He was walking along the causeway of the station, just stretching his legs when he saw the crowd forming. Curious, he followed the flow noting that more than a few podpilots were in this mix and the ‘mortal’ members of the crowd came with their own retinues and guards. They all were gathering in an open space, a small park setting with a holoscreen dominating one side. The face of a bored Caldari filled the screen and the way he made eye contact with some of the folks and nodded to them indicated that this was not a one time event, whatever it was.
“Heyas, mind tellin a guy what’s goin on?” Mike smiled at the pilot next to him.
“RS sale.” Was the terse reply.
“Selling an arse usually does not get such a crowd, Hells I usually find I kin gets it fro free.”
“No, numb-nuts. R S as in Repossession Storage sale. Podders who have lost their licenses, been banned from the space-ways and had all their possession impounded. Stuff has to go somewhere.”
“So what is in the sale?”
“Ah, now that is where it gets interesting. Nobody knows. You buy blind and hope for the best. I seen it swing both ways. One guy paid 575 mill for a Velator and one Trit in the hold.”
“I heard,” a pilot on the other side of Mike volunteered, “That one of the sales held 150 PLEX! It was bought for a song.”
“Let me get this straight . . . old hangers and storage of long gone pilots. Have been just sitting there and now the gove’mint is asking us to buy them, sight unseen. This ain’t a sale it be a lottery!”
While they had been talking the time of the auction had arrived andf the bidding commenced. Mike had no idea why but he even tossed a bid in, early on, though the prices went far too high for his taste, before the end. They sold 10 hangers, in this small out of the way station, and he bid on every one of them, winning none. But there is something about the atmosphere of an auction crossed with the thrill of a lottery tossed in on top. He joked with the pilots around him and they watched the winners and losers open the manifests after transferring obscene amounts of isk across to the hanger manager.
“This type of thing goes live with no warning?”
“Whenever they get around to it. Be in the right place at the right time, I suppose.”
*****************************************************************
Lessons.
CCP has the contents of banned accounts. Trillions of isk in assets impounded, lots of it in plex.
I was listening to Hans (Current CSM member) and he made me think about all those assets sitting there, needing to be moved because they are ‘on the books’. Make the accounting anomoly into a potential isk sink. To keep it from being gobbled up by the big fish make it a spontaneous Live Event. 5 minutes before, announce in the local constellation. Hold the auction naming the hangers by some number, not the name of the previous owner. You bid and buy, sight unseen.
The assets are back in circulation and some isk is removed from rich players . . .the economy flows.
For this idea I only ask a humble 3% cut.
Fly it like you won it.
m
A Missioneer in Eve 
As far as I know all of the confiscated PLEX wind up in the Eve Central Bank, although I think CCP Sreegs has access to them to fund the PLEX for Snitches program and probably to reimburse any pilots wrongly banned. CCP Sreegs came up with an explanation of why he doesn’t use confiscated assets (like ships, mods, etc) as rewards but I don’t have a link handy.
Hmmm. CONCORD has shadowy financial ties with the Eve Central Bank. And we learned at Fanfest that Dr. Eyjo, the head of the Eve Central Bank, was one of the first elite DUST mercs. Now if one of the pirate factions will attack some of the ECB’s planet-side facilities, things could get really interesting.
Ooooh, could you imagine ‘Bank Job’ missions?
m
I bid 32 Isk on hanger #42!
Come on baby, daddy needs a new Mega Navy Issue!