FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
First and foremost, these are my opinions and there are many opinions out there. You should seek them all out. This is a nuanced hobby and there is much to learn. Don't sweat it though. These are football cards, it's not that serious. If you have a question, reply and I'll get back to you.
What you should know before we start a conversation about football cards

1. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Football cards are still kind of a waste of money. They weren't a good bet 30 years ago, they aren't now. Collect because you enjoy the hobby, because you enjoy the sport & its players. If you just like the thrill of the chase that comes from opening packs, hey, it's a free country, have a blast. However, people do get addicted to ripping packs. Be careful! Try to pace yourself. Try to have a budget. Be aware that prices are at an all-time high yet resale values continue to plummet as the rookie shine wears off. Take for example a guy like Eddie Lacy. A few years ago, he was on top of the sport after a monster start to his career. Now? His cards aren't worth jack. For every Tom Brady rookie card, there are a billion cards from forgotten bums who take up space in our closets.
   
2. Panini is the dominant brand. They also own Donruss & Score. Topps & Upper Deck are (basically) out of the NFL card market. Panini has the NFL license so they are the only card company who can use logos and team names. Every other brand is second-class. But hey, if that's cool with you, enjoy what those other brands have to offer. You do get more autos and better bang for your buck but for an inferior, less desirable, poor resale product.
   

What to buy/collect?
There are no good answers here. Generally, I'd recommend purchasing the cheapest panini/donruss/score pack/box you can find just to get your feet wet and set expectations. If you want to get more specific, I recommend going on ebay and browsing what catches your eye. Like the Steelers? Look up 2021 steelers and filter by the football cards category. Like Russell Wilson? Look up his rookie cards, look up his autos. Ultimately, you should collect what you enjoy. I collect Virginia Tech players in their college uniform. Everybody has their thing so try to find that.
What's a good investment?
Not everyone will agree with me. However, I don't believe you should collect to invest or to make money. A good value would be to not spend your money on football cards. Again, this is a hobby. You don't want your retirement tied to the success of Justin Herbert's career. If price is a concern in any way, you shouldn't be spending your hard-earned dollars on football cards. I've been in the hobby for many years now and to be perfectly blunt, there are a lot of broke dummies who spend every extra dollar and then some on this hobby. I think it's a joke. It's not impossible to make money buying/selling cards, it's just exceedingly unlikely and impractical. I sell cards on ebay because I buy them for pennies on the dollar from people second-hand. That's the safest and smartest way to do it if you really want to try. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about selling.
Cards are like buying new cars. Once you drive off the lot (or open the pack of cards) the resale value automatically drops. Again, almost all cards lose significant value over time. Look up any all-time great player and look how much their rookie cards are going for. Excluding Tom Brady, just about every superstar Hall of Fame player from before the 90s is cheap (compared to prices for today's players).
As for finding bang for your buck, you are always best off buying second-hand. But you also need to be hypervigilant to check prices elsewhere to ensure you're paying a fair price. Prices on cards, packs, boxes and cases adjust all the time and the big card sellers online all have ebay accounts with millions of listings and they see how prices move and what sells. You can try to predict how the market will move, but good luck! Finally, big sellers/dealers buy their product direct from Panini at a wholesale dealer discount. They buy it for less and can sell it for less and still make money. If you think you can make money over the long-term buying cards at full price, then reselling them, you are mistaken.
Finding your card's value
Besides paying for a Beckett subscription, you can also go to ebay to search for completed sales for your card. Search the card (year, brand, set, player) then you can filter results based on sales. If that specific card isn't there, you can also check for similar cards. Say you have a 2018 Russell Wilson auto, look up his autos from that year or from that set to get a close estimate. Or if you have a card #ed to 50, check for other #ed to 50 cards of that player from other sets in that year. That's your best estimate. However, keep in mind some products are obviously worth more. a #/10 Score card will generally not be worth as much as a #/10 Panini national treasures card of the same player.
Help IDing a card
Beckett has basically card to ever exist on its platform. If you can't find it, I can assure you it's there. Try googling every word/yeaphrase/name on the card/item before asking me. You can also search on ebay or COMC or sportlots, which are a few of the many card selling platforms, and their search results include pics (usually) so it's easier to find what you're looking for.
Where to buy?
Local card stores for packs/boxes/cases. For singles, ebay will likely have the best deals and your best options. Keep in mind this hobby is growing so demand is high on new product. These are not endorsements or sponsors but I recommend shopping at dacardworld.com, blowoutcards.com, or steelcitycollectibles.com. There are a handful of other bigger card shops but these are the big 3 as far as I know. They sell hobby products (I'll clarify what this means below). And of course, if feasible for you, you can also shop at your local card store (they also sell hobby products). To find the nearest store, google "local card store" or "sports card stores near me"... In my opinion, you should NEVER spend money at Walmart or Target and ALWAYS buy from local card stores.
What is a break? How do I join? Who are the best breakers?
First and foremost, I am of the opinion that breaking is gambling. Therefore, I think it's just plain dumb so I have nothing positive to say about it.
What is a break? A break is when you "buy into" a split portion of a box/case of cards by team (sometimes by division or conference or even by sport, it all depends on the product.) So a breaker buys the box/case of cards, opens them live on video stream so you can watch the results. Then if say you bought the Kansas City Chiefs portion, all the Chiefs cards are yours.
The point of this is that you can buy into a product at a fraction of the cost. Sometimes it goes in your favor and you get a bunch of hits. Sometimes you get little to nothing.
Each breaker has their own rules on how to give out multi-player cards, whether they mail out base cards or not, how much they price it, how they pack/mail your cards, how they stream it. There are generally accepted practices but it's up to you to do your due diligence and read the rules for each breaker.
Ultimately, even if you don't view it as gambling, I feel with breaks that you are only paying more for less since you have to pay a middle man (the breaker). In fact, four people get paid before you see your cards (Panini, wherever they bought the cards from, the breaker and the post office.) Why keep adding middle men to the process of buying cards? I don't get it, but breaks are hugely popular. Whatever floats your boat!
What is a razz?
If you don't think breaking is gambling, I've got another one for you. RAZZING.
A razz is something like a raffle or lottery. Say I have a card that I think it worth $100. I can "razz" it, which means the razzer breaks up the card into "lines" or spots or chances to win that card. So like I said, let's say a card is worth $100, I can razz 10 spots for $10 per spot. So 10 people buy into the razz at $10 each, the razzer collects $100, then there will be a lottery for the card. So then, the razzer will assign a number to each entry, plug those numbers into a random number generator and it'll spit out a random number that indicates who won.
Of course, there's some mild strategy involved. The tricky thing is you can buy multiple spots. So someone could buy 5 of the 10 spots. Or you could buy just 1 and hope to get lucky. That's the fun I suppose. To buy a $100 card for $10. Usually the razzer will collect all the money first, then run the razz. So there is a fair amount of trust necessary here. First, you have to send out the money to the razzer and to trust the results of the razz are fair. You also have to know your cards well because a razzer can easily try to razz a card for double what it's worth if his audience is large enough and eager enough to participate. It's can be a free for all.
Hobby vs. Retail
In order to prop up local card stores and keep driving business to them, there are hobby and retail products. Hobby products (packs/boxes/cases) generally have the best cards and highest value cards and best odds for autographs/hits per box when compared to retail products. Retail products are the boxes/packs you will find at stores like Walmart and Target.
The reason for the two separate types of products is because of economics. Walmart has hundreds of stores and their whole business model is based on bulk buying. They can buy a million boxes and their bulk purchasing allows them to undercut the prices of the average mom and pop shop. Your local card store can't buy the same amount of product as Walmart/Target or sell the same amount so their prices have to be higher. In the end, all you need to know is that hobby products are the better bang for your buck. Retail products have worse autos from more random, low-level rookies. You can still get lucky and hit a top rookie auto in retail, it's not impossible. The odds are just less in your favor.
Card supplies/storage?
These are not endorsements/sponsors. BCW, Cardboard Gold, Ultra Pro. I would avoid buying any of these products through a store (walmart, target etc. Even a card store) when you can typically buy direct from them. At least if you're buying in bulk. A pack or two of top loaders or plastic sleeves will generally cost the same wherever you shop.
Grading
Should you get it graded? Meh. If you're going to sell for max value, yes. If you want to really protect the card long term and preserve its value in case you want to sell it later, yes. If these things don't matter to you, then no. If you're going to keep the card and its value doesn't really matter to you, no. You shouldn't. Grading is not cheap, especially if you're only grading a card or two. So if you're happy to just stick it in a toploader and keep it forever, don't grade. If you think your grandkids will want to sell it 50 years from now, sure, why not, get it graded. Generally speaking PSA is best for older cards. BGS is best for newer cards.
Base, insert, parallel, refractor, prizm?
I found this glossary of sports cards terms on Upper Deck's site that I think does a good job of explaining things.
If you have a question, please reply.

