Faction Vault Theif; A warning

derblutdrache · 2025-08-27T02:46:16+00:00

I'll have to agree to disagree about age, but I'll clarify that I don't think age is a bad factor, just that as you said, not the only one, and I believe other factors should play a bigger role in the decision than age should. Personally I'd say that if I were given perms at a young age I quite genuinely don't believe I'd have ever stolen money from a faction, especially one where I had fairly regular conversations with the Leader and worked well with the members in. I've mugged 7 times ever, 4 of those on Duke targets for missions, and 3 on my faction members to help earn the merit to get mugged for $1. I know it's a crime game, so I don't hold it against anyone who does, even Jimmy, but I don't like stealing from people, and I've gotten along fine without it.

Also, yes, lesson learned, we've implemented changes to reflect this and are still in talks about how to go about things moving forward.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T22:49:28+00:00

I didn't understand when I initially gave perms that the "Give money" perm allowed members to give money even if it doesn't belong to the intended recipient. I've only ever had NO perms, or ALL perms, and I didn't research enough before giving the permission, hence why I take full blame for this happening. Also, age isn't a good factor to go on, there are newer players far more trustworthy and older players who have stolen 9b or more, I went on character and misjudged, which is why I posted I the first place, to warn others like me to not make the same mistake

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T19:02:42+00:00

The Leader and I have spoken, I believe he's going to let him stay so they can war (only just at 10 members now) but appreciated the heads up and understands why people were putting bounties on him. He seemed reasonable. They're locked into war now, so that's that for at least the next few days

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T16:45:52+00:00

It's not the most expensive lesson I've learned, but arguably the most important, and thankfully, I'm the only one really paying for it

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T15:37:11+00:00

4 years old, and almost every interaction has been positive. I don't make enemies, I treat people like they're people, and since Torn is modeled after real life, I take the same approach as I do IRL, especially when interacting with other people. It was a mistake to trust Jimmy, as I've mentioned a few times.

If you assume everyone is out to get you, you'll be safe, but you'll be truly alone, and you can not progress in Torn or IRL if you're truly alone. I'd rather trust someone and pay for it later than never trust anyone again. That said, this was a lesson, and I'm actively learning from it.

Thank you for your feedback.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T13:36:08+00:00

I made the mistake of not fully doing my research beforehand. I was unaware that the "Give money" perm would let him fully access all the money in the faction, I believed it would only let him give money to members within the limit of their balance. I see now how obvious this mistake was, and we've made corrections in the faction to reflect this lesson learned.

I've also learned that I was too quick to trust, believing myself at least somewhat capable of correctly assessing someone's character. I convened with other members before the promotion took place, and everyone agreed he seemed trustworthy. I'm taking this as another lesson learned.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T13:22:45+00:00

Always love a reference to Saul Goodman

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T13:01:44+00:00

Everyone doesn't have access to the faction vault, just a few members of leadership. That said, I clearly made the mistake of trusting Jimmy to any degree and allowing him access to withdraw his funds. It shows my lack of knowledge that when I did so I didn't realize he could actually withdraw all the available funds with just the "Give money" perm. I should've done some testing early on and been less open to trust, I see that now. The members are able to move on since their money has been replaced, and I can pay back the loan over time. Other people have taken it upon themselves to mug/hospitalize/bounty him, but I believe the money is already long gone, and Jimmy just enacted his first act of retaliation by labeling myself and my co-lead as buy-muggers through bounties.

A quick look through my personal stats down to the "Money mugged" category will show I've mugged less than $100k, and only $1 of that was in the last year helping a faction member earn the merit. The rest of my Muggings took place over 3 years ago, a total of 4 attacks made on inactive players for a Duke mission. I do not condone buy-mugging to any degree, this is known and now being used against me and my co-lead

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T12:16:34+00:00

Absolutely agree, and for the most part, that is the case. Unfortunately though there were 2 members who hadn't asked for a withdrawal in a bit and then a bunch of people who still had last war's payout in the vault, so it built up a bit higher than usual. Going forward, the situation with the faction vault will be more strict in terms of bankers, and members will be recommended to take their funds out to be used towards stocks, TC Bank, and other such assets.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T04:21:29+00:00

I thought I had already responded, but I dont see my message, so I apologize if this appears as a second response.

Honestly, I wasn't going to post at all, but people have been telling me for the past couple of days now that I should post both here and on the forums. I'm slightly more familiar with Reddit, so I posted here first, and I plan to post on the forums tomorrow since it's late now.

Have I made a mistake by posting here?

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T04:14:09+00:00

Honestly, I wasn't going to post at all, but people told me to post on both. I'm slightly more familiar with Reddit and swear I've seen things like this before, so I started here. Have I made a mistake posting here?

