Following on from the collapse of Northern Rock in the UK and the insolvency of nearly all UK banks (with the exception of HSBC, Standard Chartered, and possibly Barclays) it was a foretaste of the future

For future readers of this thread (if any) never invest serious real life money in an online virtual bank within a virtual world. As I remember back in 2006/7 the Linden itself was convertable into US dollars at around 270 to 1, therefore the person about with 400k potentially lost $1400 odd

As for SL itself I really wondered about it, thinking what it the future of the so called Web2 ………nah don’t think so…… Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter etc are much better at Web2, and for entertainment look at the really big virtual worlds of Azeroth (World of Warcraft) and similar that quite comfortably support role players, which after all was what Second Life itself was all about

Just a personal view – but a look back into history for me nevertheless

Re-read this whole thread, then turn in CNN and watch the whole thing occuring in real life..

The professionals were/are no better than the amateurs, the difference is there is a taxpayer able to swallow massive losses and protect the investors.

SL finance and its similarity to RL is what attracted me to SL in the first place.. From the gambling ban to the bank failures to the housing crash.. its all been a wonderful minature version of peoples reactions in real life..

SL for me is far more than a game, its a study of human nature in a virtual form.. Want to know how people will react in the real world, study their reactions in SL..

wonderful stuff..

Is it legal for a CEO of a virtual Company in Second life to take and convert lindens from funds aquired from investors from thier IPO and invest them into a real life business for themselves?

Not sure but pretty sure this plan was not disclosed during the IPO to the investors. But if i had been an investor which I am not because I saw to many of these scams in SL so i stay away from investing in any of these games.

It may be unethical but is it legal to do this? Take funds from an IPO …money people invested in a virtual company and then find out the CEO took out 20K USD to invest in a real business. Which to most Second Life residents who did will most likely find it almost virtually impossible to track the financial state of the real life company.

Im appauled but not surprised at this. Not the first to do this so we all know. But its still going on. $20,000 USD’s!! its terrible how much money is being taken out of these virtual worlds. I know the other scams have been more but this is probably just the tip of this one as to how much money is going to be taken.

I just want to know is it legal for them to have done this.
thank you

[17:45] Nicholas Portocarrero: In fact, even if I HAD taken the money to buy a sports car, which I did NOT do, there was no fraud.

It’s Bob Perry’s story, and it’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it. The biggest thing that jumps out to me is that the tone here is very different.

http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/384

A reader sent me the full transcript, and it’s even angrier than some of the stuff Bob quoted. Angrier both in terms of people taking it to him, and in terms of him firing back.

At the end, Portocarrero just bolts. The reader who sent it to me suggested it might be the guy’s last words in Second Life, and it’s a plausible interpretation. I think he’ll be back — he’s got too much money tied up in his rotten little deal with the GPBs on WSE not to hang around and try to buy himself out of debt at pennies on the dollar. But there’s always hope.

So basically, 1% on average goes back to Mr Nic/Andre personally.

If that’s right, the point where this isn’t just a reprehensible ongoing scam is well and totally in the rearview mirror.