COMPETITION BUREAU Opens Investigation Into JOBSONS, PB CORP, and FIRESYSCORP

Irregular trading by JOBSONS, PB CORP, and FIREYSYS has triggered an investigation by the GoVenture World COMPETITION BUREAU. Stock manipulation is being investigated. The findings will be made public once the investigation has concluded.

Click here to read more about the GoVenture World Government

Haha, u could expect people would use the system to manipulate things… i saw big stockprices, for low end companies, wondering what is gonna happen and what rules gonna be set to this…

Do certain companies get penalties and people get a refund? On to much payment to stocks? If its proven?

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Can I be called Fireyscorp please :slight_smile:

BTW - I replied to Go Venture 1st law because the reply to the government was a blank…

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Sorry for the delay it was a total work day for me, so i just saw this. Yes. I will admit in the past i have been the star of these Competition Bureau Investigations, but this time what happened i do not think was in violation. Since the Goventure World Government sees everything go ahead and look at my messages with the title

  • Manhattan Project

  • Biggest move

  • Legal Loophole

  • Big move
    You will see that everything we did should’ve been in regulation. Let me ask you this what is the difference between what i did and a high interest loan. Plus like i said earlier yes i have tweaked the rules and found loopholes and exploits in the past, but do you really think PB and Firey would. Firey is literally the equivalent to a Ethics Professor in this game and if you remember he said he would stop playing until the next reset last time because of the exploit i did. Once again what we did shouldn’t have been in violation. This wasn’t even done in a means to make surplus amount of money, it was more of a final achievement for veteran players who were finding nothing left to do that was amounting to more than just bxp farming.

Go Venture Government

PB Corp, Jobson & Fireyscorp

We united in a beta testing project that was to ensure that future players after the reset will not be able to gain leverage or create a financial windfall. Our financial gain was not the goal but rather to assist the admins with keeping checks and balance of the GV world.

We collectively agree to pay back the financial gains in the total amount of $105 million, $35 Millions each player and use this as dividends for the current stock holders. We consider this to be FAIR reparations for those players that invested in Jobson, INC.

As GV scoreboard leaders and respectable business men, we understand that beta testing without GV world approval may have been frowned upon yet. However we responsible and more than fair with our judge and settlement agreement for those stockholders involved.

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Hi Guys … thanks for your replies.

First, we should say that we are not upset with you. You are loyal players having some fun. We thought you might have wanted us to throw the book at you as part of the fun :slight_smile:

Of course, we can’t let the huge profits go unchallenged, so we will have to take action on that, and we appreciate your working with us on this.

To answer Jobsons’ question on why this type of stock action is not allowed, we will explain as follows:

  • As you know, we are trying to make GoVenture World the most authentic business game ever made. As part of this effort, we want the markets and entrepreneurs to follow common economic rules and laws.

  • In the real world of business, there are many actions that you can take that, on their own, are not illegal, but if done as part of a scheme, do become illegal.

  • For example, in the real world, you can go on TV or online and say that you think that a company and it’s stock are really great. That’s perfectly legal. But, if you do this with the intention of buying the stock and then encouraging people to buy the stock so that the prices rises quickly and then you plan to sell the stock immediately thereafter, then this is an illegal “pump and dump” scheme. We are not saying that this was your intent with your actions, but are using this as an example to demonstrate stock manipulation in the real world.

  • The same goes for buying and selling product. If an entrepreneur (or player in GoVenture World) buys products and does not pay, that is a problem. The real world, and GoVenture World, both allow this to happen, but just because you can do it does not mean it is acceptable business practice.

  • In summary, just because a game allows something to be done, does not mean that it is fair. We do continue to close loopholes that allow for unfair exploits (and thanks to you guys for helping us find them!), but there will be actions that are part of the core gameplay that can never be fully free of exploit (as per the buy/sell example noted above).

  • This is why we created the Competition Bureau … to act on these actions and to do it in a fun and realistic way. Note that if a player does something we felt was malicious, trying to damage the game or the fun for other players, we would not use the Competition Bureau, we would take direct action with that player behind the scenes.

We hope this all makes sense.

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I think it should be pointed out that jobsons is actually out of pocket in this exercise. He paid commission plus loan fee to PB, a fat loan fee to me and then he paid a 126g dividend to his shareholders. If it’s 35m each then I’m happy to pay his share…

I will split that 35m with you.

Yep. I’ve barely started to break even. I paid 20% of the loan to both plus a 5m bonus to PB for the low stock fee of 7%. So basically all together 80m to Firey 45m to PB and a 10m dividend payment. If anything my buyers have profited more than me.

Two things just crossed my mind. The Competition Bureau considers what i did to be "market manipulation. But let me ask you this, if instead of borrowing the money and returning it back right away i held onto it for a certain amount of days;would you consider that market manipulation? If so i would like to know why because if i were to do that there is no reason for you to say that my equity is artificial since i technically have cash in hand. Secondly yes i will admit what i did was so/so on the sides of the moral compass, but i think in future events like this, if the Competition Bureau was to get involved i think they should handle it more professionally. Instead of just automatically lowering my stock to the least amount possible, freeze Jobson stock until the matter is fully done. Not only did you put me more out of pocket but you also didn’t even give me or the rest of us to explain ourselves. You say and i quote “we are trying to make GoVenture World the most authentic business game ever made” if that is the case, in the real world wouldn’t the SCC suspend trading if anything what ever amount you do decide to penalize us for you should take into account the lose of funds on the Competition Bureaus part for the way they handled it.

@Jobsons:

  • The length of time the money is held does not affect the manipulation.

  • If money was borrowed as a LOAN, then you would have a matching LIABILITY, which would not have inflated your EQUITY. By bypassing the normal loan process, you inflated EQUITY to a number that was not real. This is why it is considered stock manipulation - price is inflated based on a temporary transaction that was made for the purpose of inflating the equity and share price. This is pretty well the real-world definition of stock manipulation.

  • You are right that it would be better to freeze your stock rather than change the price, but we don’t have that function built in the game so we had to take action to stop innocent players from buying an inflated stock. Changing the price was the fastest way to do that. Not our preferred method, but necessary.

  • We are giving you a chance to explain yourself. This is why we said an investigation has been opened and we messaged you and the other parties to respond to the investigation. That is your chance to tell your side of it before we determine what needs to be done.

Thank you for the clarity I understand that. But at the same time you can’t say that “That is your chance to tell your side of it before we determine what needs to be done.” When in fact you had already determined to basically short-hand my stick. If you had the ability to change the price and not freeze it wouldn’t you do the greater # rather than the lesser one. Once you did that you basically opened my stock up to the vultures who were ready to buy it on the cheap. I probably wouldn’t have been so bugged if it was a small difference but you went from 82 when my high was (can’t tell my high anymore) a dramatic difference from the 82.

I invested about 50 million in this scheme(stock) just a day before the investigation has began. I think my activity has triggered it, because these shares for g977 each have been listed for a long time and no one has actually paid attention why jobson is able to issue stocks at such high price.
Good job in finding the vulnerability in the system :slight_smile:

I doubt your big investment was the case papamobile but hey i can be wrong. I dont think it really got noticed until Callaars made light of it in the chat.

That’s why I said it had to be big to be noticed.

Someone discovered this earlier in the round but the total values were too small and they just got bought. but if you care to go back and check you will see 2 of the previous listings did exactly the same thing. I noticed it and looking through the company history it was easy enough to spot the money transfers, but it was small beans so I didn’t worry about it.

Having said that, if shares are going to become a key feature of the game, then people need to spend some time learning about a stock before they buy shares in it. Buyer Beware! IRW I have lots of shares but I’m always looking for value. Every stock gets analysed thoroughly before I invest my hard earned. It’s true there are laws against fraud which protect me, but if players are paying 10 x true value, they’re not paying attention at all.

I think we have no problem in the outcome - profits returned and weakness exposed - plus it made the game more interesting for a week

@Fireyscorp
has someone returned to you your lost profits? :->

I cannot see real stock trading happening in this game, it lacks dynamism. The trading interface is very basic and in peak time the game is slow like a mule.
At least someone should cleanup our mailboxes and let the users to turn off these fancy animations that stop pages from loading properly.

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Agree with you Papa. I think the fix hasn’t happened yet but pretty sure it’s in the works now

Moreover we need a better player retention because some go and never come back which makes investing in companies very risky. It is fine for startups, but not for businesses that generate decent profit (players just got bored).
I think closing all vulnerabilities and setting rules to too strict will make this game more boring. You should have some beginner player protection, but later on it should be dangerous where people learn how to handle risk.

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@Jobson - You cannot consider the adjustment of your stock as lost income. We adjusted your artificially inflated value of your stock to the last sold value (which would be the value the system considers a fail value). If your equity went up after that, it was due to the cash you received from the investments at you inflated value.

You always have the option to buy back the stock yourself to get it off the primary market.

@srolls1 Yea i did buy it back :wink: