Cheating through rule violating cash transfers - a new epidemic?

[Jona L.]

Heya folks,


so after a long while of thinking to post or not, I came to the point that I should do it.

We all know that quite a few rules in AWS are not exactly clear, and are sometimes open to (a bit of) interpretation. However, many of the rules are absolutely clear, and not open for interpretation in the slightest.

As for example this:

https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/General/Rules/#Alliances

"Alliance members are also forbidden to effectively transfer money between their member airlines by for example repeatedly selling and buying aircraft between each others. Normal one-time sales of aircraft is naturally allowed but transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable."

It seems, that many players and alliances have either stopped caring, or never cared for this, and continuously violate this rule. This is not just "some guy" no-one has heard of doing it, but also from people known to me. Even some of the respected players on here have some sort of ignorance towards this rule violation going on. Most of the time it is the "maybe I will need others to look the other way, so I won't complain about it" mindset. This is at the same time worrisome, and wrong.

To avoid discussing "theoretical" problems and getting carried away by people who didn't understand what this is about, I'd like to show up three cases that have appeared, and to my understanding been more or less investigated by Sami, the results of that investigation are unknown to me.

This is not supposed to become a bash of the airlines involved, please discuss the topic, and not personal feuds with anyone of those airlines/players presented.

Please check these cases by yourself, and give a feedback/discuss about the rule named above, and what you make of the cases.


Case 1)
Galaxy Express/frimp (bankrupted) and Connect America/xyeahtony in GameWorld #4.
Galaxy Express gave leased aircraft, some were leased from Connect America, back before their D-Check. While ate the same time acquiring replacement aircraft from the same user. In at least two cases an aircraft that was given back to Connect America was later again acquired by Galaxy Express - however, many aircraft were given back and other aircraft were taken. (To give you a picture: Player A gives back Aircraft X. Player B D-Checks aircraft X and leases it to player C. Player C gives back aircraft Y, Player B makes the D-Check and gives aircraft Y then to Player A).
Reason for this "aircraft carousel" were the fact Galaxy Express was undergoing heavy fights with his rival King Airways, short on cash, and each D-Check of about 1M would have brought him to BK sooner.


This means that D-Checks were outsourced to a rich de facto alliance member, which is in violation of the cash transfer rule.

Examples of such aircraft:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/51331/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/51019/

(Screenshot for people not in GW#4)


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Case 2:
Galaxy Express/frimp (bankrupted) and Connect America/xyeahtony in GameWorld #4.
Galaxy Express intentionally did not join his own alliance, A-Team. Long term members of an alliance are to be considered part of the alliance despite not joining (unless joining another alliance of course).
Through this Galaxy Express was able to purchase planes at "minimum allowed price" rather than having to pay "minimum alliance price". This price was then further reduced by the "used market cheat",
(mis-) using a design feauture of AWS. The design feature that allows players to get rid of unwanted aircraft if they were not chosen for a longer time.
The longer an aircraft is on the used market, the cheaper you can go with the price. Cheapest is about 20-30% of the aircraft book value.


Unfortunately this also works with privately listed aircraft.


The way this was performed was as follows: Connect America/xyeahtony listed the 737-200Adv aircraft privately to Galaxy Express/frimp. He then got the aircraft either at normal minimum price or at  absolute minimum price after having waited long enough so that Connect America/xyeahtony could lower the price to above mentioned 20-30%. There is no evidence for the leased ones, however I have evidence that this exploit has been used on the purchased ones.


This actually transfers huge amounts of cash into the pockets of another airline by reducing the expenditures massively.
For example: Galaxy Express/frimp aquired 4x Boeing 737-200Adv and slots for 7-14x aircraft at Los Angeles and other airports for exactly $15,284,190. That's a unit price of $3.821.047,50 - if we assume the slots were free. Assuming a "normal"* price for slots, I estimate the prices of the aircraft were more like $3 Millions to $3.1 Millions.

* Taking into account the size of the airlines, amount of slots already held, etc.

