Ginko Bond ???

FYI, Christalle, this post is an example of what I would want the forum reader to be exposed to. It is clear and does not bash. I also brings a new perspective to the issue. I never said don't speak the truth on this subject.

andy, where do you see that there is without doubt more sellers than buyers?

when we look at the order book right now (and we can only see the top 10 orders on either side) I see buy orders totalling over 2 million bonds at or over 0.14 and sell orders totalling less than 400,000 in a range of 0.165 - 0.174.

Ok Wilhelm here is my opinion. I think that Nicholas Portocarrero is a kid (under 30) who was playing the SL banking game and made some bad investments. I think he is desperately trying to save his bank but will fail and actually default on paying dividends on 31 October 2007. Now if either one of us is wrong and he actually does pay the 31 October 2007 dividends I will admit that I was wrong. What will you say if he makes the payments?

No, Rhaymond, this is what you said. Emphasis is mine.

svar, what makes you think nicholas is going to default on his payments. I'm convinced he picked an interest rate he can afford to pay. (12% per annum, which is exactly 3.9% less than what he'd get if he deposited the money at WSE as a cash balance)

who you are is irrelevant I dont need to know who you are.

The question is do you have ginko bonds ? I think you do

the next question is are you going to sell them? if the answer is yes then I can say that i know you are scamming in any event i judge by what i see hitting me in the face the fact is there are now people in this thread now defending a scam who were previously not because it seems to be okay now to sell the bonds because they were a victim and then make yet another victim and due diligence is the only thing that is needed

not so

its really very simple

the guy from all the numbers spurted out has no money or assets to speak of that even cover the face value of the bonds

therefore selling something of no value that is backed by nothing is in fact a scam.

it makes it no less a scam that the people selling it are also victims of the scam. They stop being victims the once they scream gah my money is gone I have been scammed but i am going to try to recover as much I can by selling this scam to someone else

its simple logic and good business ethic.

what you personally are doing or are not doing on the issue I have no idea we are discussing the concept. The fact if that none of the victims regardless of how much they lost should be selling these bonds to others. The fact is that many people claim to be trying to sell the bonds when they should not.


its a bad move
ethically and morally
and possibly legally

what people do on their own is their own business but I can make up my own mind as to wether or not I will do business with thsoe people in the future. If i find out that they sold those bonds to some unsuspecting schmo they wont get my business I dont care what they sell and if they are the only one selling it.

but then again I have always been told I have an incredibly strong business ethiic

there is one thing that I can say for sure I have never ever scammed anyone nor if i held 1 million of those bonds would i be attempting to sell them ever! I would try to get my money out of ginko if that failed I would walk away.

You are correct. I will admit when I'm wrong. I will also admit I hope everyone who has their money in Ginko, gets as much out as possible, including any new investors who come along.

But, see, this is where I think GPB holders are "damned if we do, damned if we don't." I think, if we *hold* the bonds, it's just as big a violation of ethics. By holding, true, we're not deceiving that person who'd buy the bond we'd sell, *but* we're deceiving the market (and thereby, to a tiny degree, *every* buyer) by making the bonds appear marginally more valuable than they actually are.

So, yeah, I'd feel guilty about selling GPBs to another victim, but I can't seem to make myself feel any less guilty by holding onto them.

I may be wrong, but this seems different from having been scammed and refusing to scam somebody else. Rather, the way it seems to me, we're stuck in the middle of an ongoing swindle where, NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, we are agents in perpetuating it.

actually that's not at all realistic

if you check the available data on WSE you'll find that nicholas portocarrero owns securities worth 20million L$ at last price.

and as the outstanding bond issue is 196,414,669 bonds, each bond as we speak is worth at least 0.10

and most importantly: that's assuming there's no other assets left anywhere!

I think he had the means but kept paying those people in the long queue to try to stem the flow of withdrawals. I saw the total obligation go from 190 million to 185 million after the KCG http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/365 liquidation and the queue number go from 297 to about 600 so assume he paid those people with the proceeds. I think when he realized that he had lots of potential but was actually insolvent he decided to buy time and convert the deposits and extend the payment period to 3 months to buy time to raise his reserves.

I don't have a clue what his offgame investments are but his ingame ones are doing badly now. Who knows what will happen in SL in the next 3 months but I doubt he will get much from his 9 million HCL or 11 million BNT stocks as they either never paid a dividend or have stopped paying them. To sell those investments would take away his hope of recovery and at this point who will buy them? It will be very interesting to watch but I personally have no money deposited in the old Ginko, I just feel empathy for those people who do.

Me too. Although he has now seemingly picked a target interest rate that may be feasible, he still has a huge debt to repay... and in light of known investments, I seriously question his ability to reach the target, especially if he continues to pay himself and his friends a salary out of the cash.

these are perpetual bonds in other words he never has to redeem them (unless he chooses to do so, see prospectus: https://www.wselive.com/research/prospectus/256)

This i think is a problem they should not have been dumped on you but since your kind of an unwilling participant you can use it to wallpaper your house (err if it was real paper) as long as you didn't inflict the pain on anyone else. You realized at the end it was a scam and people do get scammed its how they react after they get scammed that often gets them nailed.

If they just file it away in the useless paper drawer or burn it ina bonefire they are not perpetuating the scam and they dont move from victim to scammer.

Make no mistake this guy is trying to embroil everyone in this so that no one will open their mouth. I opened a ginko account with 1L and read the forums last week I saw the post where a guy was telling everyone to shut up because its a scam and if it gets reported to the FBI they will only looose their money if its taken seriously

I have no idea if it ever got reported to the FBI by one of those who have found they have been scammed. At this point though I would think its very very reportable. They have been to SL once over gambling so they know what SL is and what goes on here. He tried to scare people out of it because he didn't want to loose his lindens. Well they are gone. By holding a worthless bond your not doing anythign with your not really a part of the scam only the victim.

Once you try to actively sell the things the victim is gone and replaced with someone selling bonds with no real value and are becoming embroiled in this. Its a risky move I would not do it for many reasons. If this was real world and you did this and you were a businessman somewhere down the road if you get involved in something or other and want a loan or something someone might find out and refuse you and possibly even report you to the feds. Again I guess i see no reason why like 100% of the ginko holders at this point should not be picking up the phone and calling the feds you have lost your money so there is nothing more to loose unless you want to become a part of it.

Anyhow really due diligence doesn't apply here these bonds should not be for sale on the WSE the WSE has nto even done its "due diligence"

just dont put em up for sale. You have been put into this thing by being an account holder and he pulled this stunt. Whether or not you were aware it was a scam before I have no idea. Many account holders in fact invested in ginko and KNEW it had to be some kind of illegal scheme and that it wasn't quite kosher. They were in trouble long ago if anyone actually finds out about it and their knowledge. If you didn't know and its possible you didn't know not everyone has a huge knowledge of finance they see the word bank read the info seems okay enough and stick their money in not thinking anything else.

he's trying to get the dirt off and spread it around dont let him spread it around. ONly you can stop you and what anyone else does well you cant stop them from doing it but in the end you at the very least have to live with yourself.

yes, but the interest on his securitised debt is at least 20 percentage points below what he was paying on deposits.

If he buys up the bonds at the .15 rate he can reduce his debt on those bonds by 85%.

Basically he can reduce his debt by buying these bonds off at a low price.

Insidious, isn't it. Toilet paper...

just because 90% of the world has a bad ethic doesn't mean you have to throw up your hands and say "oh well 90% of the world has a bad ethic I guess it wont hurt if do this as well"

I dont really think microsoft has that much of a monopoly and its slowly erroding I bought my first windows program long after everyone else did and I have linux as well i get along.

I dont by most microsoft products either because I dont like the quality. They attempted a monopoly but legistlation stopped them and its one reason why i give them as little as money as possible

i do not use any other products made by them except windows xp and that is mostly for gaming purposes

i have none of their business applications and i refuse to buy an xbox and I dont even think they are a monopoly I just hink they suck lol

Fact of the matter is though I have not seen them sell worthless stock and their company is worth money and if you invest in them and sel the shares you aren't going to rip someone off.

In the case of the ginko people DO have choices. They are not good ones but they are choices none the less.

You're right, Wilhelm.

True but the dividends due on 31 October for the current 196,414,669 GPBs will be L$5,892,440. He knows where his investments earn income but what I see ingame will generate very little. I hope he makes the payment I just doubt he will be able to that is all.

The people who believe he was running a Ponzi scheme all along want him to fail so they can be right. I have seen real life Ponzi schemes and it is interesting to note the perputrators of those schemes seem to believe their own propoganda and think they can put it off. It is the regulators who come in later and sell the assets for .10 on the dollar who screw the investors. Since we have no regulators and Nich is still trying to realize his dream there is a very slim chance he will pull it off. These people tend to be dreamers who believe their own dream.

