On December 20, 2007, I was alerted by Luke Connell Vandeverre over a conversation in Skype that 3 Midas depositors had hired Stevan Lieberman of Greenberg and Lieberman, LLC claiming damages from the World Stock Exchange in response to its default on bond payments causing the supposed bankrupt. While I thought the lawsuit a bit frivolous in a business sense as it would cost more to facilitate than the actual benefit, I advised Luke to do what he felt best but to do a bit of research on the claims that the lawyer was making. Luke replied to the lawyer with a statement that he was not liable, as expected, and copied several Linden Lab officials. This was an expected reaction and perfectly fine by my view at the time.
In the notice as well as conversations with Luke, it was clear that the banking industry of SL was not his favorite sector nor was JT Financial and SL Capital Exchange as this was the topic of discussion on many occasions. In addition, there were several attempts to purchase L&L Bank and Trust, one initiated by myself during the time in which that was an option and several subsequent inquiries made to me as well as Luke Birdbrain. I found it odd but continued to conduct a bit of logical explanation for possible reasoning. Considering WSE closed VERY shortly before the banking ban without any prior notice, I was puzzled as Luke had shared information about WSE happenings before but this time was different. Once the banking ban initiated, Luke Connell was quite elated to the fall of the SL banking industry which I found very odd. At that point, it all made sense. Luke Connell was tipped off. I speculate that Linden Labs received a subpoena for account information in relation to the Midas depositor’s case. Per Luke Connell, the lawyer planned to pursue the case whether there was a loosing chance or not to get the public eye on virtual business and create his name in the press for it.
Even though I felt he was lying to me about his knowledge of the ban, I decided to lay low and prepare to be in the right place at the right time. In a conversation with Luke Connell about WSE 4.0, he stated that directors and the new CEO would be voted on by the members of the exchange. I made a bit of a hint to me being nominated for a board position and he stated that he wanted to make sure the lawsuit did not affect WSE before reopening. In my mind, this meant that WSE may not reopen if the lawsuit gets ugly. Also, I received information that Luke was offering to buy banks in SL since the ban. Not to mention, WSE was giving away money for the holidays but had defaulted on bond payments. To my knowledge, no person can defer a payment on a loan without approval from the lien holder so WSE did not defer payments. WSE defaulted.
On January 11, 2008, Sarah Nerd asked a question in WSE Listing Chat and my window popped up. Normally, I would close the window because I usually don’t get involved in group chat but to no avail, I kept the window open and read as I was working on other things. A few things made my mouth drop.
[2008/01/11 18:51] LukeConnell Vandeverre: Latest news? he is getting ready to audit all user balances
[2008/01/11 18:51] LukeConnell Vandeverre: we know there are users with lindens or shares they shouldn't have and users with less than they should have so this is the first thing to be fixed
My question was….Who determines what users should and should not have? What accounts are being audited? Who is policing the police, so to speak? Since all directors were asked to resign, who else is privy to this information besides Luke Connell? I was appalled nonetheless because the only person with access to this information is him and it seems he is the sole decision maker on what accounts should have and what they shouldn’t. This is potentially fraudulent if I have ever seen fraud. I said nothing and continued to watch the conversation between Luke Connell and Rockwell Ginsberg.
[2008/01/11 19:17] Rockwell Ginsberg: OK, I apologize for the low blow regarding HCL. I know you are doing your best here. Do you worry about competition from other exchanges?
[2008/01/11 19:18] LukeConnell Vandeverre: not at all, does Mercedes ever worry about Hyundai
[2008/01/11 19:20] LukeConnell Vandeverre: what are the wse compeition? they are like playing with an Atari compared with an Xbox 360
[2008/01/11 19:22] Rockwell Ginsberg: They are open, you are not. Traders may leave and never come back. I am not familiar with these exchanges, but they may be able to attract some WSE business during the closure.
Rockwell made perfect sense while Luke was busy tooting his own horn without reason. The last and final straw of this conversation for me was this:
[2008/01/11 19:56] Rockwell Ginsberg: Listen Luke, I can say whatever the fuck I want to say, wherever the fuck I want to say it. And I am not trying to "serve my negative view." I have merely provided my opinion on these matters. You can do with this what you wish. But I've tried to provide constructive criticism here. If my honesty is difficult to take, I apologize.
[2008/01/11 19:57] LukeConnell Vandeverre: If you are making public statements that are negative towards the WSE and counter-productive towards the WSE's objectives then your business will be delisted
[2008/01/11 19:58] LukeConnell Vandeverre: You can share your concerns privately
[2008/01/11 19:58] LukeConnell Vandeverre: therefore having not negative impact on the WSE
[2008/01/11 19:58] Rockwell Ginsberg: Do you consider this forum to be a public one?
[2008/01/11 19:59] Rockwell Ginsberg: I do not.
[2008/01/11 19:59] LukeConnell Vandeverre: I consider the extent of your opposition towards WSE in this group to be of concern and a display of your anti WSE opinions which i'm sure you've been sharing in public forums according to others from what i'm told
For one, people have opinions and will not always agree. But for a man running a company to state that he will delist any company that does not agree is tyrannical and almost neo-nazi and this is not the place for L&L Rentals and Sales. Last time I checked, free enterprise and free speech reigned in SL and RL for the most part. Neither myself, nor my companies will have anything to do with such behavior. I have had my times with people but, I have never removed or left a business relationship over personal differences.