Typical price for B737-200Adv. in the same MTOW/engine variant on the general UM was between 13M and 18M at that time. In other words:
With the cheat Galaxy Express/frimp was able to purchase four aircraft instead of one. 30-50% of his aircraft fleet was acquired on extremely low prices, adding millions to his cash reserves and into his airline. All through violating the cash transfer rule.

(at the end there were 11 or so owned aircraft in his fleet, all acquired with this strategy)


Example aircraft:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/48967/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/49194/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/49974/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/50306/
Here's the aircraft list. Compare the #MSN with the ones from the links above (you need GW#4 access!):


The quarterly financial stats of the timeframe in question:



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Case 3:
Kelrick Airways/rickyricky101 and United Pacific Fleet/kangkang in GameWorld #4.
Kelrick Airways is in financial troubles and sold his aircraft to an alliance mate. However, the rules state that:
"Normal one-time sales of aircraft is naturally allowed but transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable." (excerpt AWS rules)


So, what's the Guam based airline without any other 737 doing with the freshly aquired 737-100? Correct. Storing them.


Example aircraft:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/44531/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/46010/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/47771/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/50960/

Below is the aircraft overview. Notably they are all stored (one still "on order"). There are also no other 737 1st generation in fleet:


This shows the quarterly report. $42,671,103 are in "Financing activities cash flow". I doubt that all of the money is from this single transaction. However, it is clearly visible in this screenshot. This part of the financial report is the only one that 'helps' the airline in question to acquire cash:


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Point is:
New players, old players with a limited amout of time, the average Joe here who sometimes bankrupts and just wants to play a casual game. Those people simply got, and will get, wiped away by individuals or alliances/groups and in 99.9% they will never learn what happened, how, and why.

I am sure I may have missed the one or the other trick that can be/has been/will be used to get an unfair advantage over your competitors. If you know of these, please report them to Sami, so things can be changed.


Now there are two tricky parts and another reason why I have thought so long about posting this topic.

1) We all know this is a project that is mostly done alone by sami. He does a fantastic job but he is a human, he has some other job, this is more a kind of hobby and, as a human, he is limited to 24 hours per day (and maybe he sometimes needs holidays, too).
The response time and the quality of response is, and I'm sad to say it, not as good as it should be to actually counter cheating.

Time is important because each minute gives the Cheater an illegal advantage and by the time the case is dealt with, the airline who played fair might be already gone (or the cheater might be gone...).


2) I have no idea how to actually stop this behaviour. Neither automatically, nor manually.
Is it enough to report cases and, if something is acknowledged, act faster? We all know from real life that's the system police is using... and while it has flaws it is not too bad, is it?




Again, I don't want to start some kind of rage and I don't want to discuss indivual cases. I just noted them down so everybody can understand and see this is a real threat, those things actually happen and that's - I guess - on a daily basis, mostly undetected. I want a friendly and, most important, productive discussion! Ideas how to fix the problems! Ways to make things more clear.
Maybe it would help to straighten some of those "open for interpretation" rules to fixed ones (e.g. by setting up example values). This is the part where we need real suggestions.


Please read carefully before posting, and don't just rant, or carry out feuds, there are many more than just these few examples, they are examples. Please just use these cases, to elaborate, and to make the points you'd like to make in regard to fixing this general problem.



Thanks for reading, and posting your opinions.


cheers,
Jona L.

[LemonButt]

2) I have no idea how to actually stop this behaviour. Neither automatically, nor manually.
Is it enough to report cases and, if something is acknowledged, act faster? We all know from real life that's the system police is using... and while it has flaws it is not too bad, is it?

The solution is easy--don't allow players to lease to other players.  The last time it was mentioned all the usual suspects rallied against it stating that the rich players provided liquidity in the used market etc.  The problem is it isn't other player's jobs to provide liquidity as brokers should be buying white tails and buying aircraft off players.  Sure there are many players who benefit from leasing, but the purpose of starting an airline in AWS is to fly aircraft, not become a leasing company.  Many people lease with good intentions, but as you've outlined many don't.

