EVE-Mag.com

The Last Nail in the Coffin?

Published on 06. Jul, 2009 ... written by Ecaf Ersa, Tags: Articles

In November 2008 EVE-Mag featured Jacob Mei’s An interview with E-Bank’s Ricdic.

In the aftermath of the previous EIB embezzlement scandal Ricdic was keen to make much of the auditing and controls in place at E-Bank which would limit the amount of ISK that any one player would be able to run off with.

Ricdic: We have very strict internal security procedures as was mentioned above. No one player has access to an amount of funding that could hurt the bank. I have access to the most in EBANK and generally even if I were to scam my yield would be approximately 130 billion isk (barely 10% of EBANK value). Most of our funds are tied up in investments, loans and subsidiary corporations that are secured by multiple members of staff.

Well as it turns out, just last month, Ricdic did exactly that. He took around 200 billion ISK of the money invested in the bank (said to be around 8% of the bank’s total assets held) and sold it for cash, reported to be GBP 3,115. Of course this is Real Money Trading (RMT) which is against the EULA and Ricdic has subsequently had his account banned.

This news made it onto non-EVE news websites and the news agency Reuters obtained a quote from the player, known only as Richard:

“I’m not proud of it at all, that’s why I didn’t brag about it,” Ricdic told Reuters. “But you know, if I had to do it again, I probably would’ve chosen the same path based on the same situation.”

He is reported to have used the money for medical bills and a deposit on a house.

So in a game already suffering from a distinct lack of trust among players I have to ask two questions.

1. Is this the final nail in the coffin for EVE banks?

   It certainly hasn’t done them any good – when somebody who had become a trusted figure in the EVE community takes advantage of his position to resolve some real life issues it is bound to bring many people to the conclusion that the safest place for their ISK is in their own wallet, even if it may not be the most rewarding.

   Having said that, despite the reported run of customers withdrawing their money, E-Bank is still trading and their online statistics are showing that they still have around 14,000 accounts holding in excess of 2 trillion ISK between them. This is, in my opinion, to the great credit of the players still there running E-Bank and could be reason enough to continue placing your trust in them.

2. Is it time for CCP to step in?

   It could be, but let’s be clear here, Ricdic’s account was banned for RMT and not for taking the money. CCP have always been clear on their position that they will not get involved in matters such as these. So we should not expect them to start taking action against scammers or embezzlers. However this kind of event is clearly damaging for the game and maybe there is now merit in the construction of some in-game mechanics for handling other people’s money. How this could be implemented I have no idea but I am of the opinion that this issue needs looking at.

Other calls are being made to try and restrict the proliferation of scams in EVE. In CrazyKinux’s Blog Banter #9 in which the question is asked “What mechanic would you like to see removed from EVE?”, Cozmik R5 calls for the removal of public contracts because of the ease with which they are used for scams.

Tags: ebank, embezzlement, ricdic, scam, theft