Admin Actions on Loans and Payment Defaulted. (in General)

I'm beginning to feel this needs to be seriously thought about. In so many cases, there is EASILY shown proof where a player is simply not logging on anymore, broken their contract, and the person who did it in the first place is out of look. It's a serious problem in the loan and pay plan business.

The current formula for dealing with forfeits is threatening a player with reset. The problem is, in 90% of the cases, when a player loses interest they no longer care. So why not just quit instead of finishing the payment?

Basically, I feel that in the event of a default, the items and money from one player should be transfered to the player who lost out. YES, it does leave room open for people trying to scam. But last I checked, this is supposed to be a game with a good community. If anyone tries it, everyone will know.

As of now, buying large items leans towards players with USD for two reasons. One) They're buying money which they didn't earn, giving themselves a rate of growth higher than that of someone playing naturally. Two(The one we're concerned with): It allows players to bid on any item at any item, with a bottomless pit (seemingly) that can be tapped when needed. But players who don't have this pit need something called a loan.

Now, who really wants to risk losing 20 mil to someone? Even players they know and trust? No one. So interest rates skyrocket to cover the people who default. But the loaners have no choice. If they lose 5 mil they spend a year to getting back to even.

So, in reality, give the players what is their's by right. If a player defaults and is going to be reset, give all the money and items to the player who (LEGALLY) owns their stuff. If you can't pay on the loan from a bank, your stuff isn't lit on fire. It's TAKEN for the bank to pay the costs.



Now, that's only what should be done. Secondly, you USD buyers need to be very careful who you buy from. Check their history and make sure they're not in debt to someone. If you're buying CB from a player who is in debt, you're just as much the scammer as the person selling it to you. That's plain truth.

Sorry. But I'm sick of seeing people like Pixel, and the people of United Bankers, and NS all being ripped off of their money because of some little rule tacked onto the end of the FS/WTB.

Thank you for your time.

Pays your bets, takes your chances.

The system works well as it is imo.

If there was no risk involved, everybody would just open a bank. And then interest rates would just keep going down, down and down until it is not profitable anymore. Because of competition, mainly.

IMO, this would only destroy the banking business.

I agree with G_Beee on this one.

PR transactions scares the willies out of me though. Which is why a lot of people think I am too thorough when I create PR threads. :)

I'm more leaning towards what Godwolf has said. If someone has defaulted or broken a deal then when they are reset, all belongings are sent to the person that got them reset, and if there's more then 1 party, then percentage's are worked out. Lets be honest, its not rocket science. I'm not implying this solely in the loaning business, more the department of general trades that go bad. Player A sells a piece of armour on a pay/plan to player B. Player B goes awol for 3 months. Instead of an admin reseting player B and transfering player A's stuff to an admin character, why not transfer player A's item back to him. No drama. At the end of the day its a lose lose situation.

What if a PR thread is made, as its a large deal. Say... a 100m NW MH selling for 50 million, straight cash. Both parties sign the thread. 1 transfers, the other doesn't. Are you going to apply the same rules in this instance?? Will an exemption be made? Or will someone lose a substantial amount of money.

There's still "risk" involved.

Current example of United Bankers and the Vanguard. 2 million out of 7 owed to Slayer is sitting on the character. The player just won't come back to send it. Tell me, PLEASE, how this in any way is balanced or fair? That's still a 5 mil loss, but it's nothing like a 7 million loss. Yes, there is loss. Rarely will a player have the NW and cash to completely cover a loan. But it's SOMETHING.

And G, when's the last time someone defaulted on a payment to you? A large one?

And Talion, PRs only help if the other person cares anymore. In reality, PRs just restrict normally honest players. It's good, the system, but it could be improved.

This isn't going to happen, the amount of work and judgement required is massive...the current system works just fine.

It's sad that people wander off and don't pay, but overburdening volunteers isn't the answer.

Frankly, I never really ask for a player to be reset. It's only shooting myself in the foot. Resetting people who default is useless, as everything you worked for is thrown away. At least if they aren't reset, you have a chance to get it back.

Which then leads to the obvious situation -- the debtor has the loaner by the you-know-what, and there's nothing that I or any other loaner can do about it.

"the amount of work and judgement required is massive"

The amount of work and judgment required is no different than it is currently. Godwolf is just suggesting changing the last step -- instead of transferring everything to an admin account, transfer it to the person on the other end of the PR thread.

Defaults aren't all that uncommon. In most cases, it's rather straightforward.




Steps:
Look at PR
Check Logins and payments which would have been recorded
Reset and absorb the players accounts
Send to player who lost.

Yes, not a quick thing. But NOT a monumental thing on the same note. Defaults are not an every 5 minute occurence. They're rare, because the system works rather well. Penalizing the loaners for trust is wrong. This game runs off the community. Stop penalizing them for doing something that should be encouraged.

"And Talion, PRs only help if the other person cares anymore."

That is exactly why they scare me. I try to make sure I do business with people with a long CB history.

As NightStrike pointed out though, nothing is ever certain.

The current system makes people act very carefully, and that is a good thing.

It's a heck of a lot more than one step...

Collateral is the answer to this, not adding to the workload of the people who keep the game running.

"They're rare, because the system works rather well."

They're rare because they are useless.

"It's a heck of a lot more than one step..."

How?


"Collateral is the answer to this,"

Been there, tried that. If people had the kind of collateral that they need for the real loans, they wouldn't need the loans in the first place.

Calculating the amount owed and the worth of the items, dealing with finding all the applicable PR threads...and I'm sure there are a number of other things that would end up being a bunch of extra work.

Having the items the user is buying xfered to you and loaning it back to the user is too much work for you? Considering you're the one trying ot make profit, I think the folks giving loans should face the burden of labor.

"Calculating the amount owed and the worth of the items"

Admins take everything in a default.

"dealing with finding all the applicable PR threads"

They do that anyway, so it doesn't apply.

"...and I'm sure there are a number of other things that would end up being a bunch of extra work."

Like what?

"Having the items the user is buying xfered to you and loaning it back to the user"

They don't have the stuff to transfer in the first place. That's why they want a loan.

I can see it being a pain in cases where a user owes multiple people money. The admin would then have to split up the money and items in a manner that they deem fair, only to have the recipients cry about how loaner A got a much larger cut than they did, etc...

At the end on the day why bother making a PR thread, and why is it encouraged? In aid of a reset if things go pear shaped? Whats the point?

It occurs to me that loans are not strictly speaking a part of the game. I recognize of course that they exist, but they aren't scripted by Jon for a reason. If one chooses to offer a loan or accept on for that matter, it is at their own risk.

Why should the admins waste their time chasing down your defaulters? You've chosen to try and profit beyond the scope of the scripted game. More power to you, but don't expect it to be regulated within the normal game community. I'm sorry that it isn't always going as planned, but thats the way the cookie crumbles.

These policies have been around as long as I can remember, which is a long time, AND people have been defaulting for just as long.

Completely wrong. The day Services forum was introduced, the day it became a part of the game.

"Having the items the user is buying xfered to you and loaning it back to the user"

They don't have the stuff to transfer in the first place. That's why they want a loan.

i think novice is saying that they most likely are borrowing the funds to purchase something. use that something as collateral then. have it sent to you as the lender, loan it back to the borrower. that is a great solution in my mind.

remember our admins are volunteers, so any extra work at all means it would be taking away from their current tasks, unless more are added.

gigan had it right as well, just because there is a forum for it, doesn't mean it is part of the game, it just means jon was nice enough to give a place for it to happen.

no GW, Jon renamed it services for it still to be primarily used for forging services but knew that loans happen also and wanted them kept away from general and FS/WTB.
Nowhere did Jon say during his creation of the forum that he intended loan services to have any more authority within the game.

Saying Loans aren't a part of the game is the EXACT same as saying USD isn't a part of the game.

I'm not saying they aren't but they aren't integral to the game which is why we have the rules how they are.
Why should admins give you anything in return if something goes wrong concerning a transaction you have made that is outside the main boundaries of the game?
If there was an actual loans service then maybe but there never has been so if you decide to start a business like that it's tough if you lose out.

Who is to say the person who hasn't been active for a few months wont come back?

I was not on from april 2007-August2007...but i came back :)

Sometimes RL stuff happens that needs to be taken care of

they shouldn't make commitments that they can't keep, borrow less if you can't guarantee that far into the future.

I think every player in this game should be able to loan out as much money as they have (20-150 million) to anyone they want without any fear or risk. That way there is no dis-incentive for people with lots of money to loan their hoards of money to anyone without any risk of losing any of it.

That way everyone who wants to makes lots of money off of their money by loans can do just that. After it becomes safe to loan people money without risk, the amount of loans being made increases significantly, and the amount of users who lose their money due to people "defaulting" increases, and thus the amount of work for admins increases greatly, and all players win (except the admins of course). Sounds like a win-win for everyone involved. ;P

how about adding an Admin whose sole job is to take care of defaulted loans? And the rest of the admin duties are secondary to him/her?

If loaning money was without risk, the amount of loaners would greatly increase, thus making the business less lucrative.

As it stands, the loaners have to to their homework and stay on top of things because of the risks involved. The up side of this is that they are able to charge more interest.

If anyone could loan money without any risks involved, current loan businesses would end up suffering because of it. So it would not be a win-win situation in my opinion.

I've said it once, I'll say it over and over until you stop ignoring it because it completely makes your argument worthless. There. Is. Still. Risk. Got it?

Not enough of it to ensure that not every single person on CB will begin loaning money.

And destroy the interest rates. And render the business useless and profit-less.

This is not a guaranttee people. You can only get back what they have left. In most cases, if they have enough to cover it, they would have paid you back then left.

And how many players in CB -can- do loans. Obviously not ALL of them, or there wouldn't be anyone needing loans in the first place!

You know, it's sort of like saying if something gets stolen from you even though you signed a contract, the police wont return your belongings even if they know where they are.

It's just plain silly.

Don't say that Admins aren't the police of this game, they are. They enforce the rules and "law" of CB, they police things within the game.

Maybe if we didn't have the attitude that people need to have every item and NOW, we wouldn't have so many people 'needing' loans.

A bit of patience, a few weeks and a bit of saving and you're set. And if something is going to cost you a whole lot more than that gives you, then maybe you don't actually need it...

Jon and the game as such, shouldn't be encouraging debt imho.

Police get paid.

Besides the fact this whole arguement is a pointless exercise in frustration, the people arguing for the admins to become repo men are completely unable to understand what they are asking for. The process of recovery isn't magical, adding stress and time to it would further degrade the quality of the game for the people who make it possible for the rest of us. The people involved in the loan process could limit their exposure to risk further by simply following what has previously been shown to be the best method of giving loans, the only thing it costs them is time. Time which should be spent by them, NOT admins who volunteer and are already taxed beyond belief by complacent users (like I have been) who can't get how quickly a job like that becomes no fun at all.

Admins aren't repo men, or cops, or the feds...they are NOT here to baby us.

What are they here for, exactly?

Flamey, have you actually thought out what your asking them to do?
Not just saying take the defaulters items and sending them to the user, but actually walk through the work to be done in your mind. The time admins donate to us is valuable, if a user can accomplish the same thing by simply changing the way they do business there is no logical reason for admins to be tasked with it.

With out risk there is no incentive.

Also no you do not deserve to get everything back, that is why it is called a risk.

You also do not deserve to lose a huge amount of cb because a deal went bad.

But, that does not mean you did not take advantage of a new player either.

So my suggestion would be to auction off a default players stuff.
Pool all the cb and let only document loans be payed off to balance no interest payoff. Also, only pay up to what the market says the item is worth, if there is not enough to pay them back, pay a percentage back. Risk after all. They never get the item back unless they are highest bidder helps to payoff the other debt. Any leftover could be used for prizes that benefit the game

I would also suggest that the bank that make the get a group of user to be like the auction house. They submit the proof to admins and after a waiting period the admins either approve or disapprove some one for dept collection. That way it limits their involvement.

I think the admins should click my fight button for me.

Novice, have you ever actually run a full-fledged loaning business?

We have enough trouble clicking our own fight button, OB...

I'm with OOB. Brilliant.

Here's a crazy idea... if you keep getting burned take your hand out of the fire.

"You know, it's sort of like saying if something gets stolen from you even though you signed a contract, the police wont return your belongings even if they know where they are."

In real life, if you loan someone money and they don't pay it back, police will intervene if necessary, but they will never, EVER, return your money directly to you. They will take the person into custody and let the legal system take care of reimbursing you.

You would actually only have two ways to get your money back in that situation:

(1) Take the person to court and fight for your money with no guarantees that you will ever have it back.

(2) Make a claim to your insurance company which will grudgingly reimburse you and then slowly suck everything away again by inflating your insurance fees.

So if CBII admins are the police, they are actually doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

Ah I love it when RL rights get brought up into an online game. Does anyone remember this little line that they agreed to when they first joined the game?

"You agree that all Carnage Blender accounts, characters, and items are and remain the property of Jonathan Ellis."

So technically nothing is really yours.....

So many rants and arguments...



I've read back through these arguments, being analytical. You know what worries me? It was all just a series of guesses from everyone. People assume it's alot of work, even when others offered valid reasons why it may not be.


... I used to think I was really bad at argument. And I am. Because I actually listen to others, whatever some of you think. But most of these posts... Go back through. This post should have been at another point, as every point brought up was addressed by the opposing viewpoint. And instead of debating these, you stuck with the same arguments.


Well, whatever. Oh, look, I can ignore argument...

My idea is this:

In the event of a defaulted PR loan, where the the loaner has abided by his side of the contract and can give documented proof where the other player has failed to do that. Proof. If someone says blank owes me and has anything other then a stellar PR, dismissed.

(Read below. I've changed it a bit to perhaps make it easier for everyone to stomach)

Actions upon a player officially defaulting on a loan: Cash from all characters of defaulting player would be sent to the loaner up to the amount owed, but not over the amount. In the event of cash not covering the debt, rare items would be used. All rares would have a consistent value of 1 mil + NW, while all supporter items would be counted as 1.5 mil + NW. Supporter items would be used first. Items would be sent in alphabetical order, so as to eliminate players trying to pick and choose.

Example: X defaults on loan to Bob. Bob keeps accurate records and it is determined that X has broken the PR and will not be paying the rest of the loan. BoB's record -clearly- show that, at time of leaving, possessed 2.4 million, a 200k corn, 2.9 mil morg, an 1 mil AoI, and a 600k TSA.

Bob's records show that X owed 6.4 million CB.

The admins actions: Send 2.4 mil to Bob, then send the AoI valued at 2.5 million, bringing total value to 4.9. Now, seeing as only 1.5 is needed, the admin would skip the TSA, it's worth being dramatically over that of what's owed. Then it would fall to the 200k NW corn, valued at 1.2 million, bringing the player 6.1 million and infinite happiness.

This solves the loss of supporter items slightly, by trying to insure they stay in the game. It also insures the risk is there. Bob in this case lost a good bit of money. Secondly, this really isn't much work for an admin when you get down to it. Nothing there requires much thought or effort.

Admin Checklist: Is PR accurate and does it clearly show a default? Yes
Is the player asking for admin action?
Yes
Check amount owed to player (admins would not calculate interest past the default date. A player couldn't wait a month after a default to try and let interest accumulate).
Done.
Send cash up to the amount loaned to Loaner.
Done.
If cash covered the debt completely, done. Reset defaulter.

In the event of money not covering, check for rares and supporter items and follow above steps until the desirable amount is reached. (I'd think within 500k of what is owed. The formula doesn't leave infinite room, so players would just have to deal with small discrepancies due to the inflexibility of NW.
Done.
Reset character. Or not. (After above steps, are resets really necessary? I guess it would depend on the severity of the default...)

PS In the event of money being owed to more than one person, only the player with the first documented PR is entitled to money. A player is supposed to watch who they loan money to, and loaning money to someone already in debt is iffy from the start and should be done without the feeling of being able to just get out clean.

Now, I think I've addressed all issues.
The admins would NOT be spending a huge amount of time doing this. Yes, it would be a bit more time. A bit. Not hours. Not 30 minutes extra. Enough time to do simple math in your head and xfer items.

Yes, there is still risk. The entire CB world will not all run off and make loan services. Loan services still require cash, and you would still lose money. But NOT to the extent to which it becomes impossible to run a loan business. As of now, ONE defaulter, JUST ONE, can remove any profit for a year.

NS, why does it matter if those speaking out against this (or for, hell, I can't even tell at this point) have run a loan business?

SNK got rolled over the coals a while back when starting an admin-run loan business. Why? Because he had no risk, and the current loaners made a lot of noise about how they risk, so they should get the reward.

Now you don't even want the risk. Cake, meet NightStrike. He wants to have you AND eat you, too.

Godwolf, you rules leave too much for interpretation...

