Scammer took my cash/I feel like killing myself/IRLIngame (blawrf vs human decency)
"Why didn't we hire a fucking eagle?"
I've played EVE for about seven months or so now, and on my first week into the game I launched into scamming and had accumulated 7bill ISK in the next seven days. I bought a perfect Tengu EVEdude from another Goon and never really looked back at such honourless ways of making space-bucks bar the odd jaunt into recruitment scamming to help a newbee I took under my proverbial wing. I looked at people like Kharthis - who is a fucking amazing wonderful bastard and is quite probably the best scammer in GSF and EVE today - and lamented the fact that I burn out so goddamn easily at stuff. I envied their ability to keep at it, day after day, week after week, facing inexorable failure and certain ridicule at the furiously typed words of mouth-breathing pubbies. I envied, too, their ability to seemingly detach themselves from emotion in order to ruin all that these spasticated plebeians held dear. A week, 7bill ISK and a Tengu-dude and I was ready to sit back upon my laurels and grow space-fat to an extent that mirrors my actual body mass.
It was not to be, however. My dear space-friend Kaleb Rysode highlighted me early one morning and dragged me from my bed, where I was shifting restlessly from those nightmares - the recurring ones, in which the faces of every poor mouthbreather I had released from the burden of this terrible game whispered bad things in my ear. Think Mass Effect 3 dream sequence, where I am Shepard and the fleeing child is my space innocence.
Kaleb and I had met a couple of weeks before in Sigma jabber and we'd played sounding board together over a couple of low-value scams, just the good old Recruitment Director bullshit. For those of you who don't know this dude, he's both a proud (self-hating) Jew and an ex member of FA. Some say that he's to blame for the space-bushido FA vs TEST dickslap catfight this past November. Some say that he was the victim of an anti semitic assasination attempt by a very brown cab driver whilst riding his bike and in the resulting carnage, had an epiphany that led him to join Goonwaffe. All I know is that he is a magnificent bastard.
"I've found the motherlode," he said. I stared groggily at my jabber window and replied - I figured he meant just another recruitment idiot, some guy with a spare bill and a Nightmare who wanted to shoot Guristas and hang out with the goonies because they really got us.
Turned out I was wrong, though. The person that Kaleb had found was an established supercapital manufacturer, or so he claimed. I pulled my dressing gown tighter about myself and began to think as to how to work this. I'm not Kharthis, or any of those awesome supercapital scammers. How could I possibly pull this off? The answer came soon enough.
<****>: I love [my ceo] but with my mental health problems they nearly pushed me to suicide this morning
<****>: Spent the last 2 hours crying and holding a v.sharp knife. Started smoking again too
MENTAL INSTABILITY. Jesus H Christ, I goddamn love mental instability. Not only was this guy about as bipolar as a cloned Frankenstein amalgamation of Stephen Fry and Kurt Cobain, but he was also having trouble in his current corp. Easy. I'm a fucking teaching assistant in a school for troubled children. This dude was the Smeagol of EVE; his ginormous blueprint collection was the One Ring and goddamn it was it calling to me.
Anyway, we quickly decide how we want to introduce me into the scam. He's looking to join GSF and build shit for us, and, well, what self-respecting alliance DOESN'T have a supercapital building program? I was to pose as the Director of the CapSwarm Building Program2 and tell the mark just how EXCITED CBP were to have him. It worked, eventually, though our plan to have him drop all of his shit into the corp hangar was met with some resistance. Ballsy, I think - but the conversation was very much "hello, dude. My name is Blawrf, here's what we do: drop your billions of shit into the corporation hangar, so it can be audited. Thanks!"
He was reticent.
<****> actually 33 cap component bpos - 5 in research I forgot about
<****> Hel Blueprint Nyx Blueprint Nyx Blueprint my first 3 intended projects
<****> I'm happy if you want me to open trade and show you all my bpos
<****> I'm just a bit uncomfortable dropping my eve life's work into a general hanger where they can get removed
I convinced him that we needed him.
<Blawrf McTaggart > But what complete mouth-breathing idiot would possibly try to screw over someone who could build supercapitals for the alliance? Who would do that? Why?
<Blawrf McTaggart > I completely and utterly understand your prevarication and your worries, but I have to ask that. Someone as valued as yourself is offering your services and we are eternally grateful-
<Blawrf McTaggart > Are you worried that we would, eh, take your BPOs?
<****> yes honestly I am concerned
<Blawrf McTaggart > Do you think we would risk both our reputation and a great asset for the alliance for- what- i'm guessing you have perhaps fourty bill ISK in BPOs?
<Blawrf McTaggart > If I had my way, I would ask to view your BPOs through trade and I would be okay with that. GIA are not. GIA want it done their way, so they can use their own auditing tools.
<Blawrf McTaggart > There would be one person inside of your corporation. They would have director roles, but they would never, ever think of taking your BPOs. They need to be in the hangar, as well as everything else, merely for auditing. It's the way it works. But mate-...
