The acute market manipluation by some traders/ re-sellers

[cibean]

First of all, i want to make it clear that this post is not based on racism or personal feuds with anyone. I am a Muslim and come from South Asia, so i know first hand what racism is all about.

I wanted your opinion on the menace of the CLD resellers who are mostly Eastern Europeans and while they may be making a living off this game (yes you can do that in Eastern Europe, Africa and parts of Asia for around $300/ month) they are manipulating the CLD prices and making it difficult for ordinary players to continue investing/ playing. If you look at the auctions, over 70% of the CLDs are being sold by 3-4 reseller, led by Wirlo Wirlo Wirlete, Igor Freeman Ivanov and Cerb Hulk Beris. Another avatar by the name of Dmitry is also active there. Go check for yourself... 100% of CLDs on the first and third (last) page of auctions are inundated by these avatars. Many CLDs for sale on 2nd page are also dominated by them.

I am not denying anyone's right to make money from trading. This is what a free market is.. I am talking about market manipulation through collusion. These avatar certainly seem to be colluding. In real world, government bring anti-trust trust measures for market manipulating entities and Cartels are strictly banned.

I am extremely annoyed and frustrated to see that these avatars buy from auctions anywhere from 1300-1320 and immiedately place them in sale for 1330+. This has resulted in creating artificial shortage in the market which is very bad for the game. Moreover, i was in the recent CLD sales organized by MA. I have been in this game for donkey years.. I also organize in game events and read the forum regularly.. So i know many of the avatars at least by name.. I was shocked to see so many avatars that no one has ever seen or heard about.. At least not me.. I would not be surprised if they were 2nd or 3rd avatars placed by these resellers to acquire CLDs.

I need to know what is MA doing about this? I need to know if MA traced the IP addresses of the avatars and took action against avatars from same/ spoofed IP addresses. I also need to know if they monitored the in game exchange of CLDs in the immediate or few days after CLD sales. I am afraid these traders are pumping loads of cash into the game and someone from MA is either not doing his job well or is looking the other way round. This is pure market manipulation which should never be allowed.

I had plans to invest 5k USD in the game and then play the game at least for a while from the profits from CLDs. I have placed this plan on indefinite hold if not cancelled it. I was also thinking of acquiring a relative cheaper LA. That too is cancelled. Hell i may even quit the game like many of my friends if the manipulators of this game are not stopped. Manipulation does not only mean using macros or automated trading software. It also means a person or a group of people commanding the market terms using their influence which is financial in this case, to artificially drive supply or demand.

I would love to hear your opinion on this..

 

[Az Bloodz]

Market manipulation in EU usually means fake sells to 2nd or 3rd accounts in order to manipulate the market history. Buying CLDs and listing them for more is something totally different. There is a limited ressource (CLD) and a pretty high demand. The price will settle when people are not willing to pay this much. As long as this is not happening it's just the ordinary supply and demand. I don't see the need to change anything just because you can't play off the CLD profits as you planned, that's totally your problem.

 

[cibean]

Market manipulation in EU usually means fake sells to 2nd or 3rd accounts in order to manipulate the market history. Buying CLDs and listing them for more is something totally different. There is a limited ressource (CLD) and a pretty high demand. The price will settle when people are not willing to pay this much. As long as this is not happening it's just the ordinary supply and demand. I don't see the need to change anything just because you can't play off the CLD profits as you planned, that's totally your problem.

Bro if you read my post carefully. I am also talking about MA and the recent CLDs sales and if they made sure no 2nd or 3rd avatars were involved.. What actions did they take to ensure the sales were to genuine buyers and not the avatars who pop up out of no where when stuff like this happens..

You are missing the point as well.. Many genuine and loyal players have stopped or reduced their deposits because of issues like these.. As an old avatar, i consider it my obligation to bring such topics up.

Btw.. I am stil playing and still have over 12k on my PED card.. I don't mind paying a little extra on CLDs as long the actual demand is there and the prices are not jacked up by market manipulators..

