In-game Ponzi scheme

This is a stunning, lengthy personal account of a gamer from Eve Online, a space-trading game, who decided that the game-masters had tipped the scales in favour of pirates and sought revenge by raising a half-billion credits in a Ponzi scheme that destroyed the morale and fun of every non-pirate victim. The fake syndicate the player raised involved massive impersonation and all the typical techniques of a Big Con. Unfortunately, the author's got a propensity for gratuitously racist similes that really detracted from the story, but this is still a gripping read.

Trazir would fly around the Minmatar newbie sectors, offering 10,000 credits to anybody who would join our corporation. All they had to do was click on "accept" when Trazir made the offer, and they became a part of our corporate family. Since many of the people he encountered were only days, hours, or even minutes new to Eve, a great deal clicked "accept" and were subsequently given 10,000 credits. I did the same in the Caldari newbie regions, and within a couple days, ZZZZ Best was burgeoning at the seams with 18 clueless members. We had to act quickly and peddle our deal, as well as maintain member numbers, because there would no doubt be a good deal of turnover as people realized that they belonged to a corporation which did nothing for them and which they did nothing for.

Link

(via Terra Nova)