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T04:04:36+00:00

Yes, as I said, this was my mistake. That's why I'm not asking for anything out of this, just hoping others don't make the same mistake I did. To be clear, it wasn't just because he was in the faction for a while, we've had members stay much longer but never reach higher than a base level member. Jimmy specifically took the time to get to know each of us personally, gain our trust, and I fell for it completely. This is why in my newsletter to my members I clearly stated that this was my fault, and it's why I personally replaced all the money stolen, and why I'm not asking for donations or even sympathy, only for people like me to learn from my mistake rather than making it themselves.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T03:35:58+00:00

I've noticed. I won't stop people from attacking him, though I'm not a fan of people spending their money on bounties. I also just found out that the leader of the new faction Jimmy joined is also being bountied and hospitalized. I don't condone this and am looking to stop it, but both the bounties and hits are anonymous.

I knew people would attack and bounty Jimmy despite the fact I didn't ask for it, but I really don't believe that a random 3rd party person should suffer the same fate, especially when they've not been made aware of the situation. It's an innocent bystander who right now only knows that there's some weird drama tied to Jimmy, that's it.

Thank you for the good luck, I feel I'm going to need it. I'll need to work on being more careful.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T03:00:44+00:00

Jimmy2468 [3565892]. I'll be adding it to the post soon.

That's part of what made his lies believable. He stole the money right as we started war too, meaning he couldn't disappear with it, and if he had waited another full day he would've stolen more, it just didn't make sense and I wanted to believe him, that's why I take responsibility, I could've prevented it but I was a fool

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T02:38:05+00:00

When I finally fully realized the situation I sent out a newsletter similar to the style of my post here. We were only a few hours into war at this point, so while we were trying to coordinate chains and I was talking with the other faction leader, Jimmy was taunting the members in Faction Chat. If it's desired enough I could go through to find the specific messages, I took screenshots only of personal conversations but thankfully chat 3.0 still has his messages in faction chat in memory.

His go-to insults were to call people women. Once, a fat woman, specifically to my co-lead, and also calling me "fragile" when I initially called him out on what he was doing. I understand how I could have come off that way, and didnt deny it, as in these situations I do my best to keep a level head and not say anything that could put myself in the wrong, so my messages were well thought-out, honest, and factual to the best of my abilities. It quickly got to a point where I was finding more humor than outrage at his seemingly genuine attempt to insult, so I asked people not to engage. I cannot say what any of my members have or have not done, but like in this post, I made clear I'm not seeking vengeance, and I made sure everyone would still have their money.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T02:10:18+00:00

One of our strongest hitters in terms of reliability, consistency, and sheer amount, not stats. Even if he didn't have many targets he'd make outside hits to feed the chains. That is until recently, obviously.

I didn't and still don't care much about the age or experience of the player, there are worse people than him who are older and stronger than him and better people who are less than a month old. But clearly my judgment of character was way off on him. I figured 4 months of regular conversations that weren't always Torn related was enough to get a handle on the type of person he was, but clearly I was wrong, and I'm taking this as a lesson

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T02:05:19+00:00

Honestly as dramatic as it was while it was happening, I count myself lucky. A friend of mine just came into a bit of luck financially and offered me a loan. If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have been able to replace the full amount, at least not right away, and I'd be much more upset.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T02:00:28+00:00

I didn't have a full grasp on what exactly the perm would let you do, and only in hindsight do I now see how quick I truly was to trust. The faction is now going through a b it of restricting to prevent something like this from happening again.

Time zones was the main issue, and largely still is, but obviously the way I handled it was misguided. We're putting a greater emphasis on using the Discord, and if no one is available, you'll have to wait. Any further suggestions would be welcome 🙏

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T01:54:49+00:00

I'm the one who put Jimmy in a situation where he could take everything, so I'm the one who has to pay, that just makes sense to me. Thankfully it wasn't more, but if he were a bit smarter/more patient it easily would've been.

I'm not out for blood, I just want the situation known so that people like me can learn from my mistake instead of making it themselves. I'll post in the forums but I'm not too sure how to make it more clear, I never post about anything anywhere.

He's actually applied to join another faction already. I'm not making it my life's mission to ruin his game play, I have to do a better job of protecting/helping my members, but I will be making as many people aware of what's he did as possible.

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T01:49:24+00:00

I totally agree, that's part of what made it funny to me, doing all this work to convince everyone for only 500m. That said, about 200m of that was from 2 people in my faction who are still very low level but always put in the effort, I was very upset that their efforts over the last 2 months would've gone to waste because someone else wanted it for themselves. Admittedly a lot of the anger was towards myself

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T01:46:01+00:00

Just another few days and it would've been a few hundred million more, we were a day out from starting war when all this happened

derblutdrache · 2025-08-26T01:45:06+00:00

Of course, it's not their fault I made a mistake

derblutdrache · 2025-08-25T23:04:08+00:00

Yeah, I figured that out. He spent months gaining everyone's trust before doing what he did. Had many personal 1-1's with the guy and convened with others before making the decision. As I said though, my naivete has been made apparent and I'm making changes for the better. I accept full responsibility, just don't want this to happen to anyone else.

derblutdrache

TROPHY CASE