 

[Az Bloodz]

Bro if you read my post carefully. I am also talking about MA and the recent CLDs sales and if they made sure no 2nd or 3rd avatars were involved.. What actions did they take to ensure the sales were to genuine buyers and not the avatars who pop up out of no where when stuff like this happens..

Btw.. I am stil playing and still have over 12k on my PED card.. I don't mind paying a little extra on CLDs as long the actual demand is there and the prices are not jacked up by market manipulators..

None since that's just not possible. What do you suggest to find out if the buyer is genuine or not? Also if there was no demand there wouldn't be any sales at these rates.

 

[cibean]

None since that's just not possible. What do you suggest to find out if the buyer is genuine or not? Also if there was no demand there wouldn't be any sales at these rates.

Ever heard about the herd mentality or creating a hype? Isn't this what happened to facebook IPO recently? Many gullible players are jumping into the bandwagon and investing in CLDs for short term re-sale purposes. The actual demand is not there at such high prices if you look and observe carefully..

 

[Unvinsible]

They are not manipulating or price colluding, if you actually looked at auction you'd see that they are undercutting eachother down to a point were they just make a small profit. Buy at say 1310 and sell at 1330, earning maybe 10 ped with tax. Only thing they do is stabilize the cld market, that is the opposite off manipulation. Traders are the reason cld vary less then 50 ped from lowest you can find to highest.

And even if they was colluding, so what? That would be an easy opportunity for you to undercut them and make peds, and even if you didn't, someone else would. That is why price colluding don't work in a free market.

 

[cibean]

They are not manipulating or price colluding, if you actually looked at auction you'd see that they are undercutting eachother down to a point were they just make a small profit. Buy at say 1310 and sell at 1330, earning maybe 10 ped with tax. Only thing they do is stabilize the cld market, that is the opposite off manipulation. Traders are the reason cld vary less then 50 ped from lowest you can find to highest.

And even if they was colluding, so what? That would be an easy opportunity for you to undercut them and make peds, and even if you didn't, someone else would. That is why price colluding don't work in a free market.

It's not stabilizing.. WIthout them, the CLDs would certainly be cheaper.. Look at it this way.. Ordinary people like you and I sell at 1300-1310.. Now this should have been another regular player to buy.. But since it's the reseller, the ordinary player who wants to buy now has to pay anywhere from 1330 to 1350.. After a while, ordinary players like you and I also see the market selling at 1330+ so i would also try to sell at 1330+.. The resellers through their massive PED power will acquire these CLDs at 1330 and now set the price at 1350.. This will go on till the market price staibilizes at a very high level than the actual demand.

I am a financial analyst by profession and let me remind you that this is exacty what happened before the recession. Oil traders who were just dealing in future contracts and never ever took delivery of physical oil jacked up the prices to USD 148/ barrel.. Saudis kept on screaming there is no actual demand while the West was scoffing them for the perceived low supply, which was actually not the case. Thank goodness for the recesssion or else the traders would have jacked it up to USD 200. Did you see an actual oil demand there?

 

[Az Bloodz]

Let's hear your whining when every single CLD is in the hands of s/o planning to keep em.

 

[cibean]

Let's hear your whining when every single CLD is in the hands of s/o planning to keep em.

Now you can't reply logically so you start getting personal? How very mature of you..

 

[Az Bloodz]

Actually that was logical to me. Without resellers you won't see many CLDs being sold so the price would raise even more. They are the ones trying hard to sell and so start undercutting each other. The demand for CLDs was high enough to get players to sell their gear and stop their ingame activities in order to acquire more of them.
I haven't read about your observations and how you come to the conclusion the price of CLDs should be a certain value. We have a free market in EU and you want s/o to take actions against a certain part of this market for your personal gain.

 

[cibean]

None since that's just not possible. What do you suggest to find out if the buyer is genuine or not? Also if there was no demand there wouldn't be any sales at these rates.

