In a surprising incident, Apez has ran out of Linden dollar reserves after a what is described as a “Run on the bank”, the surprising part being, Apez wasn’t a bank in the first place.
Rumours about the demise of Apez started a few weeks ago, with a concerned thread on SL Universe, which can be read here, posing uncomfortable questions about withdrawals and complaints.
However things ran into panic mode over a thread on the Apez forums from Cenji Neutra asking for interested parties to contact Apez regarding management and operational assistance, Cenji wanted to stay in the loop and still be involved, which makes the panic a little surprising but possibly following on from the earlier issues, people decided to withdraw now, this is an unfortunate consequence of previous failed ventures from fomrer inworld businesses that longer term residents will be aware of.
Cenji’s message read:
Dear Apez merchants and customers,
As many are aware, Apez is currently understaffed. As the majority owner, I’ve personally had very little involvement in the day-to-day operation of Apez for some time. While I believe the business is still profitable, there is little capital available for expansion and that has seen the site & service stagnate. I have heard numerous reports of dissatisfied customers, particularly in light of recent delays in transaction matching and availability. I’d like to apologize for any anxiety caused.
We had a two stalled attempts to start a completely new site. Currently, my goal is to launch a new cyber-commerce alliance to promote open standards and Open Source development to foster free trade in virtual worlds (not just Second Life) and avoid the type of vendor lock-in that is the current strategy of Linden Lab. The hope was that efforts stemming from that would provide continuity for Apez merchants and the data they’ve entrusted with Apez. While that will happen, it is not happening quickly enough for Apez.
Consequently, we’ve decided to simply hand-over the management and operation of Apez as-is to any interested parties who maintain the interests of existing Apez customers as their primary concern. I would still like to remain peripherally involved with Apez and will consult as necessary. In hind-sight, this is a course of action I should have taken some time ago.
Hence, this is a call for interested parties to contact us. We’d like to hear from both individuals and groups. While we don’t believe a single individual can posses all the skills and resources necessary, if no suitable groups show interest we may assemble a group from individual applicants.
Whomever we hand over management to would have to encompass the capabilities listed below:
* Management – requires management skills and sufficient time and enthusiasm to perform high-level operation, including managing volunteer and support personnel, finances and public relations
* System administration – the Apez service encompass many servers, most hosted ‘in the cloud’ on Amazon’s infrastructure. In order to manage and maintain the servers and software, some of the following expertise is needed: Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora); Amazon AWS: EC2, S3, CloudFront, SimpleDB; MySQL; WikiMedia; Sendmail/Postfix/IMAP; DNS
* Development – the core Apez custom software is written in either C#/.NET (using Mono under Linux) or PHP. Regardless of if any wholesale new development is undertaken with the existing code-base, development experience will be needed for modifications and managing any transitions to new systems etc. Obviously, for the in-world products an in-depth experience with LSL and SL’s methods of external communication, such as email, IM, HTTP out and in are necessary. Ultimately, we’d like to see the existing Apez API prepared for being publicly available so that devices such as vendor, lease devices etc can be implemented by anyone to operate with the service.
Obviously, we’re not looking to hire anyone, but rather hand over both control and equity interest in Apez. The details of the arrangement will be negotiated. I would personally be delighted if some existing entrepreneurial merchants were to form a group to represent the merchant community for the purpose of taking over management and operation. While not required at all, a party with capital to invest in new product and service development would be highly prized.
I plan to promote that, in future, Apez (under new management) will maintain an active interest and possible participation in any parallel developments of standards, open systems and services related to cyber-commerce and hence ultimately provide a transition path toward new open services for existing merchants.
So, if you are interested or are part of a group that is interested please post a quick email to “solutions AT apez.biz” (substituting ” AT ” for “@” obviously).
Include the details of the people involved, their experience related to the skills above and any previous or current relevant experience in addition to any questions you may have. We’ll proceed from there and arrange Skype calls or in-world meetings.
We look forward to expressions of interest. Please be patient as we wish to allow sufficient time for interested parties to contact us. If you have an interest but need time to assemble a group, don’t hesitate to email to indicate your intentions.
Thank you.
-Cenji
The message is posted here. This seems to be a well intentioned call for assistance, possibly long overdue, but one that caused a degree of panic, as explained here.
Dear Apez customers,
Unfortunately, recent events including my recent announcement that we were seeking parties to take over Apez has resulted in a ‘run’ on the bank. This has resulted in depletion of the immediate L$ reserves. We had hoped to avoid this situation, but now that it has occurred we’re forced to suspend deposits and withdraws temporarily or perhaps permanently if we’re unsuccessful in attracting interest to keep the system in operation.
Unless new management is obtained, we’ll attempt to effect an orderly closure. Some immediate steps planned:
* Keep the vend and lease systems operational in the short term to enable customers to transition their information
* Proceeds from liquidation of assets will be used for satisfying withdrawal requests as funds are available
* Develop a solution for liberating user data in a useable way.
We’re currently working with CasperVend to develop a migration kit that, when dropped into an iServ, will cause Apez.vend data and purchase history to be automatically transfered over to CasperVend’s system. We’ll provide information about how to obtain the kit once it is available. Note that CasperVend is otherwise unaffiliated with Apez Corp, so please don’t ask them for support with Apez products or services.
We’ll be seeking a similar solution for the lease service also.
Note that while ATM deposits have been disabled, we have no simple way to remotely stop iDeposit, iVend and auto-lease products from making ‘deposits’. Consequently, when we re-enable withdrawals, we’ll attempt to satisfy vend and lease ‘deposits’ from this time forward, first – and we hope to be able to satisfy all outstanding withdrawals eventually.
As I learn more of the unfolding situation I’ll post updates here.
Thank you,
-Cenji.
Now this is a tad more concerning, people are now going to be confused, they are going to wonder how there could possibly be a run on the bank when Apez wasn’t a bank and they are going to be asking where their money has gone. Cenji has been straight with people on the issues, that’s one point to bear in mind before going into panic overload and Cenji has promised to keep people informed, I fully believe that Cenji’s posts were well intentioned , but there still remain difficult questions here, the main one being, where has the money gone?
As it stands, nobody has lost any money, services are merely suspended, it will be interesting to see how this plays out but hopefully it all plays out so that nobody loses out and nobody has their reputation badly burnt.