Chicken Little's Open Letter to EU

[dry_martini]

Perhaps the Swedish press should be asking MA for answers?

Does anyone know if any Swedish media knows about it ?

[Shadowsong]

Originally Posted by -=rAndom=-

....
Anyway I guess that items / skills bought with false ped will be resold by MA avatar (depending on amount and if MA will care), and loss after this (as many of those items were AFAIK sold above markup) will be MA loss, not squeezed from players by "balancing manager".
.....

Now that is something that could be done to "re-legitimise" the peds and items. Good point. Listing those items on auction with no BO from an RX ava, then return the peds to the balance sheet.

We have to assume, I think, that MA at least managed to lock those down, and obtain control of them.

I admit, there is a great deal of speculation here, but it is not wild or unfounded speculation. The PayNova "fake ped" issue is known, and we have seen posts quoting the support cases which confirm this. It did seem the most likely source of this incident, particularly given that it apparently persisted even after it became public. That is all the window a fraudster needs.

I am encouraged to see the confidence still displayed by some, and I'm also happy that most of us agree that a clear statement from MA would be very useful in settling the rumours.

Clearly, they cannot provide us with all the details, but any company that is handling this much trust from this many people simply must maintain a clear communication with those people.

Yes, it's a very sensitive issue, and needs to be dealt with extremely carefully, to minimise negative repercussions. This is why public relations is a profession. My advice to MA would be to buff their PR mobs with some additional stats.

[thoreau]

Originally Posted by NightwolfAA2k5

Speaking of official communication, has anyone seen Marco on the forums lately?

- Nightwolf

Has anyone seen any 'official' communication on the forums lately? Marco or otherwise.

[sempul]

well he threw this out in another forum

Originally Posted by Marco|MindArk

I can confirm that a statement will come. No ETA yet.

it is in forum: My account is locked

[Arto]

Originally Posted by Shadowsong

The thing that concerns me is that we do not now how severe this incident was, and it is unlikely that we will. Call me a pessimist, but I am hugely mistrustful of anyone who conceals the extent of a problem, because it generally indicates that it is larger than meets the eye.

I also do not believe in unsinkable ships. If it can float, it can sink.

You're quite right Shadowsong, all ships can sink and they do. Banks go bust too and stock markets crash. I used to feel very strongly that Mindark were not correctly safeguarding our PE/EU 'Deposits' and asked them about it. Mindark do no guarantee any of the cash in the EU product, they simply can't guarantee the cash and do not have a banking license or any financial insurance IMO.
If there has been an error or a fraud Mindark have to cover it with their own cash or credit facilities and I guess their first actions were to make sure the ‘cash’ was frozen into the system somehow so it couldn’t be laundered back into $.
My point is that, EU is not an investment and we can all lose everything with the click of a power switch so I have given up worrying about it and limited my deposits to something I can afford to lose. I have no idea how the big investors accepted the risks and slept at night until they had recovered their money – maybe some people have more money and risk tolerance than I do.
Good post, regards Arto

[Shadowsong]

Originally Posted by Bertha Bot

Account Lockdown Information
28 May 2008

During Monday evening several Entropia Universe accounts where locked. This is Standard Operating Procedure when Mindark's Monitoring Team encounters suspect transactions within the Entropia Universe system. A problem was discovered with a payment provider, Paynova, whose service Mindark uses to allow PED deposits into Entropia Universe.

A glitch in Paynova's software allowed for the deposit of PED without the corresponding amount in real funds being credited. A few former Entropia Universe participants exploited this glitch and got hold of illegal PED. As soon as the situation was verified, logs and transaction records were quickly analyzed using advanced tools developed by MindArk for this purpose, and the initial exploiters' accounts where locked, as well as those that had any association with the illegal PED. A thorough investigation commenced during Monday night and continued throughout Tuesday. Accounts whose holders were evaluated to have been acting in "good faith" were unlocked and all transactions validated. The initial exploiters' accounts remain locked.

Originally Posted Here

Okay, good stuff. We know more, and speculation should diminish.

I do hope they follow up with some indication of how they will deal with the items involved. The sky seems a touch more stable now

[MindBuster]

Let's conclude the thread here and continue in MA's thread Account Lockdown Information