If player-to-player leasing is eliminated and brokers were programmed to do their jobs more efficiently (providing liquidity, purchasing aircraft from players based on supply/demand/fair value) then there is absolutely no NEED for players to lease to other players.  Sure some airlines have more money than they know what to do with and it can be profitable, but maybe instead of spending that money on buying aircraft to lease out they could give brokers interest bearing loans to acquire aircraft that is leased out on the open market, providing a return that way so no abuse can occur and players can still see a return on their cash piles.

[Curse]

There are more ways to cheat, just deleting the lease options won't solve most of them.


I guess Jona's intention is more to finally get some reliable rules! Not a "a new airline" for example, but a "an airline that is 12 month old or less". Rules people can count on and, of course, rules that are enforced after a known and published punishment method. And everything in a short enough time to make sure the situation is dealt by the administration and not due to bankrupty by one of the involved airlines.

[Hillians]

This is not supposed to become a bash of the airlines involved, please discuss the topic, and not personal feuds with anyone of those airlines/players presented.

yeah right... if you didn't intend a feud you wouldn't be mentioning names or would have chosen some examples from your own alliance. So given these accusations I feel the need to reply to this.

I have a feeling that the reason for this post is not to discuss this topic in detail but to put my airline into a bad light because it was reported to Sami by your dear friend in LAX and Sami didn't communicate anything on the forums. (since there was nothing to report - unlike another instance where someone got banned temporarily for running scripts/macros but Sami never communicated this either.. If someone is interested in hearing about this let me know - we have screenshots too.)

Just so we are all clear on this.. Sami contacted Tony and myself regarding this matter (after someone reported this) and the actions were explained to him and no actions were taken against my airline. In none of the examples stating my airline below was any extra cash/profit generated as no aircrafts were sold at a profit. There are a number of examples in GW2 as well from another (leading) alliance where such activity has happened to get additional cash/profits. (let me know if you want some screenshots too)


If Sami felt this was a problem/epidemic, there would be a real easy fix:

The issue is the thresholds for the aircraft valuations are too wide. Prevent aircrafts from selling below book value and this problem is history. (maybe let airlines set their own length of depreciation instead so they can affect the book value slightly - somewhere between 20-30yrs, not too low or people will use it to avoid paying tax).

[[SC] - King Kong]

I'm sorry! will never do it again.

Are we friends now again?

[JumboShrimp]

I think it would be useful to see prices of all aircraft transactions (aircraft price equivalent in case of lease transactions).  That way, all of these transactions would be crystal clear, if it is a normal business of the airlines, or if it is a cash transfer.

With prices published, maybe the strict inter-alliance range could be relaxed, from current 90%-110% range to 75%-125% range.

With aircraft transactions prices published, any kind of abuse could easily be tracked and caught, but normal play / normal business transactions would not be artificially restricted (as they currently are).

[JumboShrimp]

The solution is easy--don't allow players to lease to other players.

I am sorry I have to say this, but this is the stupidest solution to combat a problem that affects less than 1% of player to player transactions.

[Jona L.]

yeah right... if you didn't intend a feud you wouldn't be mentioning names or would have chosen some examples from your own alliance. So given these accusations I feel the need to reply to this.

I have a feeling that the reason for this post is not to discuss this topic in detail but to put my airline into a bad light because it was reported to Sami by your dear friend in LAX and Sami didn't communicate anything on the forums. (since there was nothing to report - unlike another instance where someone got banned temporarily for running scripts/macros but Sami never communicated this either.. If someone is interested in hearing about this let me know - we have screenshots too.)

