First of all we’d like to thank evenews24.com for giving us some airtime here. Most of the visitors to our website already know what happened, but to be sure: The 12th of August 2011, we revealed the true purpose of Phaserinc.com. We always knew that that day would come. We never intended to be a real investment corporation or anything remotely like similar. Phaser Inc. was designed as a so-called Ponzi Scheme right from its inception.
We have already published our reasons for doing it on our website (www.phaserinc.com) but this seems to be a good moment to give a more in-depth view. We have both played Eve for quite a while – though not under the names Eddie Lampert and Mordor Exuel of course. We PVPed a lot and, like everyone else who does, we needed ISK to do it. We used to earn money by trading and ratting which burned quite a lot of valuable PVP time. That’s where it all started.
We went through the possible options to earn ISK and decided a scam would be the most profitable thing to do. The downside of a scam, however, is that other players lose the ISK that we gain. This was, at first, a rather large moral obstacle for both of us. We talked it over for quite a while and came to the decision that we could live with it. The main reason being that scramming people’s money is allowed by CCP. The game rules support – maybe even encourage – scam and fraud. It’s actually as much allowed as two players shooting one another in low and nullsec. Simply put: it’s part of the game.
If one players destroys another (with the loss of ship, pod and implants), the victim also loses ISK. Some may be angry for a while while others have learned to accept the loss of ships as a part of the game. There’s not really much of a difference between that and what we did. The only marked difference is that shooting each other is more common – more players are willing and able to shoot other players than can pull off a scam. We think the desire to run an involved scam is present, but the knowledge and drive to commit to a long-term, complicated, and time intensive scheme isn’t. Along with this, we don’t want to forget to mention an important downside of shooting each other. It might be more common, but there is also a lot of ISK wasted. The ISK that is lost by the victim is usually significantly higher than the killer gains so there is a substantial amount of ISK thrown away in PVP.
Surprisingly (we have to admit), at the end of our eight month run, we received much less “hate mail” than we had expected. More specificly, 90% of the mail we received has been positive “”Thumbs up.” “We love you guys.” “Well done,” and so on) including messages sent by people who lost billions. We think that confirms the truth of our statement that scamming is as much condoned as shooting one other. The one thing we did not expect is that so many people would be on the same page as us. So to all players that gave us kudos after we closed Phaser Inc., we are sorry we underestimated your ability to put all this in the right perspective.
Let’s flashback to November 2010 when the decision was made to craft a scam. We realized quite quickly that a Ponzi Scheme would be the best way to gain a lot of ISK. However, we also decided to do something significant – maybe even historic. When we PVP, we want to be good or even the best (which we are NOT by any stretch of the imagination but that is our goal). But, setting that goal establishes a standard for improvement each time we go out. So, it naturally follows, this goal must be carried into the scam we were about to start. The scam had to be the real deal. And not only the real deal, but it must also have its own standard for achievement. We did our research and read extensively about scams on the internet. It seemed that for EVE, 800 billion was the record for being the biggest scam in game history. Our goal, therefore, was to reach 1 trillion and all our plans focused on that as a target.
We began by spamming local chat channels slow and easy. We received private convo invites surprisingly fast and it took only a day or so to get our first client. We were processing everything manually initially. Unfortunately, we soon discovered we would never reach 1 trillion in 10 years if we continued in that fashion. So we started automating things. Step-by-step we developed a fully-automated process for handling deposits. We used the API service to check our wallets and update the balances of the online accounts (Every client had an online account). The only actual work we did was fly around annoying people with our ads in local, process mail, and do the payouts. Registration, depositing, resetting passwords and changing payout schemes were all done automatically. I would also venture a guess that seeing the management process and the website evolve lent credibility to our enterprise. (Major thanks to our site developer – also an EVE player. He/she did a wonderful job with this and did not know the real purpose of Phaser Inc.)
Slowly we increased the volume of ad presence in local chats, and ceased accepting private convo invites. It turned out to be more efficient to continue spamming than to accept convos. That one potential investor who ran away because we didn’t accept a convo wasn’t as big of a loss considering spamming ads brought in more people for the time spent. In addition to that, we hired an editor (also an EVE player) to polish the text on our website giving it that extra, professional touch that became crucial since there was no, or very little, personal contact involved. (I’d like to thank our editor for the quality of service provided – also without knowing what we were up to.)