Once again.. read my post carefully.. this is what i wrote:


I need to know what is MA doing about this? I need to know if MA traced the IP addresses of the avatars and took action against avatars from same/ spoofed IP addresses. I also need to know if they monitored the in game exchange of CLDs in the immediate or few days after CLD sales.

 

[Az Bloodz]

I need to know what is MA doing about this? I need to know if MA traced the IP addresses of the avatars and took action against avatars from same/ spoofed IP addresses. I also need to know if they monitored the in game exchange of CLDs in the immediate or few days after CLD sales.

Sharing the same IP is not against the ToU. Trading with RL friends and your family is not against the ToU. There's just no way to prevent 2nd and 3rd avatars at all.
Also I was refering to the people you try to blame and shame in public. What's your intention behind this?

 

[cibean]

Actually that was logical to me. Without resellers you won't see many CLDs being sold so the price would raise even more. They are the ones trying hard to sell and so start undercutting each other. The demand for CLDs was high enough to get players to sell their gear and stop their ingame activities in order to acquire more of them.
I haven't read about your observations and how you come to the conclusion the price of CLDs should be a certain value. We have a free market in EU and you want s/o to take actions against a certain part of this market for your personal gain.

Once again you fail to understand the free market dynamics.. Clearly you don't have quite a knowledge of how it works.. read my example on oil.. Also understand that even free market does not mean there will be no actions taken from the government to control the cartels/ market manipulators.. You will read, if you read, dozens of cases where government arrests traders, brokers and investors for such practises... There are now laws against such practises around the world.

Moreover, the demand is always there and no there will never be a case where someone just hoards and sits on the CLDs. Normal players who are thinking of taking a break from the game for a while, people with spare cash in the short/ medium term and no where to spend it, people just looking to make a few extra bucks to keep playing the game will always be selling.

If i believed in your logic that everyone who needs a CLD is keeping them, then there won't be no CLD sales, even at 2000 PEDs. Therefore, i beg to state that your understanding and logic is inherently flawed.

 

[valivill]

Market manipulation in EU usually means fake sells to 2nd or 3rd accounts in order to manipulate the market history. Buying CLDs and listing them for more is something totally different. There is a limited ressource (CLD) and a pretty high demand. The price will settle when people are not willing to pay this much. As long as this is not happening it's just the ordinary supply and demand. I don't see the need to change anything just because you can't play off the CLD profits as you planned, that's totally your problem.

I agree with you there.
When those 3 or 4 ppl keep buying the CLD and relist them for 30 ped more which will :

give them a small profit ( reselling )
Market price of the CLD will be stable or even rise (since they made the supply lower).

Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
Only thing im curious of is that you said you wanted to deposit 5k dollars and buy cld of it.
Lets assume the weekly revenue is the same.
Why not buy 5.000/130 = 38 +- CLD and wait for them to make the prices go up more ?

Like your oil story the CLD will be around 1500 peds in short term and then sell all and make a withdrawal.

In the end if the demand totally crashes ( by insane low weekly revenue ) you will be screwed.
So you can monitor when to sell them.

 

[cibean]

Sharing the same IP is not against the ToU. Trading with RL friends and your family is not against the ToU. There's just no way to prevent 2nd and 3rd avatars at all.
Also I was refering to the people you try to blame and shame in public. What's your intention behind this?

What is your intention to protect such traders? Read again from the very beginning.. this is against the practise and not the individuals.

 

[Svarog]

The resellers through their massive PED power will acquire these CLDs at 1330 and now set the price at 1350.. This will go on till the market price staibilizes at a very high level than the actual demand

The price was stable at 1300-1310 for months before the last CLD sale. There were occasional attempts to sell for up to 1350 but those never were bought out.

Also you can't bring in anti-trust and other RL laws until they are wrote down into EULA, because it's not RL. In RL you're not allowed to kill travelers and take their luggage, for instance . Since it's normal here, then everything else is normal too.

