At 5:10 PM -0600 2/12/00, Craig Haynie wrote:
>...
>I have come around to agreeing with them about throwing out obvious thieves
>and scammers, but I certainly share JP's assessment that having your balance
>be maintained publicly is like being required to expose your underwear in
>the public playground.
>
>Can you imagine the Stardust, Riviera, or Circus-Circus agreeing to such
>terms?
Hi all.
I think the policy is to try to REPEL thieves and scammers, and try to
encourage honest games. I'm sorry JP feels the way he does, but I'm
always the type to toss caution to the winds, so I've decided to open
up a little game myself. It's called "help Jim buy a car." I'm going to
do a pretty decent sized OutExchange in the near future, and YOU,
yes YOU, can help make it bigger. "Also, you _might_ be a winner!"
The way to play is simple, for a *chance* to win double your grams
back, make a spend to account# 101574. I then MIGHT spend that
back to you, doubled. The chance that I will do this hovers between
"slim" and "none" (and I'll confess a strong preference for a "none"
option at this point).
1. I am not licensed to do this in any jurisdiction that I know of, which
means I'm probably being stupid to do it at all. OTOH at least I don't
have to show everyone a piece of paper because I don't claim to
have no steenking game license. Simple, I told the truth.
2. There are no guaranteed returns if you play, in fact, I've hinted at
quite the opposite above, I think. I'm up front when I say that you
might lose and that "the house" is planning to be profitable. Again,
the absolute truth, unvarnished.
3. I'll make the somewhat-paltry balance of 101574 publicly viewable
Monday, if anyone actually wants to play AND if my lawyer says it's
ok, so please DON'T spend to me yet (if ever). Once the "help Jim
buy a car" game is open, my balance will be visible. Again, please
don't spend to me before my lawyer-sanity-check.
There, I think I've complied fully with the guidelines. I agree that the
guidelines do little good if a game accepts multiple currencies, such
as credit cards, but so far the "word from on high" is that a little good
beats none at all. The policy also should be repellant to scammers
(unless you count my game, above, as a scam). As Mark already
noted, similar terms are agreed-to by many profitable and popular
casinos. Also, as Doug already noted, "[t]he e-gold� System is an
unregulated institution that is not part of the banking system of any
nation. It is therefore free to set and require a higher standard of
financial transparency and accountability..." As I have said before
too many times to recall, I speak only for Jim Ray and I don't make
policy around here.
Finally on the subject of customer service, yes we've been swamped
but no we haven't been rude, IMO. I have seen more passphrases
sent to me in clear text over the last week than I had in the last year,
and some of these folks may be confusing security-paranoia on my
end for horrible rudeness. For this, I'm sorry, but we can't help it or
change policies without risking everyone's value, including mine. :(
Nobody should ever share a passphrase with anyone, including me,
under any circumstances.
We can't see your passphrase (or even your alternate passphrase)
from here. The new account holders seem to have an increased
propensity to forget them, though, and frankly that's scary! It's not
fun and games to try to figure out who's who on the internet. If the
folks who can post on bulletin boards talking about these games
could ask folks to WRITE DOWN, on paper, their account numbers
and to THINK! for a good, solid, three minutes about a memorable
passphrase (one that's alphanum3ric, cAse-senSitiVe, and at least
six characters) before and during the process of creating accounts,
I'd be very much obliged. We try to help, but we aren't a memory-
enhancement service, we're a market maker for a currency facing
crowds of people in a hurry, who might be under the impression
that they're the only ones with their particular problem. There is
also still the tendency to think in dollars, rather than in grams, and
it's hard to tell folks that they're wrong gently (though we certainly
try!) and get them to understand that the national-currency value
of their *grams* is likely to change a bit from day to day, and that
there's a spread when you go from one currency to another.
Imagine your business. Now see http://www.e-gold.com/stats.html
and imagine your business again. The transition phase WILL have
complaints (and actually we've had some nice compliments too). I
hope we can continue to serve both old & new customers. Thanks
for listening!
JMR
Regards, James M. Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Cybermetallic currency -- the ancient future."
Try a FREE account: http://www.e-gold.com/e-gold.asp?cid=101574
Was this worth $.02? http://rootworks.com/twocentsworth.cgi?jmr
