the excuse that he resigned as auditor at some point or other, leaving him with no roles again. LV has only been around as someone to pay the server costs and deal with hosting issues that occur once every 8 months.

Anyway, that's not what this is about. With the exception of LV and those who were AFK or almost not present in EBANK as staff (Selene D'Celeste, TornSoul and a couple of others) EBANK is made up of a fantastic set of people. These people have put varying levels of TLC into EBANK, from internal forum whorage, to salary and PR managers, to ingame dealers or those running our subsidiaries, you would be hard pressed to find a better group of people.

One of the issues in EBANK is getting things done. Hexxx (prior to my scam) had been MIA for about a month, Mr Horizontal has been MIA now for 1.5 months, Banni Vinda has retired but was also AFK, and Selene was doing an audit that was never going to be finished (as he never had time to post on forums much less do actual work for EBANK), LV was always around but done nothing anyway.

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Posted - 2009.06.11 11:40:00 - [309]

 

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ


Continued part 2

Anastasia Heron was running one subsidiary, as was Amarr Citizen 155. LadyOfWrath was a new member who hadn't yet been given roles, but was getting into his position as an employee.

The Loan : Well, I wasn't going to say anything as I want EBANK to kick back off without me, but it has been annoying me hearing LV specifically quick to tell everyone how I was to blame for giving an 275b unsecured loan. If any EBANK employee were to check the internal forums they would see a vote that ALL directors accepted, giving KIAEddz loans to this tune over time. We also gave loans to entities around him, with his guarantee of repayment. Other big names such as Seleene (now a CCP Employee) were given loans under Eddz guarantee. The last loan Eddz guaranteed was for 250b (iirc). Eddz had already repaid his other loans, as had every single person he guaranteed, so it was a non-issue to provide this loan to his trusted RL friend. Anyway, his friend double-crossed him, and basically ran off with the lot. Eddz was then torn up, ultimately advising he couldn't repay the debt. In EBANK's defence, since then staff have been chasing up various RL and in game contacts trying to recover the debt. They didn't want to release to the public until they had confirmation that they weren't getting the ISK back.

So a lot of people are giving EBANK grief over the loan default. Yes it's a large default but something that should be mentioned is that Eddz and his friends provided EBANK with over 170 billion in profit alone over the past 2 years. Sure, it has all been lost now but it's not as bad as some may have been led to believe.

I have spent the past 2 months telling EBANK staff internally that I need to go, my RL is way too busy and will be way too busy to handle EBANK in any capacity. I gave them a deadline, they let it lapse. I gave them a second one, where LV put up his hand to become CEO. I accepted pending the outcome of a board vote, and not a single member started a vote in the next week. Again, this doesn't excuse my behaviour.

I have lost interest in Eve quite a lot, only logging on to do things I had to do for EBANK that no-one else could. At one stage EBANK facilities were unavailable because I had forgotten to fix up subscription, I didn't know for 3 days as I never came online. After the joke offering I made (which was always intended as such) I saw the response it got. I then saw the replies after the comment I made about how I always had the secondary market best interests at heart. Basically it was a bunch of morons bagging me out, showing just how much respect or how much people cared. So as a result I was in the mindset that most people don't give a damn about ones achievements in a spaceship game so why bother? Our financial situation occurred resulting in my having to decide whether we lose our new home (40,000 AUD deposit lost) or I lose whatever dignity I have left in a video game.

Obviously I chose the latter. Some have said I could have taken different approaches, such as raising funds etc but to be honest taking some of the EBANK isk was the best way I could see to get out of our hole. I basically put the consequences to the back of my mind, the implications on staff and EBANK reputation etc. This was something I thought up two weeks ago as an "out" , and I took it. There was no build up, no alts given loans, nothing like that. All my characters were listed, als, mains etc. I don't know which have/haven't been banned, not that it matters as I won't be logging back in.

Posted - 2009.06.11 11:43:00 - [311]

 

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ

Continued part 3

EBANK Ricdic has been perma-banned. If I had one request for CCP, it would be for them to unban him so it could be moved to LaVista to retain EBANK operations. Obviously CCP owe me no favours after breaking the EULA with the RMT stuff. Before I was banned, I managed to pass CEO on to Athre and give Director access to Amarr Citizen 155 to our subsidiary corp (so he can access the 400b or so worth of assets there).

