Posted by Shaun Altman
Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:22:00 GMT
I've just had the absolute worst home rental experience of my Second Life, thanks to Ravenglass Rentals and its operator, Prokofy Neva. What happened was so nasty that I felt a need to write up a quick blog post on the topic, so that hopefully my readers will not fall victim as I did. I hope this saves some people from being taken to the cleaners by Ravenglass Rentals.
I decided yesterday to rent an e-home in Second Life, so I could make use of many domestic objects which had been sitting idle in my inventory for some time. Since Ravenglass Rentals was known to me in the past for having nice lands and controlled views, I thought I would check out a few homes in the Ravenglass region. Once there, I found the home pictured above, and immediately fell in love with it. The price was very excessive, but since I liked it so much, I paid the rental box one week's rent.
In exchange for my one week's rent, I received roughly one minute of property usage. While I was in my inventory window looking for my living room set, the owner of Ravenglass Rentals, Prokofy Neva, teleported to my rented home, banned me from the land I had just rented from her and reset the rental box for a new "tenant" (read: sucker) to come along and give her ANOTHER week's rent. My instant messages requesting an explanation and/or refund were subsequently ignored.
This is a very popular land scam, but it is usually practiced on private islands rather than the mainland. What the scammers generally do is sell off a whole island, then boot all of the buyers and sell it off again (and again and again). Its a disgusting practice, and I was very sad to see that it had seemingly become so mainstream that even an old hat such as Prokofy Neva might feel comfortable ripping off unsuspecting Second Life residents in this manner. Indeed, I could hardly believe my eyes.
Now it is true that I am an occasional critic of Prokofy Neva. With this in mind, I thought there may be some chance that she was stealing from me more out of a misplaced sense of spite and revenge than general business practice. Wanting to confirm which was the case, and noting that the e-home was once again available for rent within one minute of the time I had rented it, I asked someone that I know and trust to rent the same e-home from Prokofy Neva.
Again, the rental box was paid one week's worth of what seems like very excessive rent for this property. A sofa was rezed and 20 or 30 minutes passed. Then once again, Prokofy Neva teleported out of the ether, banned the tenant from the property and reset the rental box so it would potentially be able to capture a THIRD week's rent from a THIRD unsuspecting victim.
As with before, there was no refund and no response to IMs requesting an explanation and/or refund. It seems that indeed, this scheme must be a general business practice for Prokofy Neva and Ravenglass Rentals. It is a shame to see a once prominent land lord apparently having to resort to scamming and slum lording tactics to keep her business vibrant and her bills paid during Second Life's great depression. We can only hope that Prokofy Neva's Ravenglass Rentals will return to more ethical business practices as the depression ends.
Either way, after this experience, I'd advise anyone and everyone against renting property from Prokofy Neva, under the Ravenglass Rentals name or any other name. We were victims twice in under an hour, paying two weeks rent and receiving under one hour of property usage in return. It is my sincere hope, as I write this post, that YOU will not be the next victim of land seizure by Prokofy Neva at Ravenglass Rentals.
Posted in Community, Second Life, Business, Economy, Stuff That Makes Me Angry, People, Places | Tags land, neva, prokofy, ravenglass, rentals, scam, theft | 8 comments
Posted by Shaun Altman
Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:00:00 GMT
It has been a while since any news was posted regarding the Ginko liquidation process. Please rest assured that this isn't because I have forgotten about you, but simply because there have been no concrete developments since the last update. This has recently changed, so I thought I'd take a minute to advise everyone on where Ginko virtual liquidation trust stands.
IntLibber Brautigan has succeeded in selling the Von Mises simulator for L$300,000 and has delivered this sum to me for inclusion in Ginko virtual liquidation trust. This makes the trust a little better off than where it was a few days ago. However, news is not so good regarding the sale of BNT virtual shares formerly owned by Ginko.
IntLibber Brautigan has been actively blockading the sale of these shares, via administrative controls on his ACE virtual stock exchange, where the shares are listed. He feels that if our shares are sold, the price of BNT won't go up. This may or may not be true, but I must advise you that were it not for this blockade, the shares would be mostly sold by now and it would be just about time for a liquidation dividend.
I have been completely unsuccessful, over a period of months, in convincing IntLibber Brautigan to end the blockade. If you would like this situation to change, I would strongly encourage you to contact IntLibber Brautigan and share your feelings on the blockade of share sales with him. These are, in fact, YOUR shares. I remain hopeful that we will be able to sell these shares and recover additional funds.
In other news, World Stock Exchange has recently announced a service outage of "up to 30 days", stating that it is for reasons related to deployment of a new version of their stock market simulation software. As a software developer with a lot of experience in web applications, I'm fully aware that deploying a new version shouldn't impact the production version at all, or cause more than a few minutes to a few hours of service outage. With this in mind, it seems a little alarming that such an extended downtime is occurring, again, and I am a little concerned that something catastrophic or just plain bizarre may have occurred behind the scenes. I wouldn't want to speculate as to what this may be without any more information beyond the outage itself though, and I very well could be wrong.