<Blawrf McTaggart > We have trillions. Hundreds of trillions. We really do not want your BPOs, we want you.
?<Blawrf McTaggart > And, frankly, I couldn't scam to save my life. I'd end up blabbering like a fool.
Our story picks up maybe three or four days later. Neither me nor Kaleb had heard from the mark since he left that conversation that night, claiming he needed to have a think - then, out of the blue, he opens a conversation with Kaleb.
<****> What's new in the eveoverse
<Kaleb Rysode> Not much, just getting rid of the squatters in Tenal.
<Kaleb Rysode> And enjoying some mass effect 3 on the side.
<Kaleb Rysode> How are you feeling?
<****> In hospitalbored stupid
<Kaleb Rysode> ugh
<Kaleb Rysode> what happened?
<****> [My ceo] got stuck into me about the cap corp poss moving to gsf
<****> So I took 60 Xanax
In retrospect, it was probably here that I realised that this scam would go through. Perhaps I should've felt bad for scamming a mentally unstable dude who'd just tried to commit suicide, but I had tasted the power of the One Thousand Blueprints, I had unleashed a beast. I'd suffered too much of this guy's whiny bullshit to call it, now, and besides I don't live in America. There's not really much of a chance i'll be sued for stealing some bipolar dude's space-pixels. Me and Kaleb continued onward, somewhat like Frodo & Sam, treading deep into the dark lands of Sociopathy.
"We wants it, we needs it! Must have the precious!"
Our mark insists that as he has been hospitalised, so the rest of the scam is plagued by pauses and breaks during which he presumably loses his entire personality and being to the cocktail of uppers and downers that they're forcing down his throat, but we persist. We both get a little pissed, but we present a united front and, finally, we get the API keys of his ELEVEN (11) accounts. I act the nice guy, the dude on his side against the menacing shadow of the GIA.
<Blawrf McTaggart> Grand. GIA have asked me to get this whole deal tied up so we can get you into the alliance and all done, so here's what I want to do-
<Blawrf McTaggart> I'm going to ask you to drop roles in your current corp and leave, we'll then get you into the corp. which - if you check it ingame - you'll see is blue to GSF.
Note: the corp description simply said "blue to GSF."
<Blawrf McTaggart> In order to get both of this audit sorted - we'll ask for two things. We'll give you all the roles necessary within the corp so that you effectively own it.
<Blawrf McTaggart> We'll ask you for a simple API code for each of your cap and cbp accounts that simply shows your ingame belongings, and we'll ask for you to deposit all of the cap-building equipment into the corp hangar at the office station.
<Blawrf McTaggart> Your stuff will be in the hangar for 24-48 hours, at the very most. We'll ask that everything is deposited simply so that we know what you have and we have everything we need to know.
With the API keys in hand, we check to see what he's got. He wasn't lying. This was truly the motherlode. I've included our takings in the spoiler at the bottom of this post. I should note that the mark voluntarily gave me the FULL API keys to each of his accounts, with the message "this is how much I trust you."
From here on, there is no persuading to be done. I have this dude following my every move - he is the space-Lennie to my space-George, and he doesn't know it, but i'm about to (warning: Of Mice and Men spoilers) shoot him in the back of his head with a space-revolver.
Metaphorically.
I let him know that the GIA (read: me and Kaleb) had found some anomalous assets sitting around the universe that we would like him to contract. He says sure, logs on and contracts it. Sansha Control Tower, Charon, half of a Nyx + BPC, roughly fifteen subcaps. It takes another couple of days for us to finally find a time when we were all on at the same time, but when we did - and when the mark presumably stopped popping pills enough to think a single coherent thought - we finalised the scam.
It's a bit anti-climactic, really. I spoke to him on messenger and told him to log on and dump all that he had in the corporation hangar. I should note that I had tried to nab around 12bill in ships before this, but he had gotten a bit uppity and I decided it a bit too dangerous to push. The day when he deposits every single one of his BPOs?
<Blawrf McTaggart> Take a look through your own assets. I hate to be blunt, but anything of worth needs to be declared, so let me know if you find anything.
<****> Rorqual and Archon in Vehan
<****> I'll contract to corp if needed
<****> and ofc the freighter and rhea
That's right. Those self-same ships he fussed about, he offered to me, like some sickening sacrifice to heathen gods. We then noticed that he had a wallet of 8bill, liquid. How to scam that from him?
Oh yes! How better than to suggest he buys a Ragnarok BPC and contracts it. I mean, we can get him 20bill ISK profit in weeks!
Idiot.
Total haul? I'll include screenshots and a rough list in the spoiler tags below.
Oh, and my goodbye message to the guy?
<****> My wife keeps nagging me that there must be a way to make money in the game [rather than plex]. I tell her the cap bpos are investing in the game
<****> She usually buys it
<Blawrf McTaggart> Be careful with them, then, yeah?
<Blawrf McTaggart> Don't give them to someone you don't trust.
"We made it, Mister Frodo."
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Originally Posted by Mister McTag
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