I Think I've Been Scammed - Please Help

A female advertised a business for sale on here for 40K. It was viewed many, many times. As of today, the forum ad has been deleted. It read like this because I saved it yesterday just in case:
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12-11-2005, 05:08 PM #1
M**** C*****
Registered User

Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 6 Buisness For Sale!
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Hello.
I am selling my buisness. Elite Sabers
Selling Sabers, Full Options! Guns / and Jedi Outfits.
I make from 1k-4k total each day with all the places ive rented in.
I am trying to get 40k!
IM Me In SL of here if u are interested.
oh and u will get full rights. lmao.. and no one else will be selling them but u
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Two days ago I paid her 40k. Still 2 days later, she has all her 7 stores up and won't take them down. She gave me only the inventory but refuses to turn over the land and/or close them up. I don't want her land as I don't think I bought that, I just have her inventory but feel she needs to close up all her shops since I have the items now.

I did not pay her 40k lightly. I have im'd her and while I was offline, she im's me and says she will take them down. Yet when I catch her online and ask her, she won't answer me and logs off with all 7 of her stores up.

I am only posting this after the advice of someone and have already filed 2 abuse reports and plan on 1 more.

I am sure people saw the ad, it was viewed 67 times as of yesterday and today, the ad was deleted but I saved it just in case.

Just added: Her newest store she was building was being built on Linden land. That was reported and an AR sent by a Linden. That is one that is poofed. So what does that say? Her store being build on land that wasn't even hers.

Maybe this will get a reply out of you since I paid you 40k and you won't even talk to me. So glad I didn't pay you PayPal like you wanted.

Thanks anyone for your input and time. I just want my business like I paid for and only bought it to make some money.

Welp, a couple of things. First, I'd really not name names if I were you. Just edit that out if you intend to keep the post up. Otherwise the thread will get closed at the very least.

Secondly, I would say that if the ad explicitly stated that 'no one else will be selling them but you' then yes, she should either stop selling those goods or remove her stores.

However, I don't see anything that indicates you'd get the land. I would have definitely clarified this before forking over cash! Were the estate holdings part of the business, or 'hers that she conducts her business on'. A technicality that, due to lack of definition in the agreement and in absence of any apparent clarification from you, I would say that she will get away with whether she meant that to be the case or not.

Frankly I seriously doubt you could reasonably expect the land holding seven stores in a 40k deal. Assuming they're reasonable sized plots they'd fetch more than that for land alone.

So yes, the only thing I'd agree with is that she needs to stop selling the objects you bought full rights to. Anything else you were expecting really should have been clarified, because what the ad doesn't say is probably far more telling than what it does say.

I'm not belittleing you plight, but why would a Linden say to take this to the forums? Also, what can we do to help?

To be honest, the best this will do is either warn others of such problems, or cause friction between you and her under the circumstance... Considering she has your money, that does not seem the best way to go.

Then again, I'm not sure WHAT would be the best way to go...

I took your advice Kris and left out the names. I didn't even think I had the land nor did I ever think that - I just wanted her stores closed since I was the owner of the items.

Also Foolish, I'm not sure either - I just wanted advice - but I was telling the truth when I said a Linden suggested me do this. He wanted me to post it since she wouldn't reply to either see if I could get some feedback or for her to see what she has done.

I also have since saw that she was building her new store on Linden Land, land that wasn't even hers, not sure what was going on there.

Thank you both for taking the time to answer and give input, I appreciate it.

My hunch is, that Linden often expects "community pressure" to take care of things that aren't covered by the TOS.

Contract disputes aren't a TOS/CS violation - there's little Linden can do today in that regard. However, there's a lot of pressure the community can apply - providing the offence is clear enough to get everyone on board.

That's my take on it, at least

i saw this ad and was very suspicious of it. im not surprised to hear you say this

Actually you would have been wise to have used Paypal, you could have filed a dispute and got your money back.

Did she ever say to you that she was going to stop selling these items? Did you get the name of the business, logo, and signage in this deal?

I sympathise with your situation, but from what you presented in this thread, I see no indication that she clearly stated she was going to stop selling the items.

A collection of anonymous individuals cannot form a community. So long as we are not allowed to use names on the forums there will be little ability to pressure anyone but the worst offenders.

hehe - agreed 100%, prak. And there's the rub....