Just so we are all clear on this.. Sami contacted Tony and myself regarding this matter (after someone reported this) and the actions were explained to him and no actions were taken against my airline. In none of the examples stating my airline below was any extra cash/profit generated as no aircrafts were sold at a profit. There are a number of examples in GW2 as well from another (leading) alliance where such activity has happened to get additional cash/profits. (let me know if you want some screenshots too)


If Sami felt this was a problem/epidemic, there would be a real easy fix:

The issue is the thresholds for the aircraft valuations are too wide. Prevent aircrafts from selling below book value and this problem is history. (maybe let airlines set their own length of depreciation instead so they can affect the book value slightly - somewhere between 20-30yrs, not too low or people will use it to avoid paying tax).

Dear Fred, explain a few things to me then:

a) Why did you not join ATA after you founded it a few years before with your well running airline in ATL?
    If you had done so, you would have paid a legitimate amount of money for these planes, and not been subsidized against KAW.

b) How did you explain to Sami, that this was not cheating, while it was effectively a scheme trying to avoid high prices in a fierce battle?
    What is also striking me is the fact, that the aircraft buying and killing leases for D-checks ended just shortly after it was reported. It seem you could explain a bit, but were still disallowed to continue as before. Which lead to the inevitable bankruptcy of your airline, showing how dependent it was on these cheap leases and cheaply sold aircraft.

c) (not exactly on the topic...) Why did you kill your ATL airline in the first place?
    It was running well, and you had no reason to BK. Sure, the name was weird, but a single credit would've fixed that. It seems you were just on a personal crusade, and this was backed by Tony supplying you cheap aircraft and performing your D-checks, without which you would've been gone a lot earlier.
[Just out of genuine interest]


Onwards to the other thing. If this were meant purely against you, why do you think we mentioned Kelrick, doing basically the same thing, just instead of using cheap buys using expensive sales? This whole thing is larger than just you two. As I mentioned these are EXAMPLES, there are surely many more airlines that do similar things, but listing them all would have cluttered this post unnecessarily. Feel free to bring up examples by yourself.

As I explained above, I don't want to discuss theory, and thus I wanted examples. Since these were already prepared, due to prior research done, I used them, to save some time.


Curse got it pretty well, understanding the main point I want to make:

Define what is allowed and what is not, instead of leaving rules open to interpretation. This is one example. You interpreted it in one direction, Seb and I in another. If these things were fixed, this whole thing would not have happened. Since the results of Sami's investigation aren't made public either, one can also not judge the rules by previous sentences, made by Sami, either.

His example is also quite fitting in that regard, what exactly is a new airline? If it said "smaller than X aircraft" or "less than Y years old", it would be clear. As it is now, I would say a "new" airline is less than 2 game months old, but the judgement of others may vary in that regard.

Fixing these vague rules would likely also result in less "false" reports to Sami, since people would know exactly what is allowed and what not, so they wouldn't report small breaches, based on interpretation.


\\
And if you felt offended, Fred, so did Seb and I when we saw your attempt of reducing his profits, and slowing his growth by, at best immoral, actions. If anything you put yourself, your airline, and A-Team Alliance into a bad light by yourself. Especially undermining your, up until now, clean slate and good image of the person helping new people to become successful by "playing fair and within the rules", and your alliance description including a "no cheat" policy and "abiding to AWS rules". The alliance description ridicules itself anyways by being insultive in the opening line, and demanding "adult behavior" from their members.

[This much about personal stuff, which I wanted to keep out, but had to be said in response to Fred.]
//


cheers,
Jona L.

[Jona L.]

I think it would be useful to see prices of all aircraft transactions (aircraft price equivalent in case of lease transactions).  That way, all of these transactions would be crystal clear, if it is a normal business of the airlines, or if it is a cash transfer.

With prices published, maybe the strict inter-alliance range could be relaxed, from current 90%-110% range to 75%-125% range.

With aircraft transactions prices published, any kind of abuse could easily be tracked and caught, but normal play / normal business transactions would not be artificially restricted (as they currently are).

This sounds like a good way, however it may be a bit unpracticable.... where do we display this? Another page in the "Airline Overview", named "aircraft transactions" maybe?
I like the thinking though, with a bit of refinement, this could actually work!! Thanks!