Part 1 described Kevin and Karen as nightmare neighbours with the payback i was fortunate enough to serve them. I know i described them as a “Kevin and Karen” duo but only mainly mentioned Kevin in Part 1. That was intentional. My interactions with Karen at that point were minor and i wanted to keep the focus on Kevin. However, this entire story is about that one incident where Karen steps up and takes things to another level, and i foolishly take the bait. Someone else in my favorite military sub quoted Mark Twain: “Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”.
I also mentioned a conversation i had with someone, where the person described Kevin and Karen as people who maybe likes being the big fish in a small pond, and thus picks on people who are visibly different, just like them. This is because Kevin and Karen are both of African ethnicity. This part will come up later and will play a pivotal part in the story.
Advance Warning: please, please, please keep your politics and any divisive personal biases OUT of my story and this sub. I only mentioned ethnicity and gender because the story itself is focused on that. Im a big girl, i can take care of myself, if you’re a shithead racist/homophobe and cant keep your racist comments to yourself, feel free to shoot me a PM but stick to that and dont litter this sub with your trash. Mods, if this gets out of hand and people start getting rowdy, please include in your options the possibility of deleting my posts. Id rather lose imaginary internet points than be the one that brought a pack of idjits to your doorstep. But please. This is a nice community modded and populated by nice people. Lets keep it that way.
DA STORY
February 1, 2020
Ahhhh. February 2020. Life is good as far as everyone is concerned. Apart from that one time where Kevin tried to call the military cops on me for assaulting a superior (were the same rank, in different chains of command, let alone different branches, and were fighting voluntarily in a sanctioned, supervised match), we had no more complaints filed against us at the HOA office. He had to undergo plastic surgery, but that’s mostly because his pre existing condition of a deviated septum was exacerbated when i TKO’d him by slamming my palm on his nose and breaking it.
The whole world would change in a few weeks, but at this time, Corona was still just another new and exotic thing that doom and gloom tv pundits wouldnt shut up about.
As i mentioned before, i am mixed race: mixture of German/Italian/Scottish/Irish and Hasidic Jew ethnicities on my mum’s side, and a mix of 3 Asian ethnicities: Chinese/Japanese/Korean on my dad’s side with Chinese being the predominant one.
As for visible appearances, im over 5 foot tall, slight build, dark brown hair, and slightly slanted gray coloured eyes. My eyes, lips, and my cheekbones are somewhat Asian, while there’s enough “white” on the rest of my appearance to make someone think twice if im just a really fair skinned Asian, or a white chick squinting and blinded by something.
Why is this important? As a result of my super melting pot heritage, there’s only enough Asian in me that i only look Asian to someone who doesnt know me while im wearing certain outfits, or if i choose to do so. This is a fact pointed out to me that while being a technical minority, i never had to endure the true hardships of what its like to be in a disadvantaged group. I had the safety of benefiting from having the physical appearance derived from a hybrid heritage as a “safe haven” from bigotry.
Until the following happened.
We were at a Chinese cultural centre celebrating Chinese New Year. I went to the event wearing my favorite cheongsam dress. Nothing special about it, you see Chinese women wearing it at formal events all the time, but im in full cultural regalia and had my Asian on. Milena, my partner, couldnt get in while wearing Chinese cultural attire and had to change into a white people outfit despite me giving the Shaolin bouncer, who trained for 30 years in the mountains under a waterfall in the art of “punch-a-hole-in-your-chest-and-rip-your-still-beating-heart-out-making-you-wonder-why-theres-a-sudden-draft-in-your-thoracic-cavity”, the head nod and going: “She’s with me bro. Be cool, ayt?” I jest, i jest.
It was a fun time. Plenty of delicious food and i get to have my fill of real proper and delicious soup dumplings and szchezuan style red snapper. Plenty of little kids going around running to adults and yelling “Kung Hey Fat Choi! (Happy New Year)” and us giving them blessings and the little red money envelopes we brought. We got to see a lion dance. No, there wasnt a single actual lion dancing. Its a bunch of grown up dudes who dance and jump up 5-10 foot tall playforms while wearing and carrying a two person lion costume. Its pretty impressive actually. Go look up lion dance examples on Youtube if you want.
The problem started when we got home.
DA PROBLEM
(Im running out of original ideas for titles)
We were already in our neighbourhood and pretty close to our home. As we were approaching our home, we just barely noticed in time that the road is blocked by a double parked car. Imagine your standard residential street. On both sides of the road are vehicles parked on the street. This normally two lane road is now reduced to a one lane road. On the lane ahead of us was a car that was double parked. The car was off with no lights on either. With it being winter, a snowstorm actively raging + poor street lighting leading to near zero visibility, the roads slick from built up snow, its a miracle i didnt rear end this grayish/silver coloured Fiat. I had already downshifted to the lowest gear, and I had to pump the brakes while my other hand was ready to engage the e-brake, swearing under my breath the whole time.
This is the point where i should have stayed put and just called the neighbourhood towing services while driving around to find alternate routes to get home. But i didnt. My gamble on people being rational ended up being a bust, and you now have this train wreck of a story worthy of a Jerry Springer episode.
I got out of the car and noticed that there was a woman sitting in the driver’s seat. I knocked on her window and politely asked her to move her car so i can pass. She slightly rolls the window down and says: “Just go around me!” I told her this was not possible. My car is a Toyota 4runner, refitted for true off roading, and there’s no way it could squeeze through the gap left by her shitty double parking job without hitting cars on either side. I asked her if she can at least move and give me enough space to squeeze through safely, or better yet, park in one of the open street side parking spots available just a few steps away. In response, she just goes: “i told you, just squeeze through!” and rolls the window back up.
Now, im pissed. I whip out my phone and take a picture of the driver and the license plate. I was intending on calling the towing service and sending a notice to the HOA. This is when i notice that the back of this car doesnt have our neighbourhood stickers. I go up to her window as she was just opening her door to get out.
Bitch: did you just take a fucking picture of me? Did you just fucking take a picture of me?
Me: yeah i did. You dont live here. So youre actually trespassing. And you dont have any expectation of privacy in such an open space. So now youre in the wrong on both counts. Im only going to ask you one last time to move your car, or better yet, get off the subdivision before i call the cops on you for trespassing.
Bitch: (sounds like she was just waiting for me to finish talking) you fucking bitch! Delete👏that👏picture👏now! You fucking monkey!
i was pulling up my camera app to record her public freakout when she swiped at my hands causing my phone to tumble into the snow
Milena has gotten out of the car and was approaching us as soon as our body language changed. She came close just in time to hear this “lady” call me a “fucking monkey.”
Milena: what the fuck did you just call my wife? Dont tell me you actually did cus thats a fucking hate crime!
Bitch: you heard me. I called her a fucking monkey! Fucking monkey! Fucking monkey! Fucking monkey! You fucking people go back to Asia and do your pussy eating there! And take your fucking Corona back with you!
My partner LOSES it. It took me all my strength wearing heels, standing in snow and ice, to restrain her from going after this woman. At the same time, Bitch was also trying to get at Milena so i had to free up one hand to keep her away. Everyone was yelling and screaming at this point. One of our neighbours, Todd, happens to be in his garage. He comes out and investigates what is all the commotion about. Did i mention he’s also of African ethnicity?
As soon as i saw him, i called out:
“Hey! Can you get her (referring to Bitch) off of me?”
Bitch: wait what? Did you just assume he’s my friend because were black? Yo! Hey! Help! Anybody! This fucking (anti asian pejorative word, similar in context to the english words “chink” or “gook”) just called me a n123er!
It was at this point that Todd decided to slap her that caused her to shut up but continue fake crying.
ENTER STAGE LEFT, KEVIN AND KAREN THEMSELVES
They were both talking, demanding whats going on and wrestling Bitch away from Todd at the same time.
[They were both dressed in nice clothes, so im assuming they were headed for a night out with this mystery racist]
Bitch: this asshole (points at me) called me a n123er and then this other fucking dyke (points at Milena) slapped me while this f123ot traitor (points at Todd) held me down!
Karen: what the fuck? Did you fucking call my daughter a n123er?! We dont fucking do that here you fucking monkey! (Nature vs nurture theorists, here’s a case study for you). Fucking go back to China and go fucking spread your diseases there!
Kevin: (walks up to Milena and with hands up and forward, appears to try to shove her but loses his balance in the snow). If you ever hit my child again, or disrespect anyone in my family, i swear to God, I will kill you!!!
Now is my turn to be held back by Todd this time. I dont remember saying these exact words, im only repeating them verbatim based off how Todd repeated them to me.
Me: you’re fucking trying to have a go at my wife?!? I just fucking kicked your ass last Christmas and now you want seconds?! What, are you fucking insane or just fucking stupid? IM not afraid to die! Ive killed pieces of shit who are still better men than you! For work! How many fucking people do you imagine you’ve killed while driving a desk, hmm? You fucking touch my wife or threaten her again and i will kill you for free!! Then ill rip your dick off and beat your wife to death with it! Fuck it, let me go Todd, ill make her (pointing to Bitch) an orphan right now.
cringgggeeeeee
Yeaaahhhhhh. I know. Even I am cringing as i was typing that. I cant believe i said those. Seriously hope that Todd was fucking around with me, but i know i tend to go high order when provoked in just the sweet spot. The words are already said, and once its out in the wind, theres no way for me to make people unhear what i said and stuff the words back in my mouth. 10/10 would NOT recommend doing anything like that. One of the moments im not quite so proud of myself. Its not an excuse, but i only have 2 triggers that i know of: when someone presents themselves as a valid threat to my loved ones, my family, or my troops, either through words or actions, and when i get dehumanized to the point that im not even a person anymore but just another statistic in whatever subset of society that they hate. This messed up family struck Bingo! on both counts. I know its unprofessional and having a temper in the military, let alone as a leader, is a huuuge problem, and i am currently working hard (with good results) to fix that. 😅
While this is happening, Todd’s wife is standing outside their garage and calling the MPs. They tell her they dont deal with “domestic spats” even if its involving military personnel, instead call the civillian cops, and hangs up on her.
Cops come with bells and whistles 30 minutes later. By this time, more people/neighbours had gotten involved and managed to separate both parties. Everyone had calmed down, we were hanging out at Todd’s garage, K&K + crotch goblin went back to their house, and were all just waiting for the cops to come.
Cops split up and go to take both parties’ statements + witness statements. Obviously, this is not gonna be a he said she said scenario. There are plenty of witnesses willing to testify as to what happened and the words said. The problem is that there isnt any witnesses for the beginning of the confrontation. That’s when i remembered that i have a dashcam in the car and i left the car running when i initially got out. I asked for the cops permission for one of them to accompany me. I drove us to my house where i got changed into something warmer, grabbed my laptop, and plugged the dashcam’s SD card in it.
We went back to Todd’s place to play it in front of the other officer and you could clearly see by Bitch’s body language that she was the original belligerent party. Whats more entertaining was that her voice was loud enough to be captured by the camera’s microphone when she yelled the “Go back to Asia you fucking monkey!” line at me. Todd also admitted that he was the one who slapped her but it was more of a “hey wake up!” slap instead of a real one. He demonstrated using me as a dummy, that while holding Bitch around the waist from behind, there’s no way he could have attacked her with a real slap. This was again, supported by the dashcam footage.
The cops left when we told them were not willing to file charges and it would be a waste of tax money for them to pursue a “trivial” domestic disturbance, but i want copies of their write ups and their contact info in case the obvious liars cooks something up.
I immediately regretted that decision the next day i came to work.
DA DAY I CAME BACK TO WORK
Monday. 03 February, 2020. I walk into work and find several messages handed to me by my assistant. In growing urgency, they were all along the lines of: “REPORT TO THE BOSS RIGHT MEOW!”
I had a feeling what this is gonna be about.
I walk up to the boss office, salute, announce myself, seek permission to enter, and stand in front of his desk. Without being told to relax and have a seat and talk to me like an equal, which is customary for personnel at my level, my boss formally informs me that a charge has been filed against me, a trial is most likely going to be held once current investigations are finished, that he has a list of JAG attorneys that can represent me, and that if i have anything to say for myself, now is the time say it.
Quickly but concisely, i laid out the facts as it actually happened to him, even mentioning that i have a copy of the cops’ write up, my dashcam SD card as evidence, and that military police hung up on our neighbour who called them in the first place.
The Boss was nodding throughout this and simply said: “That’s what i thought, im afraid. Unfortunately, id still have to take you off of any leadership positions you’re holding until we clear this up. Take the rest of the week off, but contact this JAG lawyer first before you go and do whatever she tells you to do.”
I did as The Boss told me to. I contacted the JAG lawyer through our secure lines and she simply asked me to write my own version of events and the original SD card from my dashcam and have it couriered to her. I turned over the running of my daycare centre for wild and wanton man whores to my second, and left for home.
I went back to work the next week and i was puzzled as to what happened since i was expecting to perform a hatless dance in front of my peers and subordinates. I never heard anything from the MPs, my boss, or anyone else. When i asked my boss about it the next week, my boss simply told me that it was a “misunderstanding” and they werent actually investigating me.
The following i was not present for but i learned through the grapevine.
-all charges and investigations against me were dropped as soon as they saw what was in the dashcam and in my statement.
-turns out that Kevin is a bit henpecked from what it sounds like as well. Several rumours run that all the complaints filed against me at work, that happened in a personal context/setting, were initiated not by another soldier, but by a civillian closely associated with the soldier. Go connect the dots on that one.
-during this time, anti Asian sentiment was heating up because of Corona virus. There has been several reports of unprovoked attacks on visible (Asian) minorities and the voices of order were having none of it. No sane investigator would prosecute an Asian woman, who it turns out was actually the victim of a hate crime. This is important to mention because for the past several years, the attitude and culture here has been slowly shifting to focus and correct the injustices done to people of African descent. As a result, more and more videos and incidents are emerging of African descent people having public freakouts and getting away with it despite being wrong because they uttered the magic words: “is it because im black?” You make a big and public enough issue centered around being black, and people will back off regardless of whos right or wrong. This is NOT my opinion, but this is the public sentiment. I dont agree with it, as there are still a lot of injustice that needs to be corrected, and you can see the potential for abuse and misuse in ANY example of correction of flawed historical public policy/beliefs but the attitudes of the other side when in the wrong, or the belief that these improvements sweeping the country is an automatic “get out of jail free” card for valid offenses isnt helping either.
-Kevin turns out to have been the star of his own hatless dance party. Once they proved that he was falsely accusing me and Milena of assault and racial attacks, and that him and his kin were the ones throwing racial and homophobic slurs all over the place, he was charged with all the military versions of those offenses + conduct unbecoming and misappropriating public resources (for filing false reports and making false sttements. More on that later). He admitted guilty on all counts in a trial and had to: be suspended from work with no pay for 6 months, pay a fine and hefty pay reduction for 6 months after that, with all records being expunged from his service file on 5 years + 1 day after he has carried out all the punishments.
-it also emerged that Karen was present at his trial and broke down crying and freaking out at his bosses when he was pronounced guilty. She had to be escorted out of the base and driven back home after being dosed with a sedative by a medic.
Karen ended up being the breadwinner for their household for 6 months while Kevin was reduced to earning peanuts. Since her MLM and “fitness lifestyle” influencer job was mainly catering to military spouses, her clientele quickly diminished as soon as word of their misdeeds spread around.
Another result of this Rube Goldberg-esque turn of events was that Kevin it turns out, has been conniving with a local office supplier company and has been taking some pretty creative liberties with his unit’s purse. Policy for public procurement is that everything has to go through a fair and competitive bidding process where service providers and suppliers get a fair shake at hawking their goods and services. With some exceptions, the policies for procurement can be skipped, like say, if theres no other competitor available for that particular product/service, or the need for an item/service is urgent, the bidding process is always followed to the letter.
Being a morale and welfare and procurement officer for his unit, Kevin managed to get himself in a whole another world of trouble by conniving with several suppliers into engaging their services in exchange for some personal “perks”. Kevin’s Unit is hosting a Christmas party and giving away door prizes and holding raffles? He skipped the bidding process and sales/promotions review and went straight to the local electronics store. He goes and buys all the electronic prizes from them, and in exchange gets to walk away with a brand new PS4 Pro and a Home Theatre bluetooth sound bar as a “lucky customer” who won their “random” draw.
Office running low on supplies and may need replacing some office equipment? Kevin goes to a local office supply shop and gives them the business. In exchange, his wife gets to “test” out a brand new high end gaming/office chair and keep the product for “free” after posting a review about it.
He may have turned out to have chosen the better deal, but the fact that he skipped the appropriate procedures and personally benefited from those misdeeds is what got him in real trouble.
Its actually the office supply shop that opened up this can of worms for him. With the wolf of economic disaster created by COVID hungry and at the doorstep, the proprietor of this business phoned his unit and asked if they need any more office supplies or upgrades to their equipment. With Kevin being suspended from work, there was no one to keep a lid on things. His replacement was puzzled and surprised.
“Whaa? Youre not in our system sir. In fact, our system shows that we have always gotten our supplies from X company, the one that won the bid and weve always used. When did you say we ordered from you and for how much?”
I feel pretty comfortable sharing this bit of gossip. Its a pretty open secret by now at our base that some Air Force dude just flushed his career down the toilet and has a pack of investigators and financial detectives waiting till he comes back to work so they can dissect his life and spending, and work it over with a fine toothed comb. And that he just managed to get a slap on the wrist from getting into trouble, and that there’s no way he will simply get another wrist slap from this one.
Right now, all is quiet. There is that one odd time when we saw Kevin disassembling and cleaning what looks like a gun in his backyard. Turns out it was a very realistic looking M4 style air rifle. As a result, both Milena and I have applied for permission from the local representative of the government to carry personal firearms. We dont take well to threats or implications of a threat. Were still awaiting for permission to be granted but believe me when i say we have been upping the intensity of our sparring sessions.
I am hoping it doesnt come down to that, but were ready if it does. In fact, i dont want it to escalate any more. Im sick of it. Personally, i believe it wont come down to that. Ive been in plenty of fights and spent enough time at 2 way ranges. I know what people who trully intend to use a firearm for its lethal purpose look like. They dont go around brandishing a gun and threatening to use it, before actually using it. People who fully intend to use a gun actually go ahead and use it from the get go.
But on the other hand, i wont let intimidation tactics make me cower and unhappy in my own home either. Milena and I love hosting parties. Before COVID shut gatherings down, we just wrapped up a weekend by being the final stop for a small hen party. Everyone had fun in the hot tub and had a safe place to go drink and sleep. Our neighbours have also come to love our summer barbecue shindigs. I can grill a mean steak and my surf and turf platters are just raved about. We both kind of are the unofficial mothers in our respective units. Whenever a new soldier or airman gets posted to our unit, we throw them a welcome party in our home. We continued and brought that tradition to our new home. Right now, im renovating my basement to be a retro style games room with vintage PacMan, PinBall, and other arcade game machines in one corner, a shelf full of board and card games, a full service mini bar, and a computegames room in our library. Were also planning on getting a pre fab shed and repurposing it into an axe throwing shed. We want our home to be a friendly base camp for any weary/homesick soldier, sailor, or airman that we have come to love and treat as our own siblings, or in some cases, children. No amount of intimidation will stop that from happening or take that away from us. Well, COVID probably would if this shite doesnt get any better.
For now, this is the end of the Kevin and Karen saga. Lets hope there isnt any more. Especially since the last time i checked, i was ahead and winning. 😂
PS
Sorry for the late post, i typed Part 1 and Part 2 in one go with the intent of publishing them one after the other. I had to put posting Part 2 on pause because I had to do some fact checking with some people to make sure im not recalling shit improperly.
PPS
Welp. Apparently i suck at messing with people. My one and only attempt and i sucked at it. Sorry for the links, its all Rick Astley links. I was trying to call induce a laugh but foiled tremendously because of that stupid ass thumbnail. Im so dumb. Im sorry. I suck. Ill go ahead and send myself to the time out corner.
PPPS
This is so dumb. Ill just strip the links. Thought it would be funny. Sorry folks. I got Rick Rolled by my own attempts to Rick Roll you guys. 😭

TL;DR :–
· Me and why I was banned
· IWISK
· EVE CASINO
· CCP Security
· Tinfoil
· Shit Spelling

Dear Fellow Space Nerds,

For months I have been debating if I should write this piece and I warn you now it is long, I have written this and discarded it several times on the basis that it will just come across as a bitch or a whine. But as you may now tell I have left it long enough for many to not care, so this story will just be that, a story of bad spelling, bad punctuation and the worst grammar you have ever seen. But it is my story and I have decided to just tell it as the question “I thought you was banned” needed a point of reference I could send people to. Now I get you will be suspicious but I am telling it as I see it, and if you read all of this then bravo indeed! :)

Before we begin let me just say that the whole banning of gambling mechanisms from a video game I do support and that is my stance on it. It may just be for fun but does it hold a place in a sandbox from an external point of view, the answer is no and should be every time. However it can be incredibly innocent for the 99% that participate, it is however the 1% who may have been personally affected by the ability to gamble using IRL money via the forms of plex codes. My issue which you will read here, is how it was handled and how I was treated rather than the morals of gambling.

This story begins at the start of 2016. Between the dates of the 6th and 9th of January, approx 14 Bankers in IWISK was banned for suspected RMT. This was only several days after CCP Peligro (who will be referenced allot in this piece) had announced on Twitter that he was back to work. CCP Peligro has been a subject much recently on reddit and other channels (discord / IRC etc) and I figured I would give my experience with him and CCP as a whole. Now some devs from CCP are reading this and those who I have linked this too will agree with much that is written here.

