__________________
"He fights you not because you have wronged him, but because you are there."

[16:17] <@BrassMan> what do you need new tech for?
[16:18] <@BrassMan> gush is unrestricted

The owner is very friendly and was very prompt about answering all of the questions I had and I would encourage anyone who wants to check it out to contact him with any questions they have. He is even a member on this site his username is LaysanRail.

The whole "PucaPoints" thing.. So, you can't trade without having them? It's confusing. And there's no "CML" type of thing? Or what? They tell you who wants your cards and where to mail them.. who sends first? Do they get to tell you that too? Is it based on who has more PucaPoints? If that's the case, they say you can get 1,000 PucaPoints for every $10 donated, so someone donates 10 bucks and gets sent first 1,000 worth of points and takes off. w00t.

And THEY tell you how much your cards are worth?

You can also only trade Mint, NM/NM-/NM+ cards, I foresee a TONS of problems with THAT requirement, lol.

I realize it's in it's "Beta" stage, but this guy has a LOT more work he needs to do to make this what he claims in the FAQ as the "fastest, safest, easiest way to trade Magic: The Gathering cards online". As of this point, it's none of those things.

And he needs to stop spamming our members.

Thanks,
Jazaray

__________________
A Plastered Dragon Original Limerick:
There was a nice lassie named Jaz
Many wished to have what she has,
A delicate face,
A soft warm embrace,
And a whole lot of bedroom pizzazz.

WeedIan: Jazaray is like MOTL's Mom.

How it works is like this:

You list cards you have.

The site assigns a point value to each card (they seem be basing their prices from magiccards.info and are obviously setting up a "1 point equals 1 cent of value" exchange)

If someone wants cards you have, you can send them to that person. They lose that many points, and when they confirm that the cards arrive, you are credited that many points.

You list cards you want.

If someone has a card you want, they can send it to you. You lose that many points, and when the cards arrive, they gain that many points.

The thing that keeps it fair is that if you don't have points, you simply can't get cards, and you only get points by sending out cards.

So you can send out a bunch of cards, gain a bunch of points, and then any time you accept on cards, you already lose the points. So if you decide to claim the cards never got to you, they get screwed out of the points, but you also ALREADY LOST THE POINTS, so there's no benefit to you pretending the cards didn't show up.

The benefits to a system like this are that you can "trade up" a LOT more easily than you can on a site like MOTL, because you can generate your points 10 or 20 at a time sending out random uncommons etc, and then when you -have- the 2000 points something more valuable is worth, a wholly different person can jump in and get those points by sending you your big card.

So as per the specific things you were mentioning Jaz: You're not trading cards, so there IS no sending order. You send out cards "for nothing" to get points, and then people send you cards "For nothing" to get your points.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
This site functions identically to a site I use called 'Bookmooch' where the site is obviously, for the trading of books.

How it works is like this:

You list cards you have.

The site assigns a point value to each card (they seem be basing their prices from magiccards.info and are obviously setting up a "1 point equals 1 cent of value" exchange)

If someone wants cards you have, you can send them to that person. They lose that many points, and when they confirm that the cards arrive, you are credited that many points.

You list cards you want.

If someone has a card you want, they can send it to you. You lose that many points, and when the cards arrive, they gain that many points.

The thing that keeps it fair is that if you don't have points, you simply can't get cards, and you only get points by sending out cards.

So you can send out a bunch of cards, gain a bunch of points, and then any time you accept on cards, you already lose the points. So if you decide to claim the cards never got to you, they get screwed out of the points, but you also ALREADY LOST THE POINTS, so there's no benefit to you pretending the cards didn't show up.

The benefits to a system like this are that you can "trade up" a LOT more easily than you can on a site like MOTL, because you can generate your points 10 or 20 at a time sending out random uncommons etc, and then when you -have- the 2000 points something more valuable is worth, a wholly different person can jump in and get those points by sending you your big card.

So as per the specific things you were mentioning Jaz: You're not trading cards, so there IS no sending order. You send out cards "for nothing" to get points, and then people send you cards "For nothing" to get your points.

And as for donating 10 dollars to get 1000 points, getting 1000 points of cards and vanishing...basically what you did was traded the host of the game 10 dollars in imaginary cards (in the form of 10 bucks) and got your 1000 points, and then a user sends you 10 dollars worth of cards (worth 1000 points) so...good for you, you just spent 10 dollars on 10 dollars of cards? That's not really an advantage to you.