Finally, at a certain point, we reached the area of 1 trillion. We still had momentum to continue. We could easily have reached 1.3 or 1.6 trillion but we decided what we had was enough. In eight months Phaser Inc. took more time than PVP (the reason we started Phaser Inc.) but we now have enough ISK to play EVE for a very, very, very long time, and will probably never have to worry about ratting, mining, or anything else to make ISK for our PVP expenses. But still, it did become a second job. It was at the point where we were spending as much time and effort advertising as we were in our RL employment that we said, “Enough is enough. We’re done.” We reached our goals. We didn’t feel a need to squeeze anything more from it. We didn’t want to drag more people into it, as well. At that point, the decision was made to close down Phaser Inc. on the 12th of August 2011.
Once again, thanks to Eve News 24 for the opportunity to cast a little light on the dark corners of our possibly nefarious but quite profitable enterprise. Though it involved a lot of work in the end, it also got us to where we wanted to go.
Good luck and best wishes to everyone.
We remain yours sincerely,
Mordor Exuel & Eddie Lampert
P.S. We would also like to thank those that have continued to deposit even after we took down the site. About 1.5 billion isk has been deposited in the last two days.
Once again gents, my hat is off to you. Hate the game, not the player, and you guys played the game in high fashion. I think many of us admire your work, it's a shame the site was taken down, as it was quite well put together and convincing.
I'm just glad I listened to my gut, and didn't invest. One thing EVE instills in every veteran player: extreme paranoia.
Kudos.
Agreed, nicely done. Nice justification with the PVP/ship loss comparison too.
wait don't hate the game lol
o/ Kimsemus
btw, the Web site's fine. Its just the link thats fubared
Didn't realize I'd messed up the link.
Fixed.
well i was one of those that got scammed and i also got my corp to invest and we invested over 15 billion isk so i just got to say well done!
1trillian isk stolen. whats there to say well done.
well there is no proof of how much isk was taken just their word, i find it hard to believe there is that many dumb ppl around
Really? Have you met many people? Most of them are remarkably stupid.
Can i sell you a navy raven? only thing is that my contract slots are full.
kthxbye
When there's a reputation behind it people let their guard down
Sounds more like the goal was a whole lot of "look at me!" rather then anything else, two articles on Evenews24 on the same topic, I'd say mission accomplished.
Not really. EVE News 24 were the ones to bring this to light in the first article. It really seems like it was a genuine attempt to just make a lot of money. Phaser didn't submit the story, EVE News just picked it up and the guys agreed to write up a little summary of why they did it, seen here.
The announcement on their webpage was just to tell their "investors" that "you got fucked" and that they could stop donating their money. Which apparently some people didn't…. heh
What did you bring to light? Did you show proof that money was stolen? That they actually received 1 trillion? Cause is Evenew24 brought that to light I missed it. Just a couple of admitted theives word is all you got.
I'm not EN24….
noob ppl deserve to be scammed
a very good job to the scammers !
why they never learn that ponzi is a bad business ?
To those who invested, they had no reason other than paranoia to think that it was a scam.
PS if anyone wants to read somthing else, do something newsworthy and dont complain
They had no reason to believe this was anything real either. Eve's history is stuffed full of this kind of scam. If you're mug enough to think this is real you might as well be sending cash to Nigeria.
So you got an extra 1.5bil after all this went public? If you have any spare, I'll happily take some off your hands. Just send to my alt Aeris Louise and I guarantee you I won't return it or double it
Hey, you don't ask you don't get amirite? And if you wanna donate more than the 1.5bil extra you got I'll be happy to take that too.
A fool and his isk are soon parted. Grats.
It would be interesting to know how many people bought into this. I imagine it was more than a few hundred, so possible a fairly large % of EVE population (say 1-2%)
I dont get it, u stole trilion isk, u gonna sell it for $/€ and now ure "selling" fog to the rest of us.
A said b4, this isnt news, this is just new RMT on market.
You say that like its a bad thing. What if they donate half of the real money to kids in somalia, still think RMT is bad?
Only two things are infinite, The universe, and humans stupidity, and im not sure about the universe.
If you're going to attempt to quote Einstein, at least quote him correctly.