I remain hopeful that World Stock Exchange will reopen. Failing that, I remain hopeful that the Ginko victim list can be provided by Hope Capital, so I can script a Second Life object of my own to deliver your virtual liquidation dividend. So, what's the bottom line for Ginko virtual liquidation trust?
We're L$300,000 better off than we were a few days ago, but we still have a long way to go. I remain hopeful that we will get there.
As a reminder, I am not affiliated with Ginko in any way. I am simply a third party and fellow victim, trying to help us all recover as much as possible from Ginko's in-world Second Life assets.
Posted in Second Life, Business, Economy, World Stock Exchange, Ginko Financial | 2 comments
Posted by Shaun Altman
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:00:00 GMT
Tonight, I circulated the following press release to major Second Life media centers:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8, 2007
GINKO LIQUIDATION UPDATE
The virtual asset recovery window for the virtual Ginko liquidation trust has closed. No additional virtual assets proved to be recoverable.
What was recovered:
BNT virtual Stock - 8,783,436 Shares
RIS virtual Stock - 1,667 Shares
Land - 1 Second Life Region (Von Mises)
Known Unrecoverable Virtual Assets:
HCL virtual Stock - 8,800,000 Shares, LukeConnell Vandeverre in possession.
Liquidation of recovered virtual assets has begun. I expect this to be a VERY slow process, as liquidity in the virtual stock markets is extremely limited. I am presently advising any Ginko victims who would like to benefit from this virtual asset liquidation to HOLD their virtual WTF shares, or to consider buying them back if they have already been sold for L$. IF you choose to sell your virtual WTF shares, the buyer of your virtual shares will benefit in your place, and your recovery will be limited to the L$ you receive from the sale of your virtual shares.
A third press release will be circulated to major Second Life media centers when liquidation of recovered virtual assets is complete. Due to the uncertain nature of the virtual stock markets, I have no firm timeline to share with you at present. Please watch my blog at http://www.shaunaltman.com/ for occasional updates.
Posted in Business, Economy, World Stock Exchange, Ginko Financial | 3 comments
Posted by Shaun Altman
Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:14:00 GMT
This is just a quick update to let the community know that I'm pushing the date at which recovered Ginko assets will be documented back by a short amount of time. New facts and situations have come to light near the end of the asset discovery process, and I feel that it is in everyone's best interests if I take some time to explore said facts and situations fully. What does "A short amount of time" mean? I'm not sure yet, but I would imagine a few days to a week.
I will circulate a press release, as promised, documenting what I have recovered, just as soon as I am positive that I have recovered as many assets as we can reasonably expect to. The best thing that Ginko victims can do right now is be patient as this process unfolds. At this time, I am also recommending AGAINST Ginko victims selling the shares that you were given in the WTF fraud fund at World Stock Exchange. If you choose to sell these shares, it is possible that you will be unable to realize any benefits from this liquidation, as the buyer may realize them in your place. If you HAVE sold your Ginko bonds or shares of the WTF fraud fund, I am recommending that you buy those shares back, and hold ONE share of the WTF fraud fund for each L$1 that you had deposited at Ginko's bank until this liquidation is complete.
If you are reading this, and know others who had deposits at Ginko's bank, please ensure that they read it as well. If you are a Second Life media organization that is carrying my press releases regarding the Ginko liquidation plan, please feel free to link to and quote from this article.
Please note that I am not in any way affiliated with Ginko. I am only a stakeholder, like yourselves, who is attempting to pick up the pieces by recovering and liquidating any in-world Ginko assets I can for the benefit of all victims.
Posted in Community, Economy, World Stock Exchange, Ginko Financial | 4 comments
Posted by Shaun Altman
Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:54:00 GMT
On October 17th, 2007, the World Stock Exchange announced a fraud compensation package for shareholders at the bottom of this public announcement. When I read about the compensation package, I thought it was worthy of both examination and preservation. Lets examine it together. I've also taken the liberty of preserving the portion of this announcement that deals with the compensation package at the bottom of this article, as announcements frequently vanish from the World Stock Exchange announcement system.
Here are the basics of the fraud compensation package:
- A new exchange traded "fund", called WSE Traders Fund (ticker symbol WTF) will be created.
- The "fund" will hold shares of Hope Capital (ticker symbol HCL), the same "company" that owns World Stock Exchange.
- All shares in fraudulent World Stock Exchange companies will be destroyed, and newly created shares of WSE Traders Fund will be given to the shareholders of the fraudulent companies.
We can see from the basics of this fraud compensation package that all of its value will be derived from HCL stock. With this in mind, the most important question to ask about this fund is where will the HCL stock backing it come from? As Ginko Financial has recently announced the failure of its bond, I think we can reasonably assume that the fund's HCL stock will come from the 8,800,000 shares of HCL that were previously owned by Ginko.