---

Sounds like a Ponzi scheme, where the equation will never balance.

edit:
In case this isn't obvious enough, think about this:

The owner sells you Puca points which he can issue as many as he wants, and then you are using those points to grab cards from another seller. In another word, he is selling cards that don't belong to him. The end user will always be at a loss, and the site owner will always be at a gain.

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion

I give out 20 dollars worth of cards. I get 2000 points. That allows me to receive up to 2000 points worth of cards...it is never -not- balanced.

Edit to your edit: So yes, you can give the site owner 10,000 dollars and then list 10,000 dollars worth of cards.

But if people SEND you the 10,000 dollars worth of cards, you have spent 10k, earned 10k in cards, and they've earned the right to be sent 10k worth of cards.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
Erm...in no way is that even vaguely resembling a ponzi scheme.

I give out 20 dollars worth of cards. I get 2000 points. That allows me to receive up to 2000 points worth of cards...it is never -not- balanced.

---

Do you even realize the owner is literally printing money out of his ass, and giving people credits to buy cards that don't belong to him?

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion

The transaction works the other way. People opt into providing you your wants.

Edit: And Bookmooch worked to seed points into the system by giving you 1/10th of a point per card you list (You'd lose 1/10th of a point for removing them) so there is some small amount of credits entering to get the system started. Also I'm not in the US so I can't make an account on this site to see if he does something similar. It -could- also be a scheme to get a bunch of 10 dollar donations from people and then bugger off with the money.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
You can't buy cards. At no point do you go to a person and say "I have 1000 points, send me this 1000 point card"

The transaction works the other way. People opt into providing you your wants.

---

Buy/exchange/trade, same concept. At the end of the day, he is giving you credits for goods that don't belong to him, and the end user will be the one who gets nothing.

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
You can't buy cards. At no point do you go to a person and say "I have 1000 points, send me this 1000 point card"

The transaction works the other way. People opt into providing you your wants.

Edit: And Bookmooch worked to seed points into the system by giving you 1/10th of a point per card you list (You'd lose 1/10th of a point for removing them) so there is some small amount of credits entering to get the system started. Also I'm not in the US so I can't make an account on this site to see if he does something similar. It -could- also be a scheme to get a bunch of 10 dollar donations from people and then bugger off with the money.

My explanation had nothing to do with the site owner's morals, but instead on the functioning of this kind of exchange system.

---

Add in the users who stop using the site while they still hold credits, and at the end of the day, it's actually a pretty fair balance.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
Well, yes and no. That cycle of "the magic generated points" from cash donations to the host swirls around and around forever, and nobody is left permanantly holding that bag unless the site actually goes down.

Add in the users who stop using the site while they still hold credits, and at the end of the day, it's actually a pretty fair balance.

The issue here is whether THIS GUY and THIS SITE are properly legit, and will last a long time. The -model- is proven and successful.

---

Every $10 he gets from a donation, someone else will be out $10 worth of cards. The whole thing is pretty much the same as printing money without having any reserve of gold to back it up, and if the owner prints enough of it, the whole system will collapse.

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion

Since the whole point of the system is that his points are the common currency of exchange, if you get these 10 magic free dollars, over time, those 10 dollars worth of points are going to end up being a fraction of a cent per person among all users of the site, because if there are 1000 points that weren't tied to cards, and you ended up giving those 1000 points 100 each to 10 people, and they ended up giving 10 each to 10 people, and then 1 each to 10 people, at the end of the day, they are each out one cent.

*sigh* ONCE AGAIN I am not defending this guy, his site, or what he in particular plans to do with donations or whether it is a scam or not. I'm just saying that if you give him the benefit of the doubt that this is a legitimate thing, it is not NEARLY as broken as you seem to think it is.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:

So you can send out a bunch of cards, gain a bunch of points, and then any time you accept on cards, you already lose the points. So if you decide to claim the cards never got to you, they get screwed out of the points, but you also ALREADY LOST THE POINTS, so there's no benefit to you pretending the cards didn't show up.

[/quote/

But, you get the points BACK when the cards don't show up.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Devonin:
So as per the specific things you were mentioning Jaz: You're not trading cards, so there IS no sending order. You send out cards "for nothing" to get points, and then people send you cards "For nothing" to get your points.

---

So.. you both send at the same time then? There HAS to be some kind of sending order...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
And as for donating 10 dollars to get 1000 points, getting 1000 points of cards and vanishing...basically what you did was traded the host of the game 10 dollars in imaginary cards (in the form of 10 bucks) and got your 1000 points, and then a user sends you 10 dollars worth of cards (worth 1000 points) so...good for you, you just spent 10 dollars on 10 dollars of cards? That's not really an advantage to you.

