Market Discussions

Ok so this may very well be RMT related. Which is why I reported this via petition and email a month ago (neither responded to, but that's beside the point, I wouldn't particularly expect nor warrant one).

If it is RMT then many of those below may have already been caught, there are certainly a few Doomheimer 666ers in the list. That the transactions continue into recent weeks would either hint at the scale of the task facing Sreegs' team or at the normal continuance of some other, perfectly legal, business practice I'm unaware of.

But if it is RMT, the scale is... significant.

Scam contracts. We've all seen them, many of us may have fallen for one. Few would fall for the exact same one, several times a week, over several months to the tune of tens of billions of isk. I stumbled across such an example in a public contract history, got suspicious and started following the spiders web, those who were routinely scammed, who were they scammed by, were the scammers also scamming others etc? These were all very obvious scams, almost always following the format of "you will pay 100m, you will get 1 noob ship / unit of trit / laser crystal, you will also pay 10 PLEX" - the sort that falling for once might be understandable, falling for several times a week points to something else.

Anyway, partial unravelling of said spider's web below. Names have been masked as an attempt to avoid falling foul of forum regulations but the date and timestamps are all correct as seen within public contract history. It's perhaps worth noting that almost all of these contracts were completed within minutes of being posted. ISK transfer amounts approximated based upon 500m plex for easy maths.

(a) gave:
5.1b to (b) on 04.17 @ 10:30
5.2b to (c) on 03.23 @ 07:53
500m to (d) on 03.14 @ 03:50
4.7b to (e) on 03.14 @ 02:55
1.1b to (f) on 02.20 @ 11:57
4.3b to (g) on 02.19 @ 07:45
5.2b to (h) on 01.31 @ 07:10
3.1b to (i) on 01.21 @ 02:00
1b to (j) on 01.11 @ 19:57
1b to (k) on 01.11 @ 19:17
3.3b to (l) on 12.28 @ 06:15
2b to (m) on 12.17 @ 14:17
2b to (n) on 12.17 @ 13:39
2b to (o) on 12.07 @ 09:22
1.5b to (p) on 12.07 @ 07:27
3.2b to (q) on 12.07 @ 07:23

(b) received:
5.1b from (a) on 04.17 @ 10:30
6.1b from (r) on 04.17 @ 01:19

(r) gave:
6.1b to (b) on 04.17 @ 01:19
1.5b to (s) on 04.16 @ 13:56

(c) received:
5.3b from (t) on 03.24 @ 00:28
5.2b from (a) on 03.23 @ 07:53
10.6b from (u) on @ 03.23 02:00

(t) gave:
5.3b to (c) on 03.24 @ 00:28
4.7b to (v) on 03.24 @ 00:28
2.6b to (w) on 03.23 @ 15:45
3.6b to (x) on 03.23 @ 13:24
1b to (y) on 03.23 @ 13:06

(e) received:
4.2b from (z) on 03.26 @ 05:01
4.7b from (a2) on 03.20 @ 03:15
4.7b from (b2) on 03.16 @ 16:03
4.7b from (a) on 03.14 @ 02:55
3.7b from (c2) on 03.02 @ 22:20
3.1b from (d2) on 02.26 @ 06:27
3.7b from (e2) on 02.24 @ 01:17
5.3b from (f2) on 02.11 @ 19:32
5.2b from (g2) on 02.08 @ 01:14
5.3b from (g2) on 02.07 @ 05:38
2.1b from (h2) on 02.02 @ 03:58
3.1b from (i2) on 01.31 @ 18:36
3.1b from (j2) on 01.31 @ 00:32
4.1b from (i2) on 01.30 @ 20:31
6.2b from (k2) on 01.27 @ 06:05
2.6b from (k2) on 01.26 @ 02:55
2.5b from (l2) on 01.16 @ 06:06

(z) gave:
4.2b to (e) on 03.26 @ 05:01
2.6b to (m2) on 03.26 @ 04:09
2.1b to (n2) on 02.26 @ 05:33
1b to (o2) on 02:26 @ 04:51
3.7b to (p2) on 02.26 @ 03:58

(g) received:
2.6b from (q2) on 03.22 @ 01:39
4.3b from (a) on 02.19 @ 07:45

(q2) gave:
6.2b to (r2) on 04.15 @ 02:25
5.1b to (s2) on 04.08 @ 22:28
1b to (t2) on 03.31 @ 03:24
2.6b to (g) on 03.22 @ 01:39
6.4b to (u2) on 03.03 @ 03:22
2b to (v2) on 01.17 @ 18:10
4.1b to (w2) on 01.17 @ 15:27
2b to (x2) on 12.30 @ 00:52

(u2) received:
7.1b from (y2) on 04.02 @ 05:33
7.1b from (y2) on 04.01 @ 09:08
7.4b from (z2) on 03.19 @ 06:23
6.4b from (q2) on 03.03 @ 03:22

(z2) gave:
7.4b to (u2) on 03.19 @ 06:23
6.3b to (a3) on 03.18 @ 18:31
7b to (b3) on 03.11 @ 03:19
5b to (c3) on 03.11 @ 02:44
1b to (d3) on 03.09 @ 18:00


So what's going on? If it is RMT I fear the scale is *vast* - this is merely the very partial unravelling of *one* web I happened by chance to stumble across using public in game tools yet it covers hundreds of billions of isk across dozens of characters.

Or is this merely some other (legal) business practice routinely used that I've overlooked?

A vast amount of ISK is being transferred for no appreciable in game benefit. One conclusion could be that this is because an out of game benefit is being received (ie. RMT) or it could be some other reason I'm unaware of and am hence asking if I've missed something.

If someone gives, via contracts, 10 plex in exchange for a shuttle, or a noob ship, or a piece of trit then one might assume this to be a regular scam. If however the same person gives multiple people, several times a week, over several months 10 plex in exchange for a shuttle then it's safe to assume something else is going on - my question is "what?" If it is RMT then all the above really serves is to illustrate the huge task facing CCP's security team and illuminate the scale of the problem; if it's not RMT, then I've misunderstood something, and I'm most curious about things I don't understand :o)

We know that the research and statistics department and CCP gets a daily dump of all transactions. If they can't find stuff like this, they aren't trying very hard.

For example, I would look at all characters that were biomassed shortly after being created and look for large isk transactions or expensive assets. Once you find those smoking guns you just drill down into the rabbit hole.

As for public scam contracts, they could just declare them a form of money laundering and ban them all. It might have the added benefit of cleaning up Jita local.

You may want to re-post your information in a CCP Sreeg RMT dev blog thread: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=101342