 

[Xen]

Resellers cannot set any price they want. You can't sell unless there are buyers. At some point, the price of CLD's no longer makes sense relative to the weekly payout. This puts a limit on speculation. What the resellers are doing is pretty much like what market makers do on exchanges, they buy on the low side and sell on the high side, and the difference is the spread.

As for alt avatars standing in line to buy CLD's, that's a seperate issue.

 

[Unvinsible]

It's not stabilizing.. WIthout them, the CLDs would certainly be cheaper.. Look at it this way.. Ordinary people like you and I sell at 1300-1310.. Now this should have been another regular player to buy.. But since it's the reseller, the ordinary player who wants to buy now has to pay anywhere from 1330 to 1350.. After a while, ordinary players like you and I also see the market selling at 1330+ so i would also try to sell at 1330+.. The resellers through their massive PED power will acquire these CLDs at 1330 and now set the price at 1350.. This will go on till the market price staibilizes at a very high level than the actual demand.

And after that, what happens then? They sell their cld at the high price and laugh as the price crash down?
I can assume you would short CLD if you could then? I can lend you cld at 15ped/week so you can make alot off money when cld falls down to what you consider right price.

 

[cibean]

I agree with you there.
When those 3 or 4 ppl keep buying the CLD and relist them for 30 ped more which will :

give them a small profit ( reselling )
Market price of the CLD will be stable or even rise (since they made the supply lower).

Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
Only thing im curious of is that you said you wanted to deposit 5k dollars and buy cld of it.
Lets assume the weekly revenue is the same.
Why not buy 5.000/130 = 38 +- CLD and wait for them to make the prices go up more ?

Like your oil story the CLD will be around 1500 peds in short term and then sell all and make a withdrawal.

In the end if the demand totally crashes ( by insane low weekly revenue ) you will be screwed.
So you can monitor when to sell them.

This was just an idea to put a brake at least in the short term to make more deposits as many players are doing so.. This was not to resell. And yes ofourse i can choose to stay away from the game or cashout like many others.. The price at 1500 will be too high for many players, genuine players who wish to place their savings somewhere, to buy.. Do you remember how people reduced their fuel input drastically when oil was at $148 per barrel? Even then the prices were not coming down? This is what market manipulation is

 

[sententz]

cibean mate..no ofence but what you say is not market manipulation, is just resseling or trading..simple as that. The entire economy in the world and in entropia is based on reseling..buying cheaper and selling higher in price. Market manipulation is another story..check google.

p.s. wirlo is from spain, hulk is lithuanian, ivanov is russian or something..and dimitry dunno.

and anyway..the main resseler i think is the guy who bought 25000 shares or something...dont remember the name

 

[valivill]

What is your intention to protect such traders? Read again from the very beginning.. this is against the practise and not the individuals.

He aint protecting anyone.
You come here starting a thread without ANY PROOF.
Blaming other ppl who got more money (ped) than you and try to make money with it.

Seems to me this is an emotional outburst ?!?

 

[cibean]

And after that, what happens then? They sell their cld at the high price and laugh as the price crash down?
I can assume you would short CLD if you could then? I can lend you cld at 15ped/week so you can make alot off money when cld falls down to what you consider right price.

Unless MA goes bankrupt or introduces another batch of CLDs, the prices are not coming down.. The will be soon over 1350 and over 1400 after that. Yes the prices will certainly stabilize. although at a much higher level than they should. Why? Because the traders won't let them fall below a certain level by picking them up and keep posting at higher prices. Speculators like these are often unintentionally helped by ordinary players who think this is a trend and need to make a few bucks from it.

 

[valivill]

This was just an idea to put a brake at least in the short term to make more deposits as many players are doing so.. This was not to resell. And yes ofourse i can choose to stay away from the game or cashout like many others.. The price at 1500 will be too high for many players, genuine players who wish to place their savings somewhere, to buy.. Do you remember how people reduced their fuel input drastically when oil was at $148 per barrel? Even then the prices were not coming down? This is what market manipulation is

do you remember the interest you get from a bank ?
multiply it by 10 +- and you got the "interest" from CLD.
So in the end you will get way more money ( at a higher risk ) than at the bank from a part of your savings.
you dont get weekly money from stocking oil.

So people will continue to buy CLD simply to avoid inactive cashflow. The risk of that is that the cld may drop.

 

[Dollymaus]

The will be soon over 1350 and over 1400 after that.

There is no open end, its limited in a given market
Atm you can buy them at 1310-1320 and sell them for 1350 or close below i think, if you sell them at 1350 directly you dont give any reseller a room to exist

 

[Az Bloodz]

I:If you are questioning a method and not the individuals I don't see the need to name them and even more highlighting the naming.
II: You were expecting a personal gain due to CLDs and now you want to have something changed because it did not work out as you planned. That's something I absolutely don't like
III: You have a different understanding of 'market maniupulation in EU'
IV: You are comparing CLDs to Facebook...there is no stock market in EU and there is no way for a player to create a hype on them. We just don't have any competition for CLDs.

You think you know the market and you think you know the 'right' price. Perhaps you ain't as good as you think who knows. The only thing I can tell is you had plans with CLDs and failed to achieve them. Now you want to have something changed...

 

[cibean]

He aint protecting anyone.
You come here starting a thread without ANY PROOF.
Blaming other ppl who got more money (ped) than you and try to make money with it.

Seems to me this is an emotional outburst ?!?

As i said, there were many many people in the line I have never seen on the forum or in game and i am very active a players.. No one has more money than the guy who bought 25k deeds.. That is an investment.. That is fine.. When John bought CND that was an investment.. Investments give returns.. There is a difference between investments and manupulations...

Ofcourse i am emotional.. I am a very small fish and my deposists are dwarfed by the bigger more loyal players.. However, i do care about how this game is running.. How ordinary buyers have to pay much higher because someone says it's my way or the highway.. See any big city in the world and why people hate developers.. They buy in bulk and sell at exorbitant prices just because they can control the supply through their financial might.. In money matters, most countries have laws against such manipulations

 

[Az Bloodz]

The main difference between EU and RL is you don't have to play at all

 

[cibean]

I:If you are questioning a method and not the individuals I don't see the need to name them and even more highlighting the naming.
II: You were expecting a personal gain due to CLDs and now you want to have something changed because it did not work out as you planned. That's something I absolutely don't like
III: You have a different understanding of 'market maniupulation in EU'
IV: You are comparing CLDs to Facebook...there is no stock market in EU and there is no way for a player to create a hype on them. We just don't have any competition for CLDs.

You think you know the market and you think you know the 'right' price. Perhaps you ain't as good as you think who knows. The only thing I can tell is you had plans with CLDs and failed to achieve them. Now you want to have something changed...

mate i had plans with buying a LA too.. I am going to change that too.. I had plans to upgrade my armour to shadow or something of sorts from my tiger and i am going to change that plan too..

Perhaps you are right.. I do have a differnt understanding of manipulation in EU.. I am comparing it to a 'Real Market Economy' of the real world, which at least MA claims to be..

Ok I am going to back off now.. Ofcourse i am emotional about this game.. I love it and i am seeing it going to dogs with unethical practises.

 

[cibean]

The main difference between EU and RL is you don't have to play at all

Agreed finally!!! Lol....

Thinking seriously and sadly on those lines

 

[Xen]

How ordinary buyers have to pay much higher because someone says it's my way or the highway..

This is the part you don't understand. You didn't answer my post about it. At some CLD price point, there are no real buyers, because the price does not make sense relative to the weekly payout. Resellers cannot just buy forever with no real buyers to sell to. If they try to push the price up too high, they will be undercut by other CLD owners who will flip their CLD and look to buy back when the price normalizes again, which is inevitable. Even if someone owned all the CLD that exist, there is limit to how much they could sell them for. They can't just list them at 2k, no one will buy them. Resellers are limited by real market dynamics.