L&L Corporation and its subsidiaries have tremendous stake in the truth and in customer service. These are two things that are not available at the World Stock Exchange at the current moment. At one time, I saw the vision but now I see the lies. It is my speculation that Luke seeks to buy the closing banks below value to gain depositor lists in order to issue WTF shares to depositors rather than their money. In doing so, he would control a monopoly of the financial sector for pennies as he would issue a worthless stock for the hard earned money of SL residents and make a commission on their sales to try to get out. Double payday. This is why Midas refused to give up the depositor list. While Midas may have been overspent, WSE defaulted on its promise to the market and in turn bankrupted a company on it own issuance and not the company itself.
I must commend the stock exchanges that have a bit more respect for its investors than this. I have had my differences with Arbitrage and he and I know there are some things we don’t agree on but I have known him to be fair. We have decided to facilitate trading for L&L Rentals and Sales in house to not put any undo strain on the exchanges that are working through liquidity issues with regards to the banking ban. We will assist our own depositors and shareholders the best we can with our facilities at L&L Financial Services. Thank you all for your support of L&L Corporation and its companies and we wish all the honest businesses of SL the best of luck in the days ahead.
Sincerely,
Lindsay Druart, CEO
L&L Corporation
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14 comments:
Lindsay,
Thank you for telling this story.
Could you elaborate a little on why LukeConnell was against the concept of banking in SL? I don't want you to speculate unnecessarily, but I'm just trying to put all the pices together, like a lot of other people.
What better way to remove your competition who may not have the immediate reserve to payback 100%?
It's a matter of surviving under pressure. Can JTF do it? I certainly hope so.
I don't believe it was the concept of banking. It was the people running the banks.
Well thanks for this.
It is starting to look like a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money yet again.
LL's banking policy doesn't help on this too.
With gambling out of the picture a lot of peole were relying on banks.
It seems the whole economy off SL is comming down right now and Lindenlab will get yet another blow to it's name.
I can confirm luke had knowledge of the comming ban.
The update wasn't planned for now too, but with the thread of the ban he decided to close wse so people could not withdraw the money and still had to work out the actual update.
Everyone knows that a good developer has a second server to test the new stuff on, when it works ok you transfer it to the live server. This is done to keep service to a max.
But as anyone can see luke doesn't care about the service, he's afraid everyone will withdraw the money in the accounts leaving him with the same situation as ginko(not enough to pay out in cash).
Hopefully people will see their money back but i doubt it.
Currently it seems like wse has started to censor everything they have access to.
All comments against WSE are removed.
They seem to be very afraid of something.
Congratz Lindsay,
I couldn't understand who luke was trying to fool claiming that his server doesnt have a backup ability (to test the wse4.0 on) while running as things were. The only logical explination was he was hiding something, something very valuable.
His comparing of mercedes is prety correct except, everybody except him sees that he's the guy playing the xbox or transporttycoon while Arb, Bogart and Cocky are doing serious business.
Luke is a monopolist, but he doesnt just want to bancrupt his competitors such as banks and exchanges, nono he wants the have the monopoly on the opinions.
I hope other people will join up in helping luke to be isolated since thats what he wants, move over to other exchanges leave the guy alone in his fictionalsandbox so he can have it all, except the customers he'll be left with will also be fictional.
But if he gets ugly (such as not allowing people to withdraw) or move their companies, we'll respond... se heres the thing, luke is not following the law:
His WIC's are illegal under not only us laws but laws of almost all countries, so if he does something ugly i'll be one of those.
A fictional currency is what you have in the southkorean games where you can buy for rl cash but you cant withdraw or, you can't buy but can sell.... once you allow both forms of trade you're messing with the law, but that ofcourse doesnt fit into lukes head.
Nomatter how unrealistic this may sound: I hope luke will sooner or later realize that he needs us, and not the otherway around.
Peace.
Lindsay, I congradulate you on you leaving the WSE, I am glad you have your investors interests in mind.
Cybertek
How many Anonymous posters does it take to change a lightbulb?
How would one ever know?
Q. How many anonymous posters does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Nobody will ever know?
Why doesn't Linden step in and force the wse to give back the money to their customers instead of holding them hostage.
It's onaccaptable that the wse closes for more than a month without warning their customers in advance
and give them the opportunity to withdraw their money.
In RL the person responsible for this all would be judged in court.
As I see it stocks bought on the market represent the respective share holders money. Stocks issued at IPO and listed by owners and blocked are just paper. So wouldn't any company be able to follow dear Lindsay's example and do no one harm but Luke?
Or is their a major flaw in my uneducated understanding?
G. Allen
(no WSE holdings)
I'd be very curious to hear about Anshe Chung's big investments in WSE including the WTF...hmm seems odd to me that she heavily invests in Luke-while supposedly starting her own exchange-and has bought her own banking permit on the other game..perhaps Luke is a puppet of a bigger fish? Seems odd to me that with the pull Anshe has in SL that she wouldn't know of such a thing coming and perhaps teamed up with Luke? I know-conspiracy therory but geez too much stuff pointing to some stinking garbage not to look!
This is a stupid article . . . let me tell you why. . . basically . . . if you go into a car dealership and start yelling that they suck and no one should buy their cars, they will toss you out . . . just like how luke will!!!!!!!
i write an article in italian when Casper told me that Luke delist his LEM and subsidiaries Luke don't play fair.. but unfortunatly i think that he open again his volume will be bigger than others exchanges again...
I hope not of course but i'm afraid in...
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