Welp now they can both have titan alts
"It was at the point where we were spending as much time and effort advertising as we were in our RL employment" that's some serious shit there. I'm sure many people have thought about scamming but weighed up the time/effort and decided they could not be bothered. really good job but that's a long time to spend on the game. If only i could be arsed lol!
I accept that scams are a part of EVE, but giving compliments for that?! It's takes some inocence to fall in scamms, but giving tumbs up for it is just a ridiculous lack of sense of right and wrong.
At least the scammers show that they are conscious that scamming is not a good thing.
my hats off to you boys, fine work and finely put together.
The question is, when are you gonna buy those 100 titans?
P.S. We would also like to thank those that have continued to deposit even after we took down the site. About 1.5 billion isk has been deposited in the last two days.
Seriously??….
You can be an ABSOLUTE TWAT in real life too, but what stops most from doing it is consience, decency and in genera justl not being a Twat….
FFS, is no one asking for proof of any of this? No wallet screens, no APIs, no evidence of ANY KIND. I'm sure they got money, but the people believing the trillion ISK claims are as gullible as the people that sent them money in the first place IMO.
They published their account information on their website: www.phaserinc.com/index2.html
Of course, its just numbers that they could have made up if they wanted to but it's the best we've got. They refuse to do API checks for privacy reasons (which I find understandable) and they spent much of the money as they got it so they never had the 1 trillion isk sitting by itself in a single account. Tracking it all through screenshots of a wallet would be impossible.
Sure, its possible that they didn't actually get 1 trillion isk but I'm inclined to believe them.
So were their investors.
evenews24 brought it to light?
uhm, the guys closed down their ponzi and told everyone who would listen to it about it,
how is that 'bringing it to light'?
The only thing I'm a little ticked off about is the spam. I mean, I'm the only guy in local and I get 10-15 spams in an hour. You sure the wallet is the only thing you had automated?
Anyhow, whoever bought into this had it coming. I just hope they're not the same people who buy those enlargement pills that get advertised in their inbox either. Kudos for the webdesign too, that was classy.
Don't hate the player.
Scam is permited in the game sure, but what about Moral (or scammer just enjoy this cause cannot do it in RL???)
So if in RL there is no a Law and punisment for scam ppl and/or institutions you sure do it sure cause you guys lack of education.
Example: in RL there is no law for have anal-sex yourself or for call a big guy with a "big tool" to rape you. But unless youre homosexual im sure you will dont do it or want it right???
so you just wrote a beautiful text to cover you simply and clearly lack of education.
thanks.
Y.
It's not like RL companies aren't ripping you off in every way they can as long as it's not illegal.
I cant believe what kind of people is playing this game, so you guys think that's a nice thing to do even in a game? Hope those guys doesn't create one of those systems in rl and get all your real life money investment.
If you guys think a little bit they took 32 000 € worth of isk, like a society we should condemn this type of behave, and not applaud.
And if someone press charges in RL they probably will have some problems or concerns, that's game money but you can converted in effort and does have real value.
One advice: quit EVE, it's not for you
Well I don't get involved in scams, at least I do not go for it, not in RL or in a game, I appreciate other aspects of the game, economy, war, etc.
Well the world is full of ignorant and stupid people, so in Eve or in RL we have to live with it, one advise for you also, get a rope and hang yourself, would be one less stupid "person" in this world for sure.
RL is not for you happy hanging.
Heh you think i'm making fun of you but I'm serious, if you can't stand the scamming you are better of playing WoW or some other MMO. The whole point of EVE is the sandbox concept.
And thanks for the suggestion but I dont have a rope unfortunately
sandbox…mmh nice word but its still a bit detached from reality
when you do such scam in RL are you praised as well? Maybe by few but you are going into jail pretty quick (well at least in more evolved countries)
There is no consequence in doing scam. When you go pirate, you can loose your ship/pod/etc and if you gank me I can get another ship and try to shoot you down, but here? What is consequence ? The scam is only win-win
So it is just not balanced and there is no risk involved , like in every (or majority?) other activity in EVE.
So before suggesting to play WoW think a bit about it.
Those scammers were CCP Alts. Its a nice way to 1) sink ISK 2) stop spamming/scamming as the fools/noobs will learn.
[...] it correctly). Indeed, CONCORD interventions in the market are incredibly few and far between, with most scams being completely ignored by regulators. Indeed, the New Eden market may be the closest that [...]