As of this writing, the market valued HCL stock at L$0.75 per share, giving the fund a net asset value of around L$6,600,000. This is a pretty depressing amount of value for the fraud compensation fund, given that Ginko's fraud alone has a value of L$200,000,000. That is to say, if Ginko were the ONLY fraudulent company having its shares converted into this fund, each share of the fund would be worth about L$0.04 in theory. Given the very long list of other fraudulent companies that are also scheduled to have their shares converted into shares of this fund, I think that fraud victims can expect an asset value of around L$0.02 per share for the fund.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in the fact that World Stock Exchange should do what it can to make amends for all of the fraud that it has brought upon the Second Life community. This fund structure, however, begs the question, why even bother? Creating a fund that only compensates the victims for 2% of the fraud that they have endured at World Stock Exchange is nothing more than rubbing salt in the wounds of the victims.
Besides the fact that this fund seems to be an insult to all victims of fraud at World Stock Exchange, offering them only a theoretical 2% compensation for the fraud they have endured, there is an even bigger problem: Perpetual dilution of value! I don't know about you, but I'm not fooled into thinking that fraud at World Stock Exchange is somehow being curbed by a tiny compensation fund that costs the exchange exactly NOTHING each time fraud is committed there.
Since we can take it as a given that the fraud will continue at World Stock Exchange, this means that MILLIONS MORE SHARES of this fund will be created after the commission of each fraud. However, Ginko is the only World Stock Exchange listed security owning any HCL shares to seize and add to the fund. Therefore, as time marches on, the value of an existing share in the fraud compensation fund will DROP dramatically due to the commission of new fraud and thus the creation of new shares in the fraud compensation fund. Would YOU buy shares in such a fund? I sure wouldn't, and I think it is reasonable to assume that nobody with any common sense would.
If World Stock Exchange is serious about compensating the Second Life community for all of the fraud that it has ushered in, it needs to do a lot more than what was announced here. I think that to even show good faith, Connell should contribute his 5 million shares of HCL to this fund, so it has a better starting point. In addition, 90% of all trading commissions collected by World Stock Exchange should be used to buy back shares of this fund via market order, at L$1.00 per share or less, as long as any shares exist for sale at or below L$1.00. This strategy assumes of course that each L$1.00 worth of fraud is worth one share of the fraud compensation fund, as presently seems to be the structure.
I think it is a joke for this guy to get rich off of the trading commissions we pay him to trade what he knows to most likely be fraudulent stocks, and then insult us with a fraud compensation fund that is structured in a manner that not only fails to compensate us for the fraud that we are victims of, but costs him NOTHING. Yep, I think the joke is on us, and Luke Connell is laughing all the way to the bank. The world stock exchange ticker symbol for this fund, WTF, seems highly appropriate to me: What The Fuck?!
If World Stock Exchange wants to posture in press releases about how it is doing something good for their customers, who they state made World Stock Exchange what it is today, and were the victims of fraud at World Stock Exchange in the process, they can SURELY do a lot better than what they've announced in the excerpt below. There seems to be no actual MONEY to be found anywhere in this fraud compensation scheme for the victims. In fact, it seems that all World Stock Exchange is doing here is converting a bunch of fraudulent stocks into a single, unified fraudulent stock, and posturing to the fraud victims about how this is somehow a blessing.
--- Begin WSE Quote ---
- THE KILLER APP OF VIRTUAL FINANCE NOT YET REVEALED BUT COMING SOON....
THE SECRET IS REVEALED!
Yes its true, it has always been part of the WSE's agenda to ensure that all WSE Traders whom we class as stakeholders would be indirectly protected as much as possible from the potential ethics based fraud and misconduct that would come from businesses listing on the WSE during the start-up and development phase which has been almost entirely unregulated environment in order to cultivate and encourage growth.
The Secret is out and the time has now come as we feel there is an improved regulatory environment and sufficient information available to WSE traders in order to help them make informed decisions when trading on the WSE.
World Stock Exchange Traders Fund (WTF) is a specially designed fund that holds shares in Hope Capital Ltd on behalf of all WSE account holders who have lost their virtual shares or bonds in delisted companies up to the 19th October 2007. All WSE account holders are stakeholders in the business.
Management alone did not make the WSE what it is today and it is through the participation of our customers that the WSE has become what it is today and what it will become in the future.
WSE account holders will have all their shares in any company that was delisted due to fraud or bankruptcy converted into shares in the World Stock Exchange Traders Fund (WTF).
The WSE Traders Fund will be allocated shares in Hope Capital Ltd on 23rd October 2007 and will begin actively trading on the WSE on the 24th October 2007.
CURRENT CONVERSIONS INCLUDE:
APT 1 - 3
PNK 1 - 1
IBM 1 - 1
MPR 1 - 1
PCL 1 - 1
PPC 1 - 1
RIN 1 - 1
SEX 1 - 1
TSF 1 - 10
WED 1 - 1
TLS 1 - 1
XAN 1 - 1
XDT 1 - 1
SBJ 1 - 1
TGC 1 - 1
PGI 1 - 3
AMD 1 - 0.5
CIG 1 - 1
--- End WSE Quote ---
Posted in Community, Second Life, Business, Economy, World Stock Exchange, Ginko Financial | 10 comments | no trackbacks