[[SC] - King Kong]

Another unnecessary personal flaming topic....

I wish people could just stop doing this in general and have some fun, relax and let Sami do the investigations...

[JumboShrimp]

This sounds like a good way, however it may be a bit unpracticable.... where do we display this? Another page in the "Airline Overview", named "aircraft transactions" maybe?
I like the thinking though, with a bit of refinement, this could actually work!! Thanks!

We have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

Here is an example of Operational History:
11-Feb-2014  Bought by Jumbo Shrimp World 
30-Dec-2013  Returned from lease 
24-Mar-2008  Leased by VOVAIR 
15-Nov-2007  Delivered to North Africa Expedition 
25-Oct-2007  Aircraft constructed 

Any transaction would have the price at which the transaction took place.  All prices would be normalized to aircraft price - meaning lease transactions would not have monthly lease, but aircraft price from which the lease price was derived.

[Jona L.]

and let Sami do the investigations...

That is exactly the point of this topic, Ingmar.

Sami has enough on his hands already, and doing all these investigations puts even more work at him. If rules were more clear, Sami would have less investigation to do, and people would less likely break rules due to misinterpretation. And those breaking it would be clearly doing it rather than by said misinterpretation.

So to fix 2 things at one time:
a) unintentional rule breaches
b) unnecessary workload for sami

We need clearer rulings.

[Hillians]

Another unnecessary personal flaming topic....

I wish people could just stop doing this in general and have some fun, relax and let Sami do the investigations...

I agree but some people seem to have an obsession with mocking/disrespecting other airlines/players in public forums on a continuous basis. If there are issues, these should be reported to Sami and let Sami make the announcements when necessary.

Certain rules around this should be introduced as well to keep these forums clean and avoid feuds on the forums.

We have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

I agree.

Alternatively Sami could review the time frame of when the value of aircrafts for sale drop and perhaps not make it such a drastic drop in values but a staggered approach based on the length of the aircraft being on sale. Now it seems that after a few months, there is a huge drop off in aircraft sale valuations.

For example, when first listed, the range could be -5% or +5% of market value for that aircraft (or should it be book value?)... after 1month, it could be -6%, 2months -7% etc... with perhaps a cap at -25%. An airline knowing that they would have to wait nearly 2years for 25% discount would probably not bother, as economically it would make more sense to get the aircraft earlier and operate it.. from the seller's view the quicker it goes, the better as well..

Also it should be based on who it's listed to (if its private).. if you change the private listing to another player, it should reset the valuation range.

[Jona L.]

We have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

Here is an example of Operational History:
11-Feb-2014  Bought by Jumbo Shrimp World 
30-Dec-2013  Returned from lease 
24-Mar-2008  Leased by VOVAIR 
15-Nov-2007  Delivered to North Africa Expedition 
25-Oct-2007  Aircraft constructed 

Any transaction would have the price at which the transaction took place.  All prices would be normalized to aircraft price - meaning lease transactions would not have monthly lease, but aircraft price from which the lease price was derived.

Sounds good to me.
And since leasing is always ~1/80th of the buy price, that would not be needed anyways

That would fix this issue, however not fixing the wobbly rules problem.

cheers,
Jona L.

[b757capt]

Every single alliance does this. Honestly I don't see the big deal of it.

The main poster of this topic did it for me in other game worlds. Not sure why this is an issue now but its just apart of business.

I don't agree with this public posting of pricing or ban on alliance to alliance sales. Those are not the answers.

Airlines in real life sell to each other all day long. Anytime transactions occur the pricing is rarely discussed publicly or on an individual basis. A back stop to the financial reporting in the game must occur if this is going to be addressed.

[LemonButt]

I am sorry I have to say this, but this is the stupidest solution to combat a problem that affects less than 1% of player to player transactions.

It is the stupidest solution if you completely disregard everything else.  As I stated originally:

If player-to-player leasing is eliminated and brokers were programmed to do their jobs more efficiently (providing liquidity, purchasing aircraft from players based on supply/demand/fair value) then there is absolutely no NEED for players to lease to other players.