Th difference between a real bank that fails and any Ponzi scheme is the bank is regulated and the investors get compensated while the Ponzi scheme victims get screwed first but the operator then the regulators. In our local Ponzi scheme all the land sold by regulators at .10 on the dollar was later sold by the people who bought from regulators at better than the 1 dollar the Ponzi scheme operator paid. Sometimes you wonder who the real crooks are.

i think by going to the FBI, if it's investigated and an eventual crime is proven committed, they might enforce repayment by wage garnishments until everyone has their last $L value replaced. and, i would hope that the judge would insist on the value of 'the time they were stolen' and not the value of that particular day. me thinks NP is in deep doo-doo if he doesn't come through on this. it might be too late.

yes, its in his best interest to continue to be shifty and evasive - keeping prices low,

Borrow money off his In world investments (which techinically are already in hock but w/e).

And buy up as many bonds as he can at these low rates.

Eventually he will shrink the debt to be lower than the value of his in world investments (which are probably the only real investments anyhow)

And bingo - Ginko is back in business 100%.

its like the Ponzi Express. Ride one horse till it almost dies then hop on another.

Erm... I'm going to be polite to everyone involved, and direct you to the recent threads involving 'high finance' in the Resident Answers portion of this forum.

Much more than that, he also owns about 8mill worth in SLCAPEX:BNT, about 50k worth SLCAPEX:AVIX, about 400k woth in HCB and much more.

The "bancrupt" ginko has now liabilites of 1,964,146 L$ monthly in dividents or L$ 23,569,760 annualy.

Junk bonds usualy trade at a small % of it's real value. Ginko bonds at .10-15 are just not worth the risk, it's not impossible that in the future ginko will do some new magic and convert the class 'D' GPB bonds into new GPB bonds class 'Z' in case the current liabilites are not profitable for them

To describe the way they treated their customers beeing quite delicate on words: "worse than shit", i dont expect them to treat their bond investors any better in the future.

Either way, i have to give credit to ginko for being about as creative as enron, theres always a future plan isnt it ?

If you hold onto the bonds believing it is morally, ethically, and potentially illegal to sell them, and then they do generate some interest paid in Linden dollars that compounds the issue, as you have taken money on something you believe to be not correct, even passively.

If you sell the bonds face to face to another person giving the above criteria that may be wrong ethically and possibly legally.

If you sell the bonds on a real/virtual stock market by selling direct into the order book where others (of their own free will) have placed buy orders then in all fairness that is usually okay legally, although I accept there may still be a moral issue. There is one clear exception to that and that is if you are privy to inside information, which "the market" (which in this sense is us and the WSE in Second Life) does not know, then you can be held to account legally

There is one possible moral and legal solution. Sell the bonds (if you believe there are issues) in the open market via the order book, where others have placed buy orders of their own free will. Donate the proceeds to charity, perhaps the Relay For Life Cancer charity fund raising efforts in world. Desmond Chang of Caledon has organisers in his Sims. Keep a printed record of the transaction. My belief would be that is acceptable morally and from a legal viewpoint you have not sort to profit from what you may believe is a fraud.

Finally I have made it clear I would not personally be a buyer of these bonds at this time, having taken advice from my virtual dog Mutley, who like my real life dog, advises me on investments, to prevent me buying shares and bonds that are more of a dog than he.

Oh yes……one more thing. We do have a duty (assuming we like and support Second Life and virtual worlds) to shout about this type of thing to all and sundry.

I think financial services in virtual worlds could be a growing market, it needs to mature, but the potential ultimate winners will be those who engender both trust and competence. If we don’t talk about it we will never know who to trust or will see opportunities pass us by

the bank is gone he can't save it the only way he can legitimatly make payments is to liquidate assets. His bank is essentially out of business and the fact that people hold onto this thread he is trying to save a bank that is closed makes no sense.

If he makes payments I want to know from where the money came from because he himself has stated "the bank is out of money"

He wont reveal his assets which likely means they dont ad up and most of them dont exist. If he makes the payments I would say they would have been by manipulating that bond which is still a ponzi scheme only this time with bonds in fact its more like the original ponzi scheme he is only changing it slightly

He can't or wont prove that the payments are being made from investing money because there is no money the only place this money can come from at the present time is to further perpetuate what is now almost looking like its morphing into a pyramid as well with these bonds.

The bonds are backed by nothing the bank is gone the money is going to be pulled directly from the sale of more bonds he makes and then he will make his payments it doesn't give the bonds value and it looks more like a ponzi scheme then it ever has and now he is getting others to sell bonds too bonds that support a ponzi scheme...