---

No, it says that you get/lose PucaPoints equivalent to the cards value. Not to some "Puca" value. So, a $10 card, is worth 10 PucaPoints. That's how I read this sentence anyways: " Once you do, you’ll get PucaPoints points equivalent to the cards’ value."

Thanks,
Jazaray

__________________
A Plastered Dragon Original Limerick:
There was a nice lassie named Jaz
Many wished to have what she has,
A delicate face,
A soft warm embrace,
And a whole lot of bedroom pizzazz.

WeedIan: Jazaray is like MOTL's Mom.

quote:

---

So.. you both send at the same time then? There HAS to be some kind of sending order...

---

It's not a trade. It's a sequence of unconnected transactions.

Let me try it this way.

User A has a 10 dollar card listed that you own.

You send them your card. They lose 10 points. When the card shows up to them, you get 10 points.

You list a 2, 3 and 5 dollar card on your list now that you have 10 points.

User B has the 2 dollar card, and sends it to you. You lose 2 points, and they will gain 2 when it arrives.

User C has the 3 dollar card, and sends it to you. You lose 3 points, and they will get 3 when it arrives.

So now you have 5 points, a 2 dollar card in your hands, and a 3 dollar card in your hands, having sent out a 10 dollar card. No trading actually occured.

quote:

---

No, it says that you get/lose PucaPoints equivalent to the cards value. Not to some "Puca" value. So, a $10 card, is worth 10 PucaPoints. That's how I read this sentence anyways: " Once you do, you’ll get PucaPoints points equivalent to the cards’ value."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by junichi:
Every $10 he gets from a donation, someone else will be out $10 worth of cards. The whole thing is pretty much the same as printing money without having any reserve of gold to back it up, and if the owner prints enough of it, the whole system will collapse.

---

Agree with junichi. I was going to comment prior to his comment about the ponzi scheme that it sounded like a...ponzi scheme.

There is NO WAY this can be a ponzi scheme because you cannot in turn get money from people for points magicked out of nowhere.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
It's not "someone is out 10 dollars" it's "10 dollars are out"

Since the whole point of the system is that his points are the common currency of exchange, if you get these 10 magic free dollars, over time, those 10 dollars worth of points are going to end up being a fraction of a cent per person among all users of the site, because if there are 1000 points that weren't tied to cards, and you ended up giving those 1000 points 100 each to 10 people, and they ended up giving 10 each to 10 people, and then 1 each to 10 people, at the end of the day, they are each out one cent.

*sigh* ONCE AGAIN I am not defending this guy, his site, or what he in particular plans to do with donations or whether it is a scam or not. I'm just saying that if you give him the benefit of the doubt that this is a legitimate thing, it is not NEARLY as broken as you seem to think it is.

Also, eventually having the whole system be "missing" even a few -thousand- dollars, if it's spread among hundreds and potentially thousands of users over time, you're probably still better off in terms of eventual trading up, and getting chase cards quickly than you are in a system where everybody is demanding 20% premiums to trade up, and refusing to trade Legacy for Standard or Standard for Legacy etc etc.

---

It doesn't matter if it is the end user that is out $10, or every users out a penny that totals up to $10, the system is out $10 per donation!

Besides, there is absolutely no control or regulation of how many points he can "magically" issue, so you are pretty much buying a stranger's virtual printed money that only has value until all the suckers realized it is a scam.

edit:
Ok, if anyone doesn't get this at all, and still think this is a great idea, please e-mail me ASAP, because I have some Nigerian friends who are more than happy to sell you some Nigerian bonds that yields a great return.

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion

This model is not inherently a scam, and you do a disservice to a model designed to help facilitate people getting what they want, even if they can't find a direct trade for what they have by characterising the entire formula as a scam.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Devonin:
Almost 3 million books have been given through bookmooch.com

This model is not inherently a scam, and you do a disservice to a model designed to help facilitate people getting what they want, even if they can't find a direct trade for what they have by characterising the entire formula as a scam.

I honestly don't even care whether this guy is a scam artist or not, because I don't even have the option of using his service, but condemning the whole concept as a scam is a little silly.

---

The points for cards, and cards for points system is fine, but the $10 donation = 1000 points is where the system fail, because there isn't 1000 points worth of cards entered the system to justify the 1000 points.

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion