Planet Calypso: Deeds: How's this for a daft idea?

OK so bit of a random one. I just received in the snailmail today a regular spam from my credit card company (Natwest) offering me 0% APR on "balance transfers".

Now, I really know nothing of this sorta thing (I'm assuming Natwest essentially "buy my debt" and charge me nothing on it for 1 year to say thanks?) since I usually bin them outright (no need for 2 CC's after all so no balances to transfer). Anyhow a thought occurred this time, so here's the idea:

Get another (new) credit card and max it out by depositing a shed load into Entropia which I then invest in Land Deeds. Then, transfer the outstanding balance (debt) to my Natwest credit card and pay 0 interest on the debt for 1 year. In the mean time, hopefully I get 27-30% ROI from MA on the deeds. At the end of the year I then clear the CC debt with my own money (cause MA are slow on withdrawals) and sell off the land deeds at a fraction of MA's price (say I dunno, 950peds a deed [95%]). Once done, I set up a withdrawal and hopefully within 3 months I'll have ~122-125% of the cash back.*

Does this sound like a possibiliy? or am I (almost certainly) missing a vital point/clause/"show stopper" somewhere?

As an initialy guess, I'd say the potential foot falls would be:

- The ped loss to MA on the initial transfer/deposit into Entropia
- Potentially unfavourable changes in exchange rate between US Dollar and Sterling
- Difficulties selling the deeds to other players after 1 year (even when undercutting MA)
- Other players selling their deeds first, hence a price drop**
- The deed ROI being "not as expected"
- The loss of potential RL interest while peds sit in "no mans land" waiting for withdrawal
- MA's cut on withdrawals***

Any others? Its pretty unlikely I'd do something like this anyway as its already sounding damn risky as it is and I'm not really much of a wheeler dealer tbh.

Still, I thought it might make an interesting discussion if nothing else. There must be some people at least who are investing in these deeds to bring in real "take home" cash (rather than say, just bring in enough peds to "play for free" each month - the kind of thing I'd consider)

I'd appreciate any thoughts. Even if you just tell me I'm an ijiot ;)

Cheers

Wistrel

PS I expect there's probably some small print with the CC companies too which might stop me running up a huge debt on a new card then instantly transferring its balance.... either that or some other small print that prevents me from instantly paying off a balance after 1 year at 0% APR hence stopping Natwest from making any money off me.... or is that the risk they run by buying debts... and its something I am free to do if I so chose?

* - Can you ask MA to stick deposits directly into a bank account (rather than them crediting them to your credit card)

** - If ROI isn't as expected for example (for whatever reason) people may start trying to sell their shares. And with a poor ROI there may not be much call for them...

*** - Anyone know what this is?

 

George yeh Az has been talking a lot lately about what happens when all deeds are sold. He was speculating the other day about if 60k deeds is enough for liquidity of the market or something. I think he meant, is it enough for there to be enough buying and selling to promote healthy trading as one sees with real life shares. He made the point though that, as far as MA are concerned it doesn't really matter. If the retrade price bombs after the initial sale MA still made 6million bucks. If it doesn't, then they stand to make even more money as people deposit more to pay inflated prices for resold hand deeds.

I'm trying to get Az to come in here and talk with his ideas anyhow since its a receptive crowd. He's posting some interesting numbers on a dead forum though at the moment (sorry Az).

Still I know what you mean about randomness of MA. I remember discussing PE with my dad once and he said something like "well MA could send a cyclone through and destroy someones land of building if they wanted to". My reply of course was that they WOULDNT want to cause that would ultimately hurt them too if only by reputation.

That said though, this wasn't really my aim in this thread. Theres another pretty good one about deeds and investments etc. What I was trying for here was a thought experiment about how much one could ACTUALLY make in cold hard cash (Pounds Sterling) if they were to try and pull off something like the above.

This is because there has been a LOT of discussion about how "good" the investment of deeds is WITHIN the game but how good is it in reality? Say if you had a 1 year plan or a 3 year plan for example and how would that compare to say, a real life share investment or an ISA over the same time period.

Obviously there are assumptions involved (eg the 27-30% projected ROI) but I was hoping some more financially/law informed people could help out with the more predictable or factual numbers such as how much sterling to US$ exchange is likely to fluctuate or what the actual charges are with deposits and with drawals.

(I admit this is partially cause I'm lazy ^_^)

I did read from the other thread though that withdraws as far as MA are concerned are charged at 1% or 100ped (whichever is the larger). As regards deposits, I think I get something like 192 peds for every 20$ deposit with my credit card so there is obviously SOME charge there. The amount this costs me in real life varies depending on exchange rate I think.

Wistrel

PS oops just spotted razer posted about the 1% thing already. Re deposits... are you saying if I stop depo'ing via credit card and change to a bank card I will get 200ped per 20$ deposit rather than 192ped???? If so... DOH!!!! >_<

 

Yeh the question of the value of the shares post total sell out is an interesting one. I'm always reminded of Anshe's Dreamland stock exchange fiasco Where we all lost our money. The problem there was that they never delivered n their ideas/promises. Ashe's bank never paid interest and the cross game currency trading was "stopped" by MA. Essentially it turned into a rather cunning way for Anshe to regain cash on her investment from the players.

The same could happen with the deeds on calypso however this seems less likely when they are actually earning money. I wouldn't hold my breath on MA's so called advertising efforts this year either. An exodus to Cyrene might be a problem... I don't know but again I'm already starting to feel it won't be the second coming we've hoped it might.

 

I always intended to write about the Anshe thing for a mag but never got round to it. Would probably be safe to talk about a little "incident" I had with them too ;) I'll see if I can come back here this week with time to explain what happened with DSE.

Crue I would say thats a reasonable number of people. I wonder why they want to sell? Just to free up peds maybe? or perhapse they were impatient and bought a larger lot number than they wanted as the lower amounts had sold out?

Dunno. Certainly don't expect to see a massive change in price till they are all sold anyhow and with only 1/3rd gone, I can't imagine the rest flying off the shelves too fast.

 

Interesting points above and I expect you are right... it may be a little like the hangars before space. No one knew if they would be served up a turkey or a hamster. Some probably sold speculatively because. Others bought. As for if hangar owners did well in the end I would say the jury is still out. Shame that hangars themselves have no use though... other than looking cool that is.

I agree there may well be a panic sell but as for returns it seems ok so far. We have seen that stuff like christmas and the merry mayhem can significantly alter returns. No one should have expected identical returns each week though. There is bound to be an initial if not prelonged drop when cyrene goes live. The only way to avoid this is to have a mega release on calypso in the same vu.

As for MA being rattled over cyrene and polishing up Calypso I havn't really seen much evidence of that (but then again I am on RT for the last few months). There was an odd comment from Kim and well the obvious that in theory MA should worry about a company that has enough spare coppers to make models of their game mobs. Says money no object a little really. Of course MA win out regardless now as even though they didn't get to "sell" calypso as they initially tried they've more or less managed that now. It isn't out of their hands of course since they still need to make content for it but financially I'd say they have cleared things with the deeds. If Cyrene does well MA does well also.

As you say though its unlikely Calypso will bottom out cause of a shiney new planet - too many people rooted there. I actually find I really miss the place. After 7 years feels like home.

Wistrel's random musings.