Artem Blue wrote:In the spirit of due diligence, I looked up all the referenced characters on this forum and in-game, and spoke to Ember a bit in-game.
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5. Ember was not able to cut and paste the corp bulletin announcing this internal investment possibility from the corp bulletin when I asked. Being able to do something like that promptly when surprised is something that an honest individual could do, but a dishonest individual could not (hard to make up such an elaborate deceptive document fast enough) - it would be strong evidence of honesty. The fact that Ember couldn't is therefore weak evidence against honesty; however, there are good alternative explanations, like that there might be sensitive information in that post, or that Ember was suspicious that I might be up to some espionage goal.
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Risks I can see:
1. It's a remote possibility that the entire IRS corp could be one person or a small number of tightly-knit people.
2. It's a possibility that Euphoric / Doctor Strangelove has been running a Ponzi / pyramid scheme inside his own corp and now wants to expand beyond it.
3. It's a possibility (from your perspective) that I'm the same person, or closely associated with, Euphoric / Doctor Strangelove / IRS and am working to boost your confidence and increase the yield of the scam.
This is my first time reading the thread since my conversation with Artem and just thought I might clarify a few points, but first let me say that I appreciate the time and effort that Artem has put into attempting to Audit/Investigate what I believe is Perpetuum's first investment offering. I full well understand the potential pitfalls of investing in unregulated unaudited vehicles let alone anything secured by nothing more than an internet reputation. There are risks involved, no one has implied otherwise, and I think Euphoric and Artem have disclosed and hashed out most of the obvious ones.
When Artem PM'd me I was still aggrivated by what I judge to be relentless forum trolling by M2S.
- "Equal opportunity forum troll" from Neoxx's signature (since changed)
Another M2S member proudly identifying themselves as a troll
- http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … rn/page/3/
Speaks for itself... Dev Zoom threatens banning... trolling continues elsewhere
- http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … -trolling/
Other forum users commenting on M2S trolling
- http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … -subforum/
After opening the conversation by asking for a list of alts within the corp Artem identified himself as a potential investor and I made it immediately clear that as an IRS member my word held little weight in the matter. I further added that IMO the investment is legitimate and that if it's not the entire corp is "screwed".
I further disclosed that I am not invested, many members are, but that similiar investments had been available since I joined the corp and that I had invested in earlier rounds. As Euphoric disclosed their are currently more profitable oppotunities for industrial characters that have not yet reached a point of diminishing returns.
Artem continuued to ask sensative questions about the number of corp members online, identities of officers, etc. My answers were admitably stand offish. When asked to cut and paste to chatbox, the wall of text that is the corps investment thread I assumed that Artem wanted more information and I began to recap the investment features, as well as describe my impression of the IRS business model, it's sustainability and the capitolistic nature of the corps inner workings. Artem did not broach the subject of cutting and pasting from the corp bulletin a second time, thus indicating that his questions had been answered. As I mentioned above their are similiar investments avaiblable within the corp, perhaps I should have used and stressed the word IDENTICAL so as not to cast a shadow upon my character.
In truth Artem first set the stage for my suspicions of fowl play by initiating the conversation with questions about alts within the corp. Then Artem invented an elaborate "test" of my honesty. Selectively interpreted the results as indicative of my character. Then posted the interpretation miss-using words like "able" and "couldn't" as supposed evidence. Their are many fallacies in Artems logic the most prominent of which is called denying the anticedent. The fact that God has not revealed himself through hard evidence proves nothing about his existence one way or the other despite whatever you may or may not want to believe. Not cutting and pasting internal information upon request bears no reflection upon my honesty or this invesment.... a lack of evidence is only evidence in your imagintaion.
As I said I appreciate Artem's efforts in attempting to investigate/audit this investment opportunity, an impossible task at best. He performed a fair amount of research, tried to present a balanced opinion and multiple interpretations. But to sum it up, unknown people on the internet want to take your pretend money. It's Risky. However, the risk is partially mitigated by the virtual nature of the pretend money and a low minimum investment. For what it's worth (not much), I fully believe this opportunity to be legitimate and would be more concerned with rate risk. However, if your a combat only player with no sources of passive income this might be a good thing for you. Or better yet, if your combat oriented we're recruting, join our corp "IRS" and invest from within.
"You're living in a parallel universe." ~Syndic