sugarvalves [1963573] —
Original article
Shortly before his self-imposed federal jailing, Buston confessed to the Torn City Times the real reason for his scamming of Hildegarde.
Earlier this month, Buston successfully scammed young upstart Hildegarde out of $10,333,333,333 in cash and another $2billion in stock benefits, after said funds were loaned to him for placement on various bets. Approximately two weeks later, following a manhunt orchestrated by Hildegarde, Buston placed himself in federal jail, with this thread by Champion revealing that boredom, not bounties, were his reason for quitting the city. But was this really the case? Was Buston's scam even legit? And if so, why did Buston behave so atrociously to his dear friend Hildegarde?
To find out, let us hear from Buston himself, who speaks to us from beyond the federal grave through quotes he provided to me earlier this month.
Pictured: Buston's hiding spot, behind the light-grey grave at the back dead centre. You know, the one everyone's had a slash on.
I first received correspondence from Buston on May 5th, when he seemed overly keen to share with me the details of his recent activity - like a teenage boy who had just discovered he could make viscose trouser ghosts appear on command. With his scam now widely known among the public, Buston declared himself victorious due to three specific reasons. The first and most obvious was that he was now $12.5billion richer than he was before. Few could argue that this change in fortunes does not represent some sort of success - at least it did, until he gave away his fortune and quit the game.
So without the ability to profit from his crime, how else did Buston succeed from this venture? The second reason he deemed himself victorious was that he had made public a secret variance betting strategy used in super secret secrecy by Relentless members since February. Buston accused the likes of Hank, Nash/Alexstrasza and Hildegarde of benefiting from this tactic, even going so far as to claim that staff member Stretch sent him on a secret mission to infiltrate their faction and learn more about their ways.
Pictured: Stretch, hard at work, allegedly.
I can neither confirm nor deny if this was the case, as Stretch has not been interviewed for the purposes of this article. I have, however, rifled through his chat logs and messages in a bid to uncover the truth, but Torn laws dictate that such evidence cannot be published in the public domain. This is not true at all, but wouldn't it be funny if it was?
As it stands, the strategy used by Relentless does not contravene any of Torn's rules, as Buston himself admitted:
"It is not illegal and staff have revisited the strategy but have said that nothing can be done with the current bookie system because unlike real gambling websites, line changes are quite common. In the future, it might be better to implement a live bookie system which tracks line changes to avoid variance but that would be something for Ched to deal with in regards to bookie 2.0."
Should this variance betting strategy cause an imbalance to the Torn economy then it is virtually guaranteed that it will somehow be prevented. Those who wish to make use of this tactic should endeavour to earn as much money as they can before said loophole is eventually closed tighter than those which claimed so many great alternative musicians in the past twelve months. In the meantime, Buston must make do with the knowledge that he has shared a Relentless secret with the whole of Torn, and that those who profit from his sacrifice will be forever in his debt...kinda.
The third reason Buston believed he had achieved a win is that players from JFA, Subversive Alliance and even Relentless had praised him for his actions when a select few had conspired to keep this trick for themselves. I am yet to see any evidence of such an outpouring of praise from those factions or indeed anybody. In fact, most commentators seemed opposed to Buston's behaviour, either berating him for betraying a mate or decrying his efforts as pitiful considering how much more he could have scammed.
In his messages to me, Buston seemed proud that he had scammed his friend of over 300 days, claiming that he knew his play style by heart as a result of their friendship. He told me he targeted Hildegarde specifically because of his reluctance to share the variance betting strategy which helped to build his vast fortune, while also noting that his target could afford to lose the money he stole anyway. And so, having discovered the existence of the strategy via Relentless' private gambling channel on Discord, Buston elected to expose these shenanigans in the only way he knew how, with scams having been a major part of his gameplay from the very beginning.
"My first scam was when I was barely 20 days old and I set up a poker scam whereby people would invest in me to play on the big tables (200-1b) in return for a split in profits generated. This was highly appealing to most as they would watch their stack grow twofold within minutes."
"The scheme lasted a long time since I would send the money and they would invest more into me until I accumulated by first 4 billion and I was exposed as a scammer. I stayed undercover for a couple of weeks and started trading unique collectables. My first ever sale was a Snow Cannon which I sold to Ra1der (Now Big_Rico) for a $2.5 billion profit."
I have since been informed by Big_Rico that this story is completely untrue. Another claim Buston made which may also be jam-packed with lies is that JFA knew of his scamming history when he joined their faction, as he admitted it to Stretch and Vicarious before applying. He also praised himself as being "quite skilled at fooling people and playing on their emotions", having infiltrated Relentless and the inner circle of JFA for his own personal gain. But is Buston really the cunning fox-like weasel he paints himself to be?
Pictured: Solid maths
Hardly, I would say, since he now finds himself a mere footnote in the appendix of the history of Torn's soon-to-be-deleted Wikipedia article. I fear the poor wretch has vastly overstated his abilities and impact upon the game, as while Buston clearly believed himself to be a Robin Hood figure, he has turned out to be more like Martin Shrkeli; someone who basks in their own infamy and wears their newly acquired coating of excrement as if it were a silken gown.
Until the crowds called for his head, that is.
"I am already investing the money into stocks and I plan to attain 50b by the end of the year. It will be an immense achievement considering I have the whole of Torn breathing down on me waiting to pounce as soon as I leave the hospital. Luckily, I get revived for free quite often so I can monitor the market as I would do any normal day."
"Hildegarde and others are bountying me and trying to make my torn life unplayable but I am embracing all of their fruitless actions because I have come out victorious in all of this. To those thinking that bounties/ downrating my threads, adding me as enemies or stalking me abroad to hospitalise will make me quit the game, they are most certainly wrong... my time on torn has only just started."
Clearly, Buston's relationship with reality was as tenuous as DUDE's grasp on the truth. The would-be scam king has now departed Torn forever. This is a shame, since scams are one of the most beautiful things that can happen in this city. Ever since such acts were legalised they have made people angry and excited in equal measure. Scams act as a display of arrogance, aggression and deception like no actual game mechanic ever could, involving a direct assault upon a person's intelligence and trust by those who have noticed their Achilles heel.
And yet, with p**s-weak attempts like this making the headlines, we are made acutely aware of the dearth of truly machiavellian souls residing in Torn City. I received all of this information over a fortnight ago, and even I struggled to summon up the meagre effort required to put these words into print.
The truth is, Buston made a reasonable fist of it, and if he were to return under a new name I would be glad to hear of his future efforts at scamming the Torn public. But when one shouts from the rooftops extolling their own virtues, even going to the effort of contacting the city newspaper, you do expect a little more razzle-dazzle rather than a mundane, everyday confidence trick.
For that is the true crime here. Not Hildegarde's losses. Not the variance betting strategy. And not a third thing I couldn't think of. No, the real tragedy is that Torn's people no longer have the balls or brains to scam each other properly. Maybe they did in the past, but they sure as hell don't anymore.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if someone were to prove me wrong? Let's see if you have the cojones. As of today, the Torn City Times is offering a $1billion scammer's reward to those whose fraudulent efforts amuse our publication's staff. This prize will be paid out on a non-regular basis when we determine an entry worthy and only on receipt of evidence. Attempts to scam the scam competition by orchestrating a scam between yourselves will be futile, since we can and will check behind the scenes for evidence of such collusion.
Entries to this contest can be sent directly to Sugarvalves. At the end of the year, the Times will host a rundown of the ten best scams of the past twelve months, with the winner receiving a secret prize that money simply cannot buy. You may not be impressed by the $1billion payout, but the reward for winning best scam of the year is something you most definitely want.
Impress us Torn City, for your efforts thus far have failed to do so.
To find out, let us hear from Buston himself, who speaks to us from beyond the federal grave through quotes he provided to me earlier this month.
Pictured: Buston's hiding spot, behind the light-grey grave at the back dead centre. You know, the one everyone's had a slash on.
I first received correspondence from Buston on May 5th, when he seemed overly keen to share with me the details of his recent activity - like a teenage boy who had just discovered he could make viscose trouser ghosts appear on command. With his scam now widely known among the public, Buston declared himself victorious due to three specific reasons. The first and most obvious was that he was now $12.5billion richer than he was before. Few could argue that this change in fortunes does not represent some sort of success - at least it did, until he gave away his fortune and quit the game.
So without the ability to profit from his crime, how else did Buston succeed from this venture? The second reason he deemed himself victorious was that he had made public a secret variance betting strategy used in super secret secrecy by Relentless members since February. Buston accused the likes of Hank, Nash/Alexstrasza and Hildegarde of benefiting from this tactic, even going so far as to claim that staff member Stretch sent him on a secret mission to infiltrate their faction and learn more about their ways.
Pictured: Stretch, hard at work, allegedly.
I can neither confirm nor deny if this was the case, as Stretch has not been interviewed for the purposes of this article. I have, however, rifled through his chat logs and messages in a bid to uncover the truth, but Torn laws dictate that such evidence cannot be published in the public domain. This is not true at all, but wouldn't it be funny if it was?
As it stands, the strategy used by Relentless does not contravene any of Torn's rules, as Buston himself admitted:
"It is not illegal and staff have revisited the strategy but have said that nothing can be done with the current bookie system because unlike real gambling websites, line changes are quite common. In the future, it might be better to implement a live bookie system which tracks line changes to avoid variance but that would be something for Ched to deal with in regards to bookie 2.0."
Should this variance betting strategy cause an imbalance to the Torn economy then it is virtually guaranteed that it will somehow be prevented. Those who wish to make use of this tactic should endeavour to earn as much money as they can before said loophole is eventually closed tighter than those which claimed so many great alternative musicians in the past twelve months. In the meantime, Buston must make do with the knowledge that he has shared a Relentless secret with the whole of Torn, and that those who profit from his sacrifice will be forever in his debt...kinda.
The third reason Buston believed he had achieved a win is that players from JFA, Subversive Alliance and even Relentless had praised him for his actions when a select few had conspired to keep this trick for themselves. I am yet to see any evidence of such an outpouring of praise from those factions or indeed anybody. In fact, most commentators seemed opposed to Buston's behaviour, either berating him for betraying a mate or decrying his efforts as pitiful considering how much more he could have scammed.
In his messages to me, Buston seemed proud that he had scammed his friend of over 300 days, claiming that he knew his play style by heart as a result of their friendship. He told me he targeted Hildegarde specifically because of his reluctance to share the variance betting strategy which helped to build his vast fortune, while also noting that his target could afford to lose the money he stole anyway. And so, having discovered the existence of the strategy via Relentless' private gambling channel on Discord, Buston elected to expose these shenanigans in the only way he knew how, with scams having been a major part of his gameplay from the very beginning.
"My first scam was when I was barely 20 days old and I set up a poker scam whereby people would invest in me to play on the big tables (200-1b) in return for a split in profits generated. This was highly appealing to most as they would watch their stack grow twofold within minutes."
"The scheme lasted a long time since I would send the money and they would invest more into me until I accumulated by first 4 billion and I was exposed as a scammer. I stayed undercover for a couple of weeks and started trading unique collectables. My first ever sale was a Snow Cannon which I sold to Ra1der (Now Big_Rico) for a $2.5 billion profit."
I have since been informed by Big_Rico that this story is completely untrue. Another claim Buston made which may also be jam-packed with lies is that JFA knew of his scamming history when he joined their faction, as he admitted it to Stretch and Vicarious before applying. He also praised himself as being "quite skilled at fooling people and playing on their emotions", having infiltrated Relentless and the inner circle of JFA for his own personal gain. But is Buston really the cunning fox-like weasel he paints himself to be?
Pictured: Solid maths
Hardly, I would say, since he now finds himself a mere footnote in the appendix of the history of Torn's soon-to-be-deleted Wikipedia article. I fear the poor wretch has vastly overstated his abilities and impact upon the game, as while Buston clearly believed himself to be a Robin Hood figure, he has turned out to be more like Martin Shrkeli; someone who basks in their own infamy and wears their newly acquired coating of excrement as if it were a silken gown.
Until the crowds called for his head, that is.
"I am already investing the money into stocks and I plan to attain 50b by the end of the year. It will be an immense achievement considering I have the whole of Torn breathing down on me waiting to pounce as soon as I leave the hospital. Luckily, I get revived for free quite often so I can monitor the market as I would do any normal day."
"Hildegarde and others are bountying me and trying to make my torn life unplayable but I am embracing all of their fruitless actions because I have come out victorious in all of this. To those thinking that bounties/ downrating my threads, adding me as enemies or stalking me abroad to hospitalise will make me quit the game, they are most certainly wrong... my time on torn has only just started."
Clearly, Buston's relationship with reality was as tenuous as DUDE's grasp on the truth. The would-be scam king has now departed Torn forever. This is a shame, since scams are one of the most beautiful things that can happen in this city. Ever since such acts were legalised they have made people angry and excited in equal measure. Scams act as a display of arrogance, aggression and deception like no actual game mechanic ever could, involving a direct assault upon a person's intelligence and trust by those who have noticed their Achilles heel.
And yet, with p**s-weak attempts like this making the headlines, we are made acutely aware of the dearth of truly machiavellian souls residing in Torn City. I received all of this information over a fortnight ago, and even I struggled to summon up the meagre effort required to put these words into print.
The truth is, Buston made a reasonable fist of it, and if he were to return under a new name I would be glad to hear of his future efforts at scamming the Torn public. But when one shouts from the rooftops extolling their own virtues, even going to the effort of contacting the city newspaper, you do expect a little more razzle-dazzle rather than a mundane, everyday confidence trick.
For that is the true crime here. Not Hildegarde's losses. Not the variance betting strategy. And not a third thing I couldn't think of. No, the real tragedy is that Torn's people no longer have the balls or brains to scam each other properly. Maybe they did in the past, but they sure as hell don't anymore.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if someone were to prove me wrong? Let's see if you have the cojones. As of today, the Torn City Times is offering a $1billion scammer's reward to those whose fraudulent efforts amuse our publication's staff. This prize will be paid out on a non-regular basis when we determine an entry worthy and only on receipt of evidence. Attempts to scam the scam competition by orchestrating a scam between yourselves will be futile, since we can and will check behind the scenes for evidence of such collusion.
Entries to this contest can be sent directly to Sugarvalves. At the end of the year, the Times will host a rundown of the ten best scams of the past twelve months, with the winner receiving a secret prize that money simply cannot buy. You may not be impressed by the $1billion payout, but the reward for winning best scam of the year is something you most definitely want.
Impress us Torn City, for your efforts thus far have failed to do so.
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