To a point, I think you're right. One of the more frustrating things about the no-naming-names policy.

Then again, I've seen the pitchfork brigade called up for less-than-noble reasons before. Maybe its a good thing that its difficult to pressure anyone but the worst offenders, as a check & balance.

And when that fails, there's always the ever growing SL blogosphere

Paypal will not help with transactions involving "virtual" merchandise (unless things have drastically changed since last time I checked).

Earlier this year there was a huge scam going on at "Magic: The Gathering" Online and neither Wizards of the Coast or Paypal were willing to help.

WOTC does not get involved on third party transactions and Paypal does not support virtual transactions. Basically the same situation.

Yes she told me she would not be selling anymore and was closing up her shops. I have all of my im's saved and have forwarded them to Lindens and to Abuse Report. She even told me this morning in an offline IM that she would be taking them up. But logged off and didn't take them up or ever answer my questions.

Elite Sabers is the name of the business I bought. That should help if you need to look it up.

If you don't want to go to the trouble of maintaining a blog, don't forget the forums at Cristiano Midnight's very nicely done website sluniverse.com.

While stopping in those forums to report someone's bad actions or to reward some good action with a laudatory post, you can also check the knowledge base for hints and how to's on such topics as how to use alpha channels, click over to Snapzilla to check out the sights, join the alleged illuminati in the #secondlife IRC chat, and join the secondlife teamspeak group, which is where the real ruling class make fun of the dupes in the #secondlife channel

Sorry to read this Heathur..

Its a pitty that Linden does not take action and reverse this all. Should be possible in some form although I am afraid she is already gone with your money...

Anyway, happy to help you out to get you rolling when you are ready.

Hope this pile of shit will be cleaned for you..

Hugzzzz

You should file a small claims lawsuit against the individual. If you can afford a lawyer or have a friend willing to provide the service for free, subpoena LL for all logs related to this individual, as well as name and contact information.

Maybe you can get a slot on one of the court TV shows, I'm sure LL would love that. But, what LL will NOT enjoy, is being subpoenaed for user info. Especially in cases of scams. No company likes to have the word 'scam' associated with the name of their business. And lawsuits, whether successful or tossed, will help LL to recognize the reality that SL is no longer an internet hole-in-the-wall. SL is becoming too large for community pressure to deal with accute, but costly disputes.

It's also important for people to treat SL business deals as they would RL business deals. If you're buying a business, you have at least a contract to sign. There are internet sources for standard transfer contracts. Use those, and make contact with the SL resident via RL email at least. And FedEX the signed contracts back and forth at the most.

If you think any of this is overkill, then accept your loss and move on. You took a risk and lost. There is nothing LL will do for you.

Point of clarification; PayPal does accept virtual transactions - but will not handle chargebacks over virtual good or services. Caveat Emptor is the rule of the day;

In regards to the topic at hand; you could try competing against the person you bought the goods from; If those sales figures are accurate, you should get your money back eventually. (Unless you get nabbed for trademark infringement, which is another topic all together.)

-Adam

Actually, when I played TSO, I bought something from another player (an island in DC) using Paypal. She never transferred the island to me. It took six months, but Paypal DID get the money back to me.

I agree. The mob is only very rarely a pretty thing. I'm pretty sure I'm not in favor of a government. (Although, in my darker hours, I do sometimes wonder if a number of voluntary governments you could select between might work.)

It might be that there is no solution but I can't see the ban on the use of names as being very helpful at all. At the very least it should be enforced consistently: nothing bad, but also nothing good.

If I were you I'd talk to Jora Welesa. She just had an experience with a former employee that released her lightsaber kit with full perms as a freebie. You may have bought stolen work and it might be worth looking into.

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Thank you all for your replies and I will contact that person to see what is the next/best step to take. I checked last night and she did remove the stores from her picks but she still has the stores up selling the things I have full rights to now.

How someone can do that to someone is beyond me. But that's life I guess. I hope the Abuse Report filed by a Linden that she built her newest store on land owned by Governor Linden will at least do something.

I don't know if you'd want me looking at your codebase, considering I'm a potential competetor, but I'd be willing to help you out any way I can. I'm afraid I'm at my RL job at the moment and don't get home until quite late, but if we can get together In World and work out a plan of action, we might be able to figure out what to do.