GOM defrauded again?!

I did miss the open again post and I thank you for the immediate email you sent me. I was able to withdraw the lindens to my account without any problems! Thanks again!

I somewhat agree.

Yes I have dealt with GOM, several times actually... back when I was in Leda and you had an ATM at my mall...

And as to your posts to Moopf... it doesn't matter where you posted the accusations of IGE, the fact is you posted it, period. Maybe IGE refuses to cooperate with you because you have some sort of personal vendetta against them ( you have proven that in your posts). Why should they help you? They didn't do anything wrong... and as far as them buying 300k, that is nothing unusual, I sell 250k at a time quite a few times and the entire transaction never took more than 5 minutes, and that INCLUDES them sending the USD to paypal account.

Billy....
(edited)

these are the reasons that other mmog companys expressly forbid the sale of inworld items for real money. they know it happens and they don't really care. their stated regulation disclaims them from any financial responsibility because their answer to a plea for help, according to the rules, is to cancel the requestors account. this lets everybody know up front, without a doubt, that players participate in these schemes at their own risk with no support from the company.

in the beginning of 2004, many voices warned philip that it was foolish for ll to endorse this service. he chose to not listen. let's hope it never hits the fan any worse than this little episode.

Thanks for the information. I just found it a bit odd that IGE would accept 300K of Linden's in such a short amount of time when I remember (old age and all, I can remember) their business website stating that they were limiting the purchase of Linden's to their company.



Still, I find it interesting that they would suck up 300K Linden's in such a short amount of time without some sort of bells and whistles going off on their end.

Wasn't it just a few months ago that someone posted how much $$$'s IGE had lost on the Linden's they had purchased and were holding?

IGE is limited, depending on thier current stock... some days they buy 250k and some days they don't even buy 5k.

Endorse GOM?

My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that Philip asked Zeppi to include Linden $, and that LL was directly involved from the inception.

I don't see what is so odd about this.. as I have stated I have done several trades with IGE for 250k and I know others that have as well, and even at this very moment they are buying up to 250k.

Not to nickpick Sensual, but if you search the archives, one of your more infamous posts was when IGE STOPPED accepting Linden's for awhile and you were forced to use GOM.



It's all water over the dam now if they have been reaccepting Linden's.

In fact, the historical posts on the forums reflect GOM working closely with the Linden's to get this service working correctly. I believe that there was also an announcement where LL supported GOM, in fact, several of the news releases spoke about GOM and the fact that "live trading" of in-world currency for USD was easily available.

This is exactly what I was trying to point out, Sensual.

That for someone to immediately trade 300K in Linden's to IGE -- the individual had to know that IGE would immediately accept the trade and that they would not have to wait a day or two for IGE to begin reaccepting Linden's.

In other words, this was well planned knowing that IGE was hungry for 300K in Linden's.

ummm ok...

This was obviously a very sophisticated scam - I am sure the player in question is probably in SL and has been for awhile on another account. Yes, they were taking a risk that IGE would not buy the L$ - but I have not seen the overstocked message in quite awhile - so perhaps they have been monitoring it with legit transactions. I don't think any of it points to any complicity on IGE's part. As a business rule, they probably should put in a waiting period for sales from brand new accounts, which would have delayed the sale in this standpoint - but I can understand why they don't. In the end, it is Paypal's security that has failed, not anyone else's, so all the fingerpointing at IGE is misplaced.

You're forgetting the very key ingredient of any well executed scam; luck. Most thieves are stupid by nature. This is why they do what they do and also why they get caught. The ones that don't, got lucky.

Think about the motive here. You have a few stolen paypal accounts, you use those accounts to buy L$ from GOM, then resell it immediately off to IGE. IGE historically pays less for L$ than they sell it for. This is thier business model. Buy low, sell high. GOM works as an open market, letting the market set the prices. It's easy to assume that at the very least, this person actually LOST money buying from GOM and reselling to IGE. They profitted nothing. If they managed to have IGE pay to another Paypal account, Paypal will know exactly what bank account those funds went to, and they will be caught. Either way, it's highly probable that this person financially gained nothing.

So what did they gain? Chaos. Their motive was to upset the SLL market. This is pleasure source for them, either vendicitive, or simply destructive. It would have to be someone with decent understanding of Second Life, GOM, and IGE. Someone who had enough experience with all three services to understand their weaknesses. This was by no doubt planned. But more than likely, they didn't know what the end result would be. They simply wanted to cause chaos. They were lucky enough that IGE was at the time, due to business policies, market conditions, and timing willing to buy the L$300,000. This is not unusual, or to be unexpected for IGE to do so.

IGE is as much a victim of this as GOM is. If not more, since GOM seems bent on pointing fingers at IGE. It's completely unprofessional for GOM to be accusing IGE of anything in this fraud. Instead they should be maintaining a sense of professionalism and working with Linden Labs, Paypal, and IGE to reverse all charges. GOM cannot expect Linden Labs to take on the burden of burdening IGE because GOM got robbed. While it would be a great show of faith and professionalism if IGE actively participated in correcting this it is still NOT their fault that GOM was insecure through association with Paypal. IGE is also pinned into a corner if they take on the burden of cleaning up GOM's mess while GOM continues to liebel them. This is absurd. Zeppi should publically appologize, regardless of if his comments were meant for these forums, or the GOM forums.

Disappointed GOM Customer / non-IGE Customer
Rathe Underthorn

Please fill me in on this because it is unclear to me, Has ige ever been hit with fraud?

I am sure they have Billy, but they don't come whining to LL and everyone else to do something about it... businesses like GOM and IGE have to know the risks involved and accept them or they shouldn't be in business at all.

Not so. The motive was very likely cash. You are forgetting one key factor. He didn't have to pay anything for the L$ he bought from GOM. The stolen PayPal accounts were charged. And I have no doubt that he had the money from the sale to IGE go to him, even if he used a phony name. So he definitely profited bigtime.

Doubt it. He had access to stolen Paypal accounts. Used stolen funds to gain L$, sell it, transfer those funds into another Paypal account at the most. If those funds went to his account, he will be busted. But he could have just as easily transfered those funds from the stolen paypal accounts to his paypal account. You could argue money laundering, but it's not a very clean source, if at all, to do so, because it just adds more evidence every step of the way. This person wanted to disrupt the Second Life economy.

Excellent! points.

Actually, I think this person is just very stupid.

From what I have read elsewhere, PayPal may indeed be the true miscreant in this ordeal. Their reputation is far from sterling and they have enacted many policies to limit their liabilities at the expense of everyone who uses their service.

I have no idea of the validity of the claims at http://www.paypalsucks.com/ but thought that others might be interested in making their own appraisal.

Not sure what you doubt there. You pretty much repeated what I said. He used stolen money, so it didn't cost him anything, and I have no doubt the money made on the sale ended up in an account that he was able to access and transfer funds from. LL could very well find out who created all those accounts and who transfered the L$ and to what account. PayPal could definitely trace the transactions and find out who's bank account they finally ended up in. So the person