So in closing, I take full responsibility for the scam obviously, but the loan was a team effort and group decision amongst the whole board (including Shar Tegral btw). It will be interesting to see how the EBANK staff go with handling day to day duties, and how LV handles being CEO after he failed at auditing for odd transactions. I apologise to all staff and customers for what has occured and hope at least those who were considered friends understand (to some degree) the reasoning behind the decision.

Thanks,
Ricdic
Former CEO of EBANK

Posted - 2009.06.11 11:47:00 - [313]

 

$5000 usd isnt too bad!

worth a few virtual folk hating you for

Posted - 2009.06.11 12:00:00 - [315]

 

Originally by: Proton Power

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*You do know this is a game and not RL right? Just want to make sure.

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There's the problem, on one hand people want EBank to function as a RL bank, all the checks, balance, and responsibilities. And on the other hand, people don't want all the bureaucratic 'nonsense' RL seem to suffer from. That's called inconsistent.

Originally by: Proton Power

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*How can this benifit me any? Explain the agenda? If I owned another bank and wanted to hurt EBANK MAYBE but even that would be stupid since people tend to not trust the market at all when things like this come out.

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Benefits go beyond isk, influence with a certain segment of the MD forum poster, kicks, etc. Sometimes you manipulate one market to reap the benefits in another market. For example, by forcing EBank to liquidate assets (becasue there's now a run on the Ebank accounts due to this information), Ebank might be forced to cease certain operations (such as, for example, Titan BPCs). Thus leaving you with less competition in that market (you might even pick up a couple of cheap titan BPOs), who knows what ops your alts are running or where your real interests lie...

Originally by: Proton Power

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*EBANK should have posted a quick summary soon as they knew what was going on, they didn't, I did. Some may not like it, others seem to like it, nothing that will change what I did, and I still don't feel bad about it, actually see'ing some of the msg's here and then some of the stuff in Eve mail and such, I feel even better I did what I did. Shame I will lose a few friends, but were they really my friends anyway if they let somthing silly as a game destroy that?

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1.) Ebank should have posted something as soon as they knew Ricdic had scammed and was banned, but as you pointed out earlier, this is a game and other things might be more important (like sleep, a RL job, family obligations, etc.). Not to mention, there might be other things going on, like contact with CCP, etc.
2.) The whole "making me feel even better" part is where I (and others) have issue with. It seems like the actions of a self centered individual who is only interested in his own little center of the universe, himself. Exactly the sort of action Ricdic is accused of (and probably guilty of).
3.) MD forums is mostly meta gaming, I haven seen very little roleplaying in here. Especially because we've been discussing out of game situations. Thus I wouldn't say your playing a role in here, your 'playing' yourself. Thus antisocial behavior can't really be dismissed as 'something silly as a game'. You made harsh (personal) accusations, made threats, etc. Any person, even a friend would be offended, especially when you broke confidence in a public forum.

Posted - 2009.06.11 12:13:00 - [317]

 

Originally by: Ottozia

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Our financial situation occurred resulting in my having to decide whether we lose our new home (40,000 AUD deposit lost) or I lose whatever dignity I have left in a video game.

Obviously I chose the latter.

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Let's all take this moment to remember Cally of EIB, whose "death" proves that people never lie about reality in an attempt to excuse their virtual misdemeanours.

Who are you anyway Ottozia? This seems to be your first forum post since 2006.

Posted - 2009.06.11 12:15:00 - [319]

 

Originally by: Motivated Prophet

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No, it's not. Larceny on any scale is not worth the cost, to your reputation, or to your moral fibre.

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No offense, but that is a load of crap! You would rather see your kids homeless then tarnishing your name, I hope your kids will never be in that situation (for their sakes). 'Morals' generally go out the window when your families well being is at stake, THAT i think are proper 'morals', family first.

On the other hand I've seen long trusted folks assume another identity on a forum and tell everyone they've died and get kicks out of the repiels of support that generated (see ENWorld forum). So call me skeptical when people claim certain RL situations, but if it's true I can understand why he did it. Anyway, Ricdic isn't coming back...

Posted - 2009.06.11 13:01:00 - [321]

 

Originally by: Cergorach

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Originally by: Motivated Prophet

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No, it's not. Larceny on any scale is not worth the cost, to your reputation, or to your moral fibre.

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No offense, but that is a load of crap! You would rather see your kids homeless then tarnishing your name, I hope your kids will never be in that situation (for their sakes). 'Morals' generally go out the window when your families well being is at stake, THAT i think are proper 'morals', family first.

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I would have made different choices. I'm allowed to say that, aren't I?

Ricdic overextended himself financially, and there are some serious consequences to that. You don't buy a home with your last dollar, because suddenly an additional expense can come up, exactly like this. I like to think I'm a better steward of my money than he is. Yes, when faced with a black-and-white, do-my-kids-live-or-die choice, everyone's going to make the right decision. But here, as always, there were a litany of choices that led up to it. You shouldn't callously or casually put yourself in a situation where you have to commit a crime to continue forward with your life.

MP

Posted - 2009.06.11 13:16:00 - [323]

 

Edited by: Victriferusianus on 11/06/2009 13:17:48
I have to say I understand Ricdics decision completely and would have done the same in his situation. He didn't commit any crime. He scammed people in game. People do that all the time just for lulz. And suicide gank. And wardeck helpless corporations. It's part of the game and anyone is free to play that way if he wants. EVE is a cold harsh world by design. There are no moral problems in scamming inside EVE. It's like surprising your opponent in a chess game with a nasty move. Nothing bad in that.

The RMT part was against the EULA, so that's breaking the games rules and sort of bad but he was caught and banned, so that's that. I hope the ISK buyer gets the ban hammer also.

Posted - 2009.06.11 13:23:00 - [325]

 

Originally by: Motivated Prophet

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I would have made different choices. I'm allowed to say that, aren't I?

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Your more then welcome to say that, the problem is that you didn't say that...

Originally by: Motivated Prophet

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Ricdic overextended himself financially, and there are some serious consequences to that. You don't buy a home with your last dollar, because suddenly an additional expense can come up, exactly like this. I like to think I'm a better steward of my money than he is. Yes, when faced with a black-and-white, do-my-kids-live-or-die choice, everyone's going to make the right decision. But here, as always, there were a litany of choices that led up to it. You shouldn't callously or casually put yourself in a situation where you have to commit a crime to continue forward with your life.

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I don't know what Ricdic did or the choices he made that led up to his problems, but the current financial climate can stack the deck against you in such a way you can never prepare for. Buying a house with your last money isn't smart, but if only smart/sensible people where allowed to have children we would have a lot less problems in the world (not to mention a lot less people). I've seen people loose their jobs with no way to get another job that would get even close to pay the bills, not anything you can do to plan against that, sometimes you have to take a few risks to make life better for your family.

As a side note, scamming within the game is allowed, it's actually used to advertise the game. I don't approve of the practice, but I appreciate the game mechanic. RTM isn't allowed, but it isn't illegal either. So I don't think 'morals' really come into the issue, it's a case of destroying ones reputation, which he pretty much succeeded in doing.

Posted - 2009.06.11 13:26:00 - [327]

 

Edited by: LaVista Vista on 11/06/2009 13:30:21

Originally by: Ottozia

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He was actually supposed to be an auditor and monitor teller funds, suspicious withdrawals etc. He should have been the one who saw the money moving from EBANK Ricdic and immediately raised flags but his duty was never done. He has since provided the excuse that he resigned as auditor at some point or other, leaving him with no roles again. LV has only been around as someone to pay the server costs and deal with hosting issues that occur once every 8 months.

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I stepped down from that position, not long after I got it. Remember?

EDIT:
As for me not having done anything, I call BS on that.

I have been the go-to guy when there has been problems with deposits, the website, investigating RMT cases when our tellers found something(Thanks to Balogh's awesome tool).

Just because that you didn't get to see me working, doesn't mean that I didn't. And I have tons of chat-logs, working on EBANK related issues, to back it up.

Posted - 2009.06.11 13:34:00 - [329]

 

Could someone from Ebank verify that the text posted by Ottozia is from Ricdic? There should be ample insider informations given, which would linken the text to at least an Ebank employee.