considering that Mindark's only statatments about renting are mainly tied directly to banks it's kind of hard to avoid them in these types of conversations...
Clarification about Entropia banking operations 04 June 2007 Since we released news about the virtual banking licenses, several questions regarding loan services and banking affairs within Entropia Universe have been raised. The main concern has been the lending of items for interest. We feel...
www.planetcalypsoforum.com
Since all trades are final according to the above statement, which I assume has been around a hell of a lot longer than most other rental services, any trade is a trade, not a loan, and as such is potentially a scam if either party calls it a rental... so even offereing a 'rental service' could potentially be seen by some as a scam attempt... Remember if you point a finger at someone it usually ends up with several fingers on your own hand pointing back at yourself, etc.
Not saying you are a scammer, just that offering the service, which Mindark considers as a scam attempt may not be such a great idea, possibly...
Based on the above statement from so many years ago, it seems like the higher risk of ban is on those offering the rental service rather than on those 'buying' from said trade service.
I understand your point of view and I appreciate the links concerning this topics. I do have a couple of questions, and yes I am really too lazy to go searching through records because I do not know the history of MindArk and Calypso and all over the past 15 years.
Is the company in question " MindArk PE AB " still in existence? Because I believe they have changed names or ownerships over the last 13 years since the post you quoted about banking. So if it is no longer " MindArk PE AB " then that statement regarding banks is not really official if a new company has taken over. The reason I even ask this question is because I think the PE stands for Project Entropia. I don't know what the AB means, but I think there was a transition somewhere from Project Entropia to Entropia Universe (EU).
Also I do not think all the intended features of the bank were ever released. I do not think they got real bank licenses as was their intended goal, and to my knowledge it is not possible for banks to rent or loan items themselves, but rather only PED in exchange for your items with interest accruing and a 30 day window to pay off the interest or buyback the item or such. Which is why I called them glorified pawnshops, I think the banks have great potential but it was never fully developed or realized. (And if I am wrong someone please correct me. I am willing to admit my mistakes and take ownership of them.) Now I could be wrong in that the banks don't have the physical functionality to lend items, the same way you cant get a bigger loan off pawning a tiered item vs a non=tiered item, and I think the bank owning avatars are allowed permission to offer the loans on the tiered version of items in a p2p trade since the system itself does not do so. Again I may be wrong.
This is why I did not want to bring up the banks because it is complicated and they were never fully developed to what they could and should have been.
Secondly there are other people out there that run investment/securities funds. Just going off the first page of forum posts there is Chlee's Entropia Fund, Entropia Invest by Morey/Divinity (they own a bank so I dont know if that changes anything), Da Vinchi & Partners fund, and Pedflow Player fund that is on Entropialoot website. I am sure there is more. Outside Divinity and Morey that own an actually bank I am not sure if the others do so that would make all the other funds illegal yet MA is allowing them to exist presumably because they are not causing major problems. I am sure if we get one major Ponzi scheme fund like what happened in EVE online a few years back where they stole Billions of ISK worth just over $51k USD MA would actively go around putting a stop to these funds, but as it exists right now they are mostly operating without big issues so MA is leaving them alone.
Thirdly, there are dozens of rental services of people lending out their items to generate income off their investment. And there really shouldn't be a rule against it as people spend hard earned cash to acquire these items so they should allowed to be able to do what they want with them. And there are risk to doing this which is why Mindark always says trades are final so you should ask for collateral to cover yourself. The goal of this post was to further incentivize AGAINST breaking the verbal agreements between players by getting their permission to display their names etc so they have that threat to their reputation where currently there is almost none because it is difficult to make it public except through word of mouth. But the MA official responded to that..
And lastly this is a copy of a post from a support case recently. (relatively speaking) wherein I loaned someone an item and did not receive it back. And this was simply a loan to a friend not a rental. So I was not profiting on this.
Ulf Entropia Support said:
Hi Xan,
Thank you for your support case.
We will look into the occurrence and the avatar in question.
As you have a clear agreement that they've borrowed the item she'll have to return it or the value for you to purchase a new one.
Just to clarify, all trades are final and you should always trade for collateral, if it hasn't been clearly stated that it is a loan then there is nothing we can do to return the items, nor in this case is this something we will do however if you've agreed on a loan as you have here then they are obligated to complete the trade which is the agreement if not they've committed a trust scam and will be locked unless they have the intention to resolve it with you.
Kind regards,
Ulf | Entropia Universe Support
So the take away from this is All trades are final, and you should always get collateral. IF it is clearly is stated as a loan then the player is bound to complete their half of the deal because you are making the trade based off trust, therefor failure to meet their obligation is commission of a scam (And it works both ways). Mindark can not return your items to you but they can lock the other players account until they intend on fixing the problem.
This report was made in October 2017, so I think the rules have changed a little since that post you cited from 2007. And again my original goal was to make part of the rental contract to give me permission and allow me to make it public if they failed to uphold their end so that their reputation is at risk for breaking the contract. I can already get their account locked, but I think people fear more that their reputation would be destroyed because it prohibits them from being able to borrow items from people. But I understand the MA representatives points. I was just trying to get some clarification because I would not be blindly saying this person did a bad thing to me, but that they did a bad thing and I had permission to publicize it if they did.
