Explain to me how the scam is supposed to work. I honestly don't get it.No, this is a fantasy novel universe. Get it right
The diamonds being real doesnt actually make it any less a scam
That has been classically how a lot of scams have worked in this space.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Thomas Raith is the CEO.
Molly is an employee. The company is wholly- or partially-owned by a shell corporation/set of shell corporations, thats ultimately owned by Molly.
At least thats my understanding.
Hence the whole "dig enough, and you'll find Molly" business.
Bit of lawyer talk but companies don't have owners, they have shareholders. CEO run the companies, and shareholders get the profits. But companies at least in the USA are fully distinct legal beings by law.
Well yes and no, with a proper setup of holding companies and other tricks you can make it so that the company is owned by another company in Alaska, and Molly's name is at most a benficarity, but personally never actually owns anything, or can get into legal trouble for anything.
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- Location
- Germany
All companies?
I don't know much about how it is in the US, but generally speaking both companies as legal entities with shareholdes and companies with a single owner are things that exist.
Is CS a corporation? I thought that we were a limited liability company and thus had an owner.
You claim a breakthrough, you produce a proof of concept
You produce perfectly fine products that you claim were produced by that process, but you source your goods elsewhere.
Meantime you shop the company/deal and its assets around privately, sell it, and vanish with the proceeds
This is the same way a bunch of the mining scams in Africa are supposed to go.
They prime the pump with actual real goods, and only much later do you get rugpulled.
For example:
How one African man's gold scheme cost his American victims millions of dollars
Cassell Kuoh, a miner in Liberia, was by all accounts was a Liberian success story.
abcnews.go.com
I mean, Chicago Synthetics is less than three months old iirc.
Its produced maybe two batches of diamonds.
Classic scam company profile.
And thats the actual better option
The worse option being that its a drug-money laundering operation thats selling natural diamonds at a loss to launder money.
And drug dealers are generally a more violent lot than scammers
- Location
- Germany
We could show'em by producing genuinly new and impossible products, like diamonds with an inner light or color-shifting depending on circumstances.
I think 15 Sux was the minimum for that kind of weird stuff, and today we are much more likely to make than than we were a few months ago.
I think 15 Sux was the minimum for that kind of weird stuff, and today we are much more likely to make than than we were a few months ago.
I mean.
We set up Chicago Synthetics as a cover story to launder manufactured diamonds.
Not to provide character references and backing for people.
Those are very different mission sets, and trying to to use ChiSyn as a character reference risks damaging its ability to do its primary task of making us money.
We dont need people poking around it or drawing attention to it.
We set up Chicago Synthetics as a cover story to launder manufactured diamonds.
Not to provide character references and backing for people.
Those are very different mission sets, and trying to to use ChiSyn as a character reference risks damaging its ability to do its primary task of making us money.
We dont need people poking around it or drawing attention to it.
Thats like swallowing a spider to catch a fly.
You're throwing magic in the faces of people whose reaction is...uncertain.
Not to mention that in addition to that, you need to factor in Mr Wilson, who is, and I quote:
Rosie is obviously a biased source regarding anything to do with the stepfather, but thats all the information we have.
Except this doesn't work at all, because we aren't asking anyone to invest. We are only selling product. And we can demonstrate that we can make product. We are also not claiming the diamonds to be natural, we are selling them as artificial. And we can make custom diamonds. Meaning that we do have the manufacturing capability. So, no, I don't see how the scam would work. Because, again, and it can be shown, and checked, we aren't asking for investments.You claim a breakthrough, you produce a proof of concept
You produce perfectly fine products that you claim were produced by that process, but you source your goods elsewhere.
Meantime you shop the company/deal and its assets around privately, sell it, and vanish with the proceeds
This is the same way a bunch of the mining scams in Africa are supposed to go.
They prime the pump with actual real goods, and only much later do you get rugpulled.
For example:
How one African man's gold scheme cost his American victims millions of dollars
Cassell Kuoh, a miner in Liberia, was by all accounts was a Liberian success story.
I mean, Chicago Synthetics is less than three months old iirc.
Its produced maybe two batches of diamonds.
Classic scam company profile.
And thats the actual better option
The worse option being that its a drug-money laundering operation thats selling natural diamonds at a loss to launder money.
And drug dealers are generally a more violent lot than scammers
That is supposed to mean that I am bad at note-taking, sorry about that. Let's say that Thomas holds the company right now, and is randomly paying for the expenses you want paid, though that does make one of the standard options I made last vote, the bank statement harder to sell than I had intended when I put it down.
-You claim not to be asking anyone to invest. Why should they believe you?
Requests for investment are not public records. Especially for private companies.
-Even if they believe you, you are a 17 year old high school student. Just turned 18.
You're just a mouthpiece, a dupe and potential bagholder.
The people actually running the company obviously treat you like a mushroom, obviously.
-We cant demonstrate our ability to make product without magic.
Even our diamonds take time to make and preparation to produce, and they are
You either need to expose magic to them, or they will assume you have an assortment of precut stones.
Which begins to look more like a drug cartel money-laundering op'
-Yes? Same difference.
It doesnt matter if they are natural or synthetic as long as they sell. Could be an African gem mine, or a quiet little sideline by one of the existing diamond producers. The details dont matter; the general form of the confidence scam is the same.
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You could just make a diamond for them and claim it's not magic... That is a hard sell, but you have excellencies and if you make the demonstration outside 2 extra dice from the charm.
......Nah.
Very hard sell to convince them its not magic. This time.
Plus it provides the first elements of a data trail of magic use they can use to figure it out later, since they are Rosie's family and we're likely to have continuing contact for years. Nevermind if Jared takes it somewhere for analysis.
It just seems like a terrible option all round for someone interested in keeping their own secrets.
- Location
- Germany
That's where the social skill comes in.
We can break his worldview, or we can adapt the Talk to fit as well as it can within it.
We've done so before, with the future husband of the weather-witch.
- Location
- Norway
As they are in most countries, a practice which goes back to Ancient Rome, for the very good reason that the company having an independent legal existence enables other people to make deals with "the company" and not have to re-negotiate with individual members whenever the investors change.
I notice you seem to say a lot of weird stuff about companies here, and I'd like you to please tone that down.
Well, of course us being in Chicago synthetics is a better claim than the inheritance, one of these thing is true and verifiable, and the other is the inheritance that isn't one.
Really don't understand why Uju is so insistent on the true claim to be the one that will cause the most problems if investigated, when it is the one that has the most proofs to stop the investigation with a *that's true, end of report*.
The husband of the weather witch had Intimacies towards the woman, and its not likely you can date someone that strongly involved in the supernatural community and not have some tolerance for...unconventional behaviors.
This is different.
Consider how it sounds to a family whose eldest kid only just got retrieved from drug addiction to have their kid's only friend start spouting what sounds a lot like cult talk.
Its just unnecessary.
A whole new can of worms to open whose implications can affect the life of someone else, not just Molly's own.
I just dont think its a good idea.
Consider how it sounds to have the kid's only friend claims that she got an inheritance and is using it willy nilly without thoughts, no investments, no stable job, no ways to guarantee the future.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Full truth in the least charitable interpretation: There is a supernatural community. The supernatural community operates in a similar kind of shadows to organized crime/intelligence operatives. Rosie's friend who's had past legal troubles has come into a considerable degree of supernatural power and is attempting to establish a well-intentioned startup in the supernatural world off that power, using synthetic diamonds made through supernatural means as her primary funding source at the moment. Rosie is a low level supernatural talent.
Which leads to the notion from her parents: Yes. Molly can help, but for how long and what kind of blowback would Rosie experience?
So how do we scale back from this?
Which leads to the notion from her parents: Yes. Molly can help, but for how long and what kind of blowback would Rosie experience?
So how do we scale back from this?
We can. Meet them at the warehouse, ask them what diamond they want, go inside, come out with the diamond. Ask for something specific enough that it would be impossible to have in storage. Not that hard a sell.
Also... And this is a question - what are they going to do? Talk to our parents, who they know at least a bit? Both Charity and Michael would confirm that yes, we do, in fact, make diamonds. Investigate CS via a private detective? That would show that yes, we do, in fact, make diamonds and sell them, and don't ask anyone to invest. Refer us to police? Assuming either LoC or Murphy don't catch this, investigation would demonstrate that we do, in fact, make diamonds. Unilaterally forbid Rosie from contacting us? Possible, but very unlikely, and leads to Rosie leaving with us.
Why and how? Seriously, why and how? Why would they keep digging? And how would they discover magic?
If Jared takes it somewhere to analyze, he'll see that it's a synthetic diamond. Exactly as we claimed. Diamonds themselves aren't magical.
The advantage of CS claim is that it is true. All of it. There are no lies. Any and all investigations will only be confirming our words.
You are banking very hard on "I inherited wealth somehow" not leading to further investigations, and those investigations not discovering shady things. That's a bad and risky gamble when we don't have to gamble at all.
And, finally, at some point Rosie will probably tell her parents about magic. In the future. That's not to be dismissed as a possiblity, and is her decision to make. In this case, again, CS is the best option here, because it's the damn truth.
Depending on how one feels about world-spanning conspiracies 'organized crime' is probably not the least charitable interpretation. After all organized crime might kill you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it might kill you because your death is profitable or because you just pissed off the wrong person, what it will not do it kill you because the grunts are hungry.
Honestly, I think everyone's pretty much dug in their heels at this point, and almost no one is going to change their minds until it's written.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Indecisiveness
[x]Yog
[x]Yog
Having fed, I can return to talk some more.
www.gobankingrates.com
There are ~22 million millionaires in the United States as of the end of 2020 according to Credit Suisse.
Roughly 7% of the general population, around 1 in 11 adults, were worth a million or more in net value.
Millionaires arent rare.
And who says anything about sudden?
If Molly inherited a house as a child, or was the beneficiary of a legal settlement as a child, or someone gave her a gift, and her parents left it in a trust for almost two decades?
Money in the stock market would have quintupled in value over that time; 500k would be 2.7 million.
Nevermind real estate.
We've made diamonds 2x, once in July and again in August.It takes us hours to grow diamonds, and then we spend extra time cutting them to the precise shape and cut we're selling, in July. In August we just sold the raw diamond.
So no, doesnt work.
Takes a significant amount of time to finish.
Do we know who Jared Wilson is? Does he have any connections? Family? Mentors?
Was he fraternity bros with DCI or the Executive AD FBI Counterintelligence? Is he drinking buddies with someone in In-Q-Tel?
We have no idea besides what Rosie mentioned in passing.
These are very real considerations for people in that sort of position, and what their network is like.
Not to mention the very real risks they go floundering in the dark and get eaten.
Or that their looking brings unwelcome attention to the lives of our parents and associates.
Dont be reckless with the lives of others. Thats like an ethical lodestone.
Not was, IS. Thats something that has to be guarded against for the rest of their life. Addiction is treated like cancer; you arent cured, you are in remission. For the rest of your life, there has to be monitoring and awareness of the risk of relapse.
That includes associates, who are like a major risk factor for relapse.
===
Because they see something on the home cameras, or we're careless in front of them.Or they check their daughter's room for drugs and see some of the books we're bringing for her, or an alchemical potion.Because they mistakenly look one of our associates in the eye and get a Soulgaze.
We're going to be around these people for a very long time.
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What investigations? We've been on the up and up with the IRS about our streams of income, and give the govt their cut.
We are in the legal clear with regards to our finances. Other law enforcement agencies might have opinions about how we do other things, but as far as the IRS is concerned, we're legal.
There's no legal way that the Wilsons can further dig into Molly's personal finances, and even if they did they'd find the same numbers on the bank statement.
We cant afford the attention with regards to ChiSyn, but Molly personally is clean as a whistle.
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Probably not.
The currentgen Carpenter family is not the norm; Charity apparently never told her parents, and its not like Michael talks about his Sword trips. Think of how many gay people go to their deaths never telling family about their sexual orientation. And even if Rosie told her parents about her own magic, thats not the same thing as telling them about Molly's.
And again, <<I had an Inheritance that gave me access to money>> is literally the truth.
How Many Millionaires Are in the US?
Who doesn't dream of being a millionaire? Today, it's more attainable than ever to become an ultra-high-net-worth individual. The number of millionaires, and billionaires for that matter, grows every year, and you may be surprised at how many of the richest of the rich there are in the U.S...
www.gobankingrates.com
Roughly 7% of the general population, around 1 in 11 adults, were worth a million or more in net value.
Millionaires arent rare.
And who says anything about sudden?
If Molly inherited a house as a child, or was the beneficiary of a legal settlement as a child, or someone gave her a gift, and her parents left it in a trust for almost two decades?
Money in the stock market would have quintupled in value over that time; 500k would be 2.7 million.
Nevermind real estate.
It doesnt work that way. Read our diamond crafting again.
We've made diamonds 2x, once in July and again in August.It takes us hours to grow diamonds, and then we spend extra time cutting them to the precise shape and cut we're selling, in July. In August we just sold the raw diamond.
So no, doesnt work.
Takes a significant amount of time to finish.
Make a fuss?
Do we know who Jared Wilson is? Does he have any connections? Family? Mentors?
Was he fraternity bros with DCI or the Executive AD FBI Counterintelligence? Is he drinking buddies with someone in In-Q-Tel?
We have no idea besides what Rosie mentioned in passing.
These are very real considerations for people in that sort of position, and what their network is like.
Not to mention the very real risks they go floundering in the dark and get eaten.
Or that their looking brings unwelcome attention to the lives of our parents and associates.
Dont be reckless with the lives of others. Thats like an ethical lodestone.
Because their daughter is an addict.
Not was, IS. Thats something that has to be guarded against for the rest of their life. Addiction is treated like cancer; you arent cured, you are in remission. For the rest of your life, there has to be monitoring and awareness of the risk of relapse.
That includes associates, who are like a major risk factor for relapse.
===
Because they see something on the home cameras, or we're careless in front of them.Or they check their daughter's room for drugs and see some of the books we're bringing for her, or an alchemical potion.Because they mistakenly look one of our associates in the eye and get a Soulgaze.
We're going to be around these people for a very long time.
===
What investigations? We've been on the up and up with the IRS about our streams of income, and give the govt their cut.
We are in the legal clear with regards to our finances. Other law enforcement agencies might have opinions about how we do other things, but as far as the IRS is concerned, we're legal.
There's no legal way that the Wilsons can further dig into Molly's personal finances, and even if they did they'd find the same numbers on the bank statement.
We cant afford the attention with regards to ChiSyn, but Molly personally is clean as a whistle.
===
Probably not.
The currentgen Carpenter family is not the norm; Charity apparently never told her parents, and its not like Michael talks about his Sword trips. Think of how many gay people go to their deaths never telling family about their sexual orientation. And even if Rosie told her parents about her own magic, thats not the same thing as telling them about Molly's.
And again, <<I had an Inheritance that gave me access to money>> is literally the truth.
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