For example, on a defaulted user, an ELB would be worth the same as Mythril Cuirass.

Although there is no proof that your suggestion would be complicated to enforce, there is no proof that it wouldn't.

There is also no proof that someone would not be able to exploit such a system. I can't personally think of a way to do it, but I am sure a way exists.

Finally, this sentence is posted in the PR forum: "We also do not want to encourage the thinking of, "so what if this guy offering me a cornuthaum for $100k is scamming me, all I have to is whine to the admins to get my money back." So no, we're not in the property recovery business. Same goes for loan installment payments. In other words: if you want truly scamproof trading, your only option is the auction system."

This warning has been there since I joined CB and not a word has changed since then. I have to imagine decide to put it there with that very specific wording because of lessons learned from bad experiences.

This is why I think the current system is working just fine the way it is.

"I have to imagine decide to put it there with that very specific wording because of lessons learned from bad experiences."

...should read...

"I have to imagine admins decided to put it there with that very specific wording because of lessons learned from bad experiences."

Oh... wonderful... Now we're burning down the idea for something that happened 3 years ago. What, may I ask you old CB1 players, happened?


And no, sorry, I won't roll over because of that sentence. I've glared at it too many times to be scared now.

I don't believe the admins should be involved in property or cash recovery. It is the responsibility of the parties involved to sort out any dispute and there is game mechanism is place to support this.
If a reset is requested and there's sufficient documented proof in the proper forum of "inappropriate behaviour" then an admin will step in and reset the offending party as a per the well documented policy.

This isn't about admin time involved or bashing your idea Godwolf. This is purely my opinion which in this instance is different from yours.

I think this whole thread shows how much time is involved. I believe if Admins got involved in property recovery, there would be many more of these posts calling for discussion of why so and so got/lost this/that.

Well admins shouldn't repo items then should they? If it's taking up their precious time, they should just a ban a character and that's that, not take all the items and transfer them to the admin characters.

Sarcasm Flamey ?

Shorter sentences this time, just for you :)

This isn't about time involved for admins.
I don't agree with admins being involved.
It's fine the way it is.
Just my opinion which doesn't mean it's correct.
It is though ;)

That wasn't directed at you G_Beee, more to novice. If it's not about time and admins repo items from banned/reset characters, then why not?

To point out, like others have I don't mean for admins to go wasting away through threads and threads, but if the evidence is right there in front of you and all you have to do is click a few times, then why not? I understand for some difficult cases it could be hazy, but for most of them the evidence is there, plus everyone else is in agreement.

I don't think anyone is worried about Beee wasting away.

Why not?

Because the loans business should not be without risk, and because I fundamentally disagree with putting in place a safety net for it.

Hmm, you seem right, but I suppose you'd think this is the same thing as a Payment Plan?

I think I was more thinking of this, where one person stops paying for an item they bought with a PP.

In that case the item should be loaned to the person paying off the item.

But then you have loan fee and then another transfer fee. For large items, that could be sort of a pain, but I guess you need to pay for safety sometimes... Sensible idea.

Payment plans/loans are mostly for large items, so transfer fees are going to be 100k+, adding that to a tab every week if actually loaning it is really pricey and they're going to have trouble paying it off. If it's done through rentals, it's still risky.

Plus if this item in question is a tat? It will never be paid off, seeing as they are 300k a week or so if they are decent sized. Mind you these numbers are just coming off of the top of my head.

An example of what I was thinking "Person A sells a tat to Person B on a payment plan. They agree on the terms, and if Person B fails to uphold the terms they agree that an admin will return the item".

That is seriously reading 3 lines and clicking a few buttons.

Who uses loans to transfer items for over 1 day or so?

I personally get with the person I am loaning it to and use rentals. Put it in rentals for up to a month at 10k for the entire duration.

Just make sure they are on the time you put it in rentals, and they get it quickly.

I have never had a person who I set this up with not get the item in question.

Of course one cannot do this for a tattoo.

This all gives me an idea. We have player-owned loaning services here on CB. Why not player-owned insurance agencies? For a weekly/monthly fee, if anyone screws you over you get reimbursed.

It was attempted but failed.

Also, by the one and only who created the thread.

Use collateral, problem solved. If they have nothing to offer as collateral, have them send the item they're buying as collateral.

There goes Nere thinking my thoughts again...at least I thought em first this time!