In addition to solving the money transfer problem, you issues such as players cooperating to clog up production lines for fleet types they never intend on flying.  Slot transfers aren't allowed between players, so why are aircraft transfers?  They operate under the same system of finite pooled resources and are mission critical assets, yet transferring one is against the game rules and the other is not.

[Curse]

Dear Fred, explain a few things to me then:

a) Why did you not join ATA after you founded it a few years before with your well running airline in ATL?
    If you had done so, you would have paid a legitimate amount of money for these planes, and not been subsidized against KAW.

b) How did you explain to Sami, that this was not cheating, while it was effectively a scheme trying to avoid high prices in a fierce battle?
    What is also striking me is the fact, that the aircraft buying and killing leases for D-checks ended just shortly after it was reported. It seem you could explain a bit, but were still disallowed to continue as before. Which lead to the inevitable bankruptcy of your airline, showing how dependent it was on these cheap leases and cheaply sold aircraft.

I'm curious to hear an answer.


The avoided D-Checks saved at least $12.5 Millions while the cheaper than allowed leases and purchases saved a total of up to $100 Millions or, a more realistic figure, made the whole operation working at all in the first place.


This actions were clearly putting money into an airline and therefor forbidden. If frimp's statement is true (I doubt that) and it was allowed by administration we have another very good example of how important rules are everybody knows and everybody can follow instead of more or less random decisions we have right now.

Every single alliance does this. Honestly I don't see the big deal of it.

It's good we have a discussioun thread then if many people do it.

Just because many people do it, just because it can not easily detected, just because the rules are short and may not be understand by all and just because investigation takes a while doesn't mean the status quo is acceptable. I guess Jona invested some time to find those examples for us so we can see these things actually happen often and just accepting illegal cash transfer between airlines does not seem to a solution to me - mostly because it then must be officially communicated so everybody can do it legally.

[Kadachiman]

Very well thought out and very well written Jona as it is not a rant but a well presented factual post.

It really does annoy me that players find so many ways to cheat at this game, not only because it stuffs up other players game experience and game play but also due to the fact that a lot of Sami's time is continuously wasted in fixing cheat loop holes instead of him being able to invest his available time pro-actively and develop this game (e.g. City Based Demand) for all of us to keep enjoying.

[Kadachiman]

Now lets get back to what Jona has requested being clarifications of rules so that airlines and/or Alliances do not abuse what they see as their interpretation of the rules

Current Working Example -

GW #4 - 2 airlines from the same alliance operating from Atlanta - is this against the rules or not? unfortunately it is left up to player interpretation

Positive reason
Player # 1 could be operating Domestic market only (which it appears to be the case, however 40+ Long Haul aircraft are on order)
Payer # 2 could be operating International market only

OR

Negative reason
It could be that the 2nd player went there to help crush any opposition so that his 1st alliance member could flourish

Which is it? Is it good play or is it cheating?
Unfortunately the answer will be 'dependant on what your personal alliance to another airline or another person is'

To me a classic example of what Jona is requesting - clear cut rules rather than player interpretation of rules

Note - I have no issue with any players involved, all I am highlighting is that many rules in this game are 'open to individual  interpretation' and we all have different opinions of what is fair and what is not fair

[Curse]

That's one of the problems, Darryl. I wrote a PM to sami some month ago about a similar thing and never received an answer - neither positive nor negative.

For Atlanta I wrote another PM and told my intention as well as the limits (I don't serve a single route my alliance mate serves) and asked for permission. This just takes time, it stops gameflow and it still feels a bit shady.



Explicit rules would have avoided that, something like: "If two members of the same alliance operate out of the same airport they are disallowed to share routes." (what, basically, my interpretation in this thing is)

Double basing for example is not forbidden by rule and in real life most European countries I'm very familiar with law this would be legal then. However, there were things in the past that were not clearly forbidden in AWS but were punished afterwards.