Now the claims that the banning of IWISK bankers was due to SMA etc informing CCP Security of the 1 Dollar to 1 Billion isk that IWISK was selling, these were called Batts or batteries.. I know what you are thinking, why would CCP believe such an incredible story that 1 Billion equated to 1 USD... Now CCP Peligro was off on Christmas break when these emails were sent to [email protected] mailbox.

Well the simple truth is that they actually did! Team Security took this as an opportunity to jump on the IWISK RMT train which they failed to execute back in mid 2015 with the whole iwisk URL blacklisting from the in game browser. Now why would Team security hate IWISK? The answer is really simple and can be summed in a few bullet points :

• Several complaints over IWISK RMT which on reddit we saw around 20 threads claiming to have damning evidence but was never shared with anyone...
• Bankers actually had been caught prior to the ban wave (I think 2 but we shal say 3 for the sake of argument)
• IWISK is a blind spot for Security

So the complaints speak for themselves however the bankers who had actually been caught prior to this are simply the reaction of an individual acting alone. Some CCP Security caught and some we had emailed CCP Security of suspicious activity who had later been perma banned.

And lastly the blind spot... This for any organisation regardless of being a gaming company, this is just an almost impossible scenario to police and should never have been allowed to operate. But the fact is that it was and as such this was their own creation of a black zone. This black zone had existed for almost 7 years+ with 3rd partying websites. The actual Blackzone has technically always existed since the API was allowed for public use.

Now keep in mind this is not just IWISK related as ANY other gambling or website that allowed transactions to take place "legitimately" through a 3rd party site is a risk. The reason IWISK was such a risk was because literally hundreds of trillions flowed through it. IWISK could easily transact up to or approx 50 to an incredible 100 Trillion a month just by the master wallet alone! (may have been less but at its peak it really hit these numbers)

So IWISK was a massive risk to Security from an RMT perspective, and anyone could claim RMT, and to be fair to those who did, we could not prove that it was not happening. And I will explain why this is the case…

IWISK had a quick deposit method that allowed bankers to process isk by copying the transaction from the wallet into a field on the bankers backend. This allowed said banker to give the customer their virtual isk on the site within 8 seconds of sending the isk to IWISK Corp. This made us very popular as there was very limited wait times to gamble with your iskies.

However this system could be abused right? I simply could just copy a transaction from the wallet and wallah, I have given myself 1 bajjilion isk right... Yes this indeed is the scenario... IWISK or EEP mitigated this risk by adding a collateral to the bankers account. So if a bankers collateral was 10 billion, he could only quick deposit for players up to 10 billion isk. When the API ran after 30 minutes, these would be matched against the players transaction from the master wallet and the banker would be given his collateral back on the site.

So what the hell does that all mean.. well it means that a banker could amass profits as a banker and they could use those profits to RMT with. So If the banker had 20 Billion in his collateral wallet, the banker could sell 10 Billion to a player by just tweaking the transaction to their name, thus creating a fake wallet deposit in the database. The API runs and it will not match the in game wallet, and thus the banker is now down 10 Billion but you have "gifted" a player 10 billion isk to do what they want with.

So yes there was a loop hole in IWISK that allowed people to do this, but it was policed when discovered and this was one of the ways we caught people who thought they were smarter than the admins running IWISK or CCP security. I genuinely believed these bankers thought we could not catch them and that we would not shop them to CCP --- They were wrong.. --- I would often receive emails from players stating they just bought isk from xyz site and they got a iwisk email saying they had funds. So my response which can be verified by Security was always to inform CCP and if I catch who it was I would do the same.

So this is where it got a bit hard to navigate, I would often look at the person delivering the isk and be like "really this fucking guy is RMT'ing....". So when probed the banker denied it and I could not help but believe him. However I now had the issue of trying to work out who and how.. So this is really how the above loophole was discovered and the watching began to see who and how.. I never said or told people that we were watching them, simply just mailed everyone saying, if you are RMT’ing and using IWISK as a front we can identify you and you will be caught. Again this can be verified by CCP or a banker who kept these mails… We caught several bankers and details were sent to CCP and policing of that was now a task.

So back on track to the banning of the Bankers Jan 2016. After a month or so CCP un-banned all those involved. Except for one person “R00gle” who was in MC at the time. Now R00gle to this day denies any involvement in RMT and even went to FanFest to hang out with his buddies from MC. CCP Spoke to him and said they would look back into it, but they never did get in touch with him. Having now known R00gle for many years, If asked the question did he? I would say no every time and he was a scape goat for CCP Security to claim they got "their" guy from the ban wave in Jan.

Remember that CCP Security only answers to very few people in CCP and that would be Hilmar, and maybe Andie or Ned? IDK exactly who but this would be a reasonable assumption and really just speculation from other posts and channels I have poked around in. So on that basis, any communication directed at CCP Security is never going to give you a response, because CCP Security do not discuss with end client or in very rare cases they may, but not to the value add of the end user, and simply close your ticket with a no response. This you can find on Reddit hundreds of times and this is how they operate. This should come to many of you as no surprise regardless how shit the service is.

The so what to all that is, CCP Security hated IWISK from day one. Not just for the reasons above but also because they got told to let it go the first time around (mid 2015) and the second time around (Jan 2016). Most reading this will know about where CCP Burgtarist was open at FanFest and said he was over ruled and if he had his way everyone would have remained banned.

Now some numbers, because we all love numbers and spreadsheets! But sadly I do not have graphs... I could make one but then I would be just trying to buy the super nerds approval using graph pron!

This is the contribution of IWISK over 12 months to the RMT issue. So you can speculate that CCP Security spent hundreds of hours of no doubt, evidence gathering and data analysis which I know CCP Quant had to do. I am sure trying to map all that isk was a nightmare and the promo codes must have made it impossible to determine isk in vs isk out..

CCP released a figure stating that on average every day they ban 50 accounts for RMT or other activities etc... Now this same figure I have seen across reddit on a few occasions and I have used this number on occasion to make a point, and I believe it has comes from the 2014 FF video archive. If the figure is wrong let me know and I will recount my abbicus and update appropriately. But I think when you see the result the amount they ban per day will not change the outcome too much.

EDIT: Some facts for you... 2012 to 2013 30,202 Account banned total.

So 50 Accounts banned daily over 1 year

• 50*365= 18,250 accounts.
• IWISK accounts perma banned within 12 months = 4 people Jan 2016 to Jan 2017
• IWISK Contribution to the RMT problem

0.022%

Not suggesting that RMT is justified and belittling the issue at all, but numbers speak for themselves and the issue was tiny by comparison to what actually takes place in Eve if at all IWISK was RMT'ing. Now if you check these websites that are selling ISK and have feedback sections, you will see that they are still selling and moving the same amounts of isk. Soooo no sudden dip in ISK being RMT'd to the "black market"??? Think about that just for a minute and ponder if IWISK was such a massive RMT operation why has banning it had no effect on the 3rd party ISK Black Market? Smells like bullshit right...

So before I even get to what happened in Octoer 2016.. Several more points on RMT in Eve. It happens all the time and it is happening in alliances or inter corp constantly. Supers & Titans are being sold for RL $$'s all the time and accounts. CCP Tickets to FF / Vegas are being sold for isk along with Plane tickets / hotels and beer money.. Yes those going to Fanfest this year, there will be a few who have paid corp mates isk to fund their trip and hotel stays because they have soo much isk and some people have swag amounts of RL $$’s. I know many that have done this and even many CCP dev's know who these people are. This was discussed at a player meet on several occasions late last year. However this is not challenged or tackled because literally who gives a F, certainly the Devs attending did not give a F.

Hell I tried to buy a nice duder at FF but he refused to take my money and insisted he bought me the beer. So instead I said jokingly how about a plex as I will end up owing you? He said that is one cheap plex, but no you do not have to do that... Now some would have said hey, I buy beer and you gib plex K?... Little did he know that because he refused me spending my own money and just wanted to buy me a beer out of principle and in his own words "you have done a lot for many", when I got back to the UK @ home I sent him 20 plex's! Made me warm and fuzzy just for his reaction as he was gobsmacked. ♥ So If I am guilty here it is accepting a beer and paying 20 plex’s for the pleasure \0/ then yesh I deserve the banning. kek

So now we spin on to September 2016. Me and Eep had a few disagreements over several years and now looking back it was over trivial stuff and I decided that If I had stayed in IWISK our relationship would have devolved further. This being our friendship of 3 years was coming to an end and it genuinely made me sad and disappointed with myself. Regardless of what you may think of Eep or the way he reacts from time to time, he is a good guy and he takes way more flak than is deserved. He is down on his luck most of the time. He struggled with money and lived on very little, despite what you all thought, he was not rolling around in RL money living the dream, but sadly living month to month on most occasions and having to borrow money (which he repaid back to people). And I hope Gonz does not mind me saying that, but I just wanted to put it into context and disperse any ideas that he was rivalling yacht sizes with Mittens… If you really knew Gonz, you would know he had no money and if he had been RMT'ing then he would have been rich by comparison.

So I decided one day that enough was enough and if I stayed in IWISK one more day I would flip my sheet and my relationship with Gonz would be perma damaged. So I left to join Eve Casino who welcomed me along for their launch of a new casino that worked completely different to any of the others currently open. Now I did act badly here and I do regret my abuse of the in game mailing list IWISK had, I advertised me leaving IWISK and promoting a new Casino. As the Face of IWISK (streaming and Media) I tried to justify it as a bit of tongue and cheek on my way out, but it was a douche move. I figured Eep would take it two ways, badly or a challenge to step up IWISK 2.0 asap. Not one that I am proud of... But even after all that me and Eep have remained friends and we still talk from time to time. Some things are more important than space pixels, and I am happy to report he is doing ok and better off now than he was prior to IWISK being banned from EVE. The site is still thriving and makes more $$$$’s than it ever has.

So I am now with this new group ECAS / Eve Casino. The doors are closed for internal testing only and the website was pretty damn good I must say. I will not go too deep on ECAS as there really is not much to say, but the website was functioning but only to a point as it was only half finished, not ready for release. The planned release date was the week of Eve Vegas and much work was needed to get it finished.

So with that in mind that Eve Casino was not open to the public and not a single isk was moved through ECAS, the owner was banned along with myself Lenny and Eep. Here is the list of why's :

• Lenny – RMT.
• IronBank - Section 2.1 EULA Offence.
• Eep - EULA Offence / not sure as never saw it and cannot find reference.
• Adarics ECAS - EULA Breach of Development License.

Now Eve Casino was banned because they had used the Crest API for the login to the site as part of the "Evil Network" SSO. This included EOC TV and a few other tools that was being developed. The Crest API was not used for anything else other than the player to login and this was approved by CCP for use. Adarics had spoken with several developers who had given him the greenlight to use it as it was not being used to handle wallet information or any other part of the player. But CCP security banned him for said use. So now we have a classic situation of Part A of the org not talking to Part B. When this was produced to CCP Security they just closed the ticket and ignored him.

And yes you got it, CCP Peligro. So again even with Adarics doing everything by the book, asking for permission and clearing everything prior to deploying it or using it, CCP still screwed him over, or should I say CCP Security. Now it is my understanding that he took this information to Falcon who basically dismissed him and said it did not matter as the case was closed. Now Falcon was A) not interested or B) Cant do anything...

Now you might be thinking wait there must be more to this than what Iron is telling us... Nope that is it, and the so what to that.. Around 12 bankers who were helping test the website which had not transacted a single isk and was closed to the public had all their wallets reset to zero, and Adarics was banned for a first time infraction of a rule that had no effect on the game as the casino was closed even though he had a green light from the Developers.

To this day Adaric is still banned and all those bankers who joined ECAS never got their isk back. They had done nothing wrong, not a single isk moved around, not involved in any of the coding, and CCP just took trillions of isk from these players. Soo, abuse of Power you might say? Guess who did this >>> CCP Peligro Mr Team Security.

Next we move back to IWISK.. Lenny and EEP banned for the reasons above and the rest of the bankers had their isk stripped. So again bankers in IWISK who may have been or may not have been involved in RMT was stripped of their isk and that was that. CCP took between 25 and 30 Trillion isk from both of these orgs and claimed a victory over RMT.

Now it is not hard to fathom that a lot of isk was purchased with plex. I often was intrigued if people had been playing with Plex to fund their activities on IWISK, as to me this was fascinating. Take away the human part that people may have been spiralling out of control, this can be said not just for IWISK but for EOH EVE Bet and the "others" who probably had small amounts of traffic but nothing worth boasting :P (still getting those jabs in). I do not like to reference competition as it seems like a cheap shot, but as these are now all dead, it no longer matters to a degree… But yeah the point here is that all that isk taken which no doubt the players had purchased via EVE or Markee etc has disappeared.. Not even some sent to Plex 4 Good or used to reimburse players who had their stuff stolen in game etc.. CCP talk about an isk imbalance when they restore Items from stolen looted accounts, well they have a huge sink to use. But I guess this was taken and written off as profit rather than use what they took.

Whenever people think of RMT or gambling in Eve they will always pick the most known target. One because the most popular and two because law of averages state that yes it probably exists at some point. However this can exist across all of the casino's, but given the most popular will always be the focal point, you are always going to be under suspicion.

An example of RMT existing outside of IWISK I want to share with you is a guy we caught from Germany, who was trying to use IWISK to funnel money to another player. He was using the raffle system buying 50% tickets with player 1 and using a 2nd account on another machine connected via a VPN to mask himself from us and CCP. His 2nd account would purchase the other 50% of tickets. So he was washing his isk. Yes IWISK was taking a cut as the house would normally regardless, but unknowingly being abused by some tard or tards. I asked this guy if he used any other ways of doing this...

With a bit of poking he finally opened up and said he had access to alliance funds and also a corp accounts in B0T. Not B0T holding itself ofc but some renter corps within B0t... This allowed him to funnel isk into these corp accounts and the use of these funds to build supers etc which he then 3rd partied to make RL money. This seemed like an obvious way to funnel isk and I asked him how he never got caught. His response was CCP are not clever enough or lack the resources to catch him... I was a little surprised by this but I wanted more info on this guy. I was trying to catch him out by getting any info I could, but all avenues lead me to around 50 iP's which bounced all over the world across 7 or 8 VPN services which are easily obtained online & his hardware ID's were changing all the time. This guy was the master or RMT and seemingly from what he was claiming (because that is what it is just a claim) and I wanted to know more, hell who would not be curious.

So I asked him if he had ever used any other websites to facilitate washing isk or doing RMT trades. He said the best one was using EOH Poker (Sorry guys). He said that all he had to do was set up a Head to Head and just lose to the person he was selling to... Or use 2 accounts of his and wash the money across 20 accounts over a 3 month or 6 month period of which none could be connected to Physical hardware or software ID tagging. He told me he would biomass on mass accounts, and some accounts he has had for years without being banned by Team Security. So he in private could wash isk very easily via playing poker in sealed rooms. Thus utilizing EOH's system to wash isk very easily with little to no risk of another player sniping raffles from him. I could see his point and he said that he would only use IWISK for certain methods of washing or selling isk, but he would not tell me anymore, he felt spooked by a few people dropping in and out of the channel. Once really confident talking to us then suddenly not so much. So this encounter certainly opened my eyes on how these guys were abusing sites to do these trades and he was boasting of hundreds of thousands of Euros in profit from this.

This ultimately changed how I looked for patterns in the database. For example looking for players who go head to head on raffles of a value higher than x and then expanding this to a large date range to see how long this was going on for. To be honest it was hard to figure out who was who and if it was chance or just normal activity.. So I thought I knew or had the silver bullet in identifying anyone abusing the system, but reality was, I am now more confused over the data set than ever.

So that aside, that was September done and dusted and I have now moved over to EVE Casino. Hopefully I have given a decent overview of the before the final banning and demonstrated that RMT was happening everywhere, but because IWISK was the most prominent focal point of the gambling scene in EVE, it had become the centre of all RMT claims, even though every system could be manipulated regardless of reputation.

So October the 12th and the ban wave and EULA changes announced by CCP. https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/end-user-license-agreement-changes-coming-with-eve-online-ascension/

I am working night shifts and had been for a few days at this point. I woke up to hundreds of messages and tweets, skype, irc everything… I laid in bed and was like sigh this again!!! So I get out of bed, put on my slippas and go to the kitchen whilst reading all of the messages and a cluster barrage of confusion. I make a cup of tea (Earl Grey to be precise + 2 sugars dash of milk) and make my way to my PC. I was not worried as this had happened several times before and I have never been banned in 12 or 13 years. To be honest at that point I assumed it was just a IWISK the website had been blacklisted and all gambling was to cease, but to my genuine surprise, my account had been banned also.

When attempting to login I got the classic “Banned pending investigation, CCP Peligro”… I laughed out loud at first and then tried every account I owned. All 30 of them but alas to no avail. So I started checking my emails and literally as I opened my client, the email popped in.. It was from guess who, you got it – CCP Peligro

CCP Peligro (EVE Online) Oct 12, 15:22 UTC
Hi,
This mail is sent to inform you that your EVE Online accounts have permanently banned, in light of EULA violations. Specifically, you were found to be using your accounts "XYZ" and "XYZ1" for business purposes, in violation of the EULA, Section 2.A.
Your continued access to the System and license to play the Game is subject to proper conduct. Without limiting CCP's rights to control the Game environment, and the conduct of the players within that environment, CCP prohibits the following practices that CCP has determined detract from the overall user experience of the users playing the Game.
2.A "Accounts may not be used for business purposes. Access to the System and playing EVE is intended for your personal entertainment, enjoyment and recreation, and not for corporate, business, commercial or income-seeking activities. Business entities and anyone who is acting for or on behalf of a business or for business purposes may not establish an Account, access the System or play EVE. Accessing the System or using the Game for commercial, business or income-seeking purposes is strictly prohibited."

So I opened TS3 and those from IWISK was now back on my TS3 server and I started to understand what the damage was, and it was everyone, it was a swift attack from young Mr CCP Peligro.

So I noticed that a Petition had already been opened on my behalf by CCP, no doubt just for their tracking. So I responded saying “I have never RMT’d so I do not understand my ban”. Then as I sit there I read the email again, it was not for RMT as I had assumed... Because it came from CCP Peligro my assumption was that it must be ISK related as that is what he does right. But to my surprise it was no mention of RMT in my petition like Lenny’s. Now I had not spoken to Lenny at this point due to the TZ difference, but the guys on TS3 said his specifically stated RMT, yet mine was for a Section 2.A… So I jumped on IRC and started asking questions with some Devs at CCP, they said if it was not RMT then it should not have come from CCP Peligro, it should have come from another person at CCP. I cannot remember who the Dev is who handles violating of Section 2 of the EULA but we know that it is not CCP Peligro. So now I am confused as this info is coming from Devs and then a few days later I noticed that Nosy Gamer was talking about the same thing. (If anyone finds out who the Dev at CCP should have been let me know and I will update this to keep this accurate.)

So I respond to my petition basically saying, sorry I misread the petition, but I do not understand how I broke this section of the EULA. Can you explain to me what I did wrong…
But the classic silence now dawned upon this petition and not a single response. Few weeks later the petition is closed and not a single response nor explanation or even guidance on why and how to avoid going forward, just simply nothing.

I spoke with Falcon and we had traded a few emails. Not to go into them too much but the bottom line was that Security had concluded their investigation and as such the matter was closed. Nobody can do anything at CCP as the decision is theirs.

So no point except to maybe appeal to Internal Affairs at CCP. I did wait a while before doing this, & Not a single response.

The one good thing about going to Player events is you can meet Devs that you know or have never met. Meet people you have never met and share experiences. Even though I was super angry about what happened, I pulled up my big boy pants and put a smile on my face. I think because of my demeanour about the whole thing being happy go lucky and care free, nearly all the devs would speak openly with me about what had happened over a few shots and a giggle. Not giving too much away, but it did give away a few things that I was trying to understand. Why had I been banned as the reason given made no sense.

So take the email from CCP stating that my accounts had been banned for the reason “income seeking or for business” – Now given I know this is not RMT related as it would just say RMT and you are perma banned from EVE. Yet I am still allowed to play subject to proper conduct right? So it is not RMT as that is clear cut and nor should it be.

The only road I can go down is “Twitch” and the “Game Show” I was pixel space famous for. So I would ask these Devs when intoxicated, was I banned for the reason because of what I was doing on Twitch? The same response, sorry I cannot tell you but a smile & a wink was enough for me to know that I was on the right path.

Why all this effort and having to read between the lines, simple really, nobody at CCP would discuss any of this with me. Because they were kept out of the loop or those involved were told specifically not to discuss this with anyone at CCP or external. Drunk CCP best CCP :)

However not all employees will toe the line, so yes some expressed their disgust to me and apologised for their company & colleagues behaviours and some of the CSM contacted me saying they were appalled by this, and no I am not referring to Bobmon but “others”. It was comforting to know that despite the public flogging CCP gave me, people were still ready to call out CCP’s BS.

So now Its November and I kinda have a better understanding of the reason I was banned for. So I stream on Twitch like many others and the assumption from CCP or more specifically is that my channel is a cash grab based on massive amounts of ISK I have amassed from IWISK. (This was a comment made to me by a member of CCP GM's)

Now if you spent like 5 minutes in my channel like most critiques have in the past. You assume that I am trying to get subs and donations for the isk being given away. This could not have been further from the truth and if you have read this far congratulations…

The channel operated like this… If you are a subscriber you got “Iron” or points for every month that you were subscribed. So if you had been subbed for 1 month you got 500 Iron, and on month 2 you got 500 + 2000 for being 2 months, 3 months 500 + 3000 etc etc…

So the longer you are subbed the more points or “Iron” you got and this is known on Twitch as a loyalty system. You also got points for being idle in channel or being in channel when I was streaming.

Now if you are not subscribed you got no points at all, simply none as points are used to play in game channel games “roulette or Bank robbing” or entering Subscriber only giveaways / requesting songs etc. These giveaways were for Plex’s or other things which you could redeem via your EVE account management page.

I purchased these codes from Markee Dragons store or Greenman Gaming (Approved ETC or PLEX code retailers) and the money to buy these codes came from the sub’s money that I got from Twitch every month.

So I have been accused of Income seeking by CCP, and the reason I find this so ludicrous is that it was no secret of how this model operated. Hell every stream I would announce these code giveaways are only for subs because the subs effectively paid for them. And at this point I think nobody at CCP involved in my banning knew this, because they simply did not do their homework. I would love to be proven wrong, but that would require someone from CCP actually talking to me.

The other giveaways that was done on the channel follow’s CCP rules that everyone must have the same chance regardless of subscription type. This I followed to the letter and back story, I even asked for this to be made as a policy for streamers. The rules also state that this is for “in game items only” and Fozzie even reinforced that on Mittani’s Twitch channel days after this policy was released. He said if it is for anything out of game then do what you want with it, which reinforced the CCP policy on Streaming.

So I followed the rules to the letter and others on Twitch were still not following these rules… But hey I did not care as everyone has their own path to follow and if CCP really gave a hoot they would step in. I am no internet police vigilantly and I do not stoop to the same levels like DBRB for example. Yes DBRB I know what you tried to do and it failed.

Anyway back on track.. A little bit into the world of me and why income seeking is just utter nonsense.. I work as an IT Contractor and earn good money. Or at least I think it is good money. Approx 300 GBP a day or 380 USD a day not inc bonus etc. Not going to be a billionaire in RL, but enough to not worry financially about a mortgage or nice cars holidays etc.
So here is a rough example of what I got from Twitch every month and how those funds were spent. Sometimes it was less around 500 but it varied and at one point was as high as 720… This is puny compared to the likes of Zarvox etc but he does it full time and deserves every penny!

Twitch Income:

• 250 Subs @ 2.5 USD = 625 USD

Monthly Expenditure:

· Server VPS - 105 USD · Deepbot 10 – USD · 1ronbot 5 – USD · Plex Codes and Aurumn Codes Monthly Avg - 200 - 250 USD · X-Split – 15

Total Monthly Expenditure - 380 USD

So I make give or take a massive:

245 USD a month

depending on how many subs I have, and this does not even include the cost of Electricity / Hardware failures or equipment purchases to improve the stream. If I was to break it down further into that. But as these additional's I have not included are for personal enjoyment as well and I cannot or won’t include them. as it would be wrong to do so.

Also any paypal money left over in paypal get's spent at the end of the Year on a Christmas and New Years special Stream. I buy as many codes as I can to give away (2015 Christmas I spent over 1100 USD on codes alone). So I run my channel almost non profit or at least as best I could. And yes I take money for Beer and Nachos cuz Beer and Nachoz amright?

So I was banned for making around 200 USD a month and some change because… NOPE NOPE NOPE I do not get it also. Other streamers make more $$$’s than me easy in the Eve Category, but yep you got it, it was all they could use to ban me. Literally they used a BS excuse to ban me from the game and publicly flog me.

So yes I got F’d over royally because some fuck wit child in CCP Security had a grudge to settle. That is truly how I feelz about this and it is disgusting. If any of my staff members behaved like this, they would be out immediately without warning. And I know I am not alone when it comes to complaints about Peligro and his conduct…

To add insult to injury he even followed me on Twitter about 2 weeks prior to nuking my account, I guess he wanted my tears…

http://i.imgur.com/MtAxI0Y.png

But the funny part is, as soon as I mentioned and saw this connection I emailed CCP about his behaviour and that day he un-followed me on Twitter. Bad taste indeed sir.

Now I had tried to reach out and extend my hand with Peligro, as he followed me on Twitter prior to the first ban wave in Jan 2016. I used to feed him info on suspected people or anything else that I thought may have been an issue. See image and you will notice the dates..

http://i.imgur.com/bxATAfX.png << But as you can see I was trying every avenue to get these sec people to engage.

Around June he stopped following me, so I took that as a sign that CCP Security wanted nothing to do with me or to aid in catching RMT'ers. I have also emailed and raised petitions of bankers & players who I thought were dodgy. And I also captured one of the bankers via Reddit who I know got banned. That was a good day for Reddit on the anti RMT front!

Now there is the whole unassailable wealth thing.. This made my literally laugh out loud. For a start I know more people in Eve who are station traders and combined have more isk than IWISK bankers / IWISK in general. They could have funded the war against Mittens all by themselves as a small group. Station traders in major hubs selling and buying firesales or hunting forums for cheap BPO deals and reselling them etc also have unassailable wealth. The hypocrisy that it is unfair because you cannot target these people and casino’s are generally untouchable… Well if you know station trading or have half a fucking clue about this game and enough capital, you can literally steer the market in your favour. And I do believe a trader recently and a few other have been banned and they are still banned. Guess who is investigating them… CCP Peligro

@ CCP – I am disappointed with you that you even listened to the dear complaints of the overlord Mittani, But I do expect you to Nerf Market trading so you can be killed and have your stuff taken from you, or would it be better Mittens to write a letter of complaint to Ned?
Sigh…

Lastly
I was debating and have been for the last 15 minutes whether to put this in or not but I will add these last few bits as conjecture and you make up your own mind. But all of the above is my story and I have no reason to BS. You can see it is open and honest. I have tried not to misty any part of the above except the bit with my email trades with Falcon as it contained some personal parts of my life when I was in the forces / Hospital. But I hope at the very least you can see that not everything is as it seems.

If you control the evidence that is received and you want a group or x people out of the game, you can make any evidence tell the story you want. Forget what you think about me or IWISK etc, just think about it for a while.

[Tinfoil-zone]

· Mittani is RL friends with Peligro and he is / was a Goonswarm Member… · Head of internal affairs left after this all happened. · Head of CCP Security left after this all happened.

[/Tinfoil-zone-end]

(Since that lame ass APhenix is censoring out the truth again over in /wow, I've reposted here for those looking for answers)
Sure anyone can foolishly blow their money on whatever they want, but giving to a con-man who have lied to you is a whole different story.
Here's what the casual passer by who sees "$5 raffle chance at a killer mount & send a guy to blizzcon" doesn't see:
1) Elvine just went on an international 2 week trip to Hong Kong.
2) He's talking about another international trip on his livestream again. (Yeah- thats 2 international flights in 3 months)
3) He has purchased with his own money a super rare pet code off ebay that he paid $600 for! (It's been over 5 weeks since purchase - he aint planning on raffling it! - he's done what 10-12 raffles since then?)
Link to his ebay account with the $600 pet purchase on March 3rd (Feedback left on 13th - click that one to see details) http://t.co/W7SH1oikAD
If you can afford $600 pets and international flights then you can afford your own Blizzcon trip! Stop using Blizzcon as a means to cover your ILLEGAL raffle schemes.
4) The raffles he is running are illegal.
5) He was warned that raffles without the proper state and country licenses are both illegal and against the paypal terms of use. (they are gambling after all) Link to Paypal's Acceptable use policy: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/AcceptableUse_full (See #6)
6) He tries to out-think the law and paypal by disguising his illegal lottery raffles as "donations with a free raffle entry" after warned.
7) He has been caught by Paypal and has since had his Paypal account blocked. Now he can't even get legit donations - just like he was warned would happen. Account blocked proof: https://twitter.com/ssmith0911/status/317039592014499841/photo/1
8) Anyone who was duped into this illegal raffle scheme can file for a refund thru Paypal as others have already started. You will get your money back because what he was doing is against the terms of service (and illegal).
If you want to give your money to this kind of a scheming con-man, than go right ahead, but does this type of scumbag really need it for blizzcon?
9) He has already illegally raised over $2.9K ($4.2K total raffle sales - costs of cards he bought on ebay. Isn't that enough for a DOMESTIC flight and stay from anywhere in the US? Yet he continues to play the "help send me to Blizzcon" scheme.
10) Wouldn't the $600 you spent on the pet code and the $300 you spent on the first cards you raffled, have been a nice chunk of getting yourself to Blizzcon without having to hustle people for donations and your illegal raffle scheme?
11) The headset he gave away as raffle one is believed to have been one of his sponsor donations that was to be given away for free - not raffled off for personal profit!
12) He also does free entry giveaways for sponsor products, but deletes you out of the raffle if he doesn't like you or you have agreed with someone who has called him out.
The people who are the most upset about this are the ones who have stood up for Elvine and vouched for him as one of the honest good guys in the gold making scene. Then once we stand up for him, he turns shady and runs illegal raffle schemes that raked in a ton of free cash for himself. If you vouched for someone, then they turn and go shady after your approval, you'd be upset too.
If you want more on the whole issue, just check out The Eviscerated podcast on iTunes or Stitcher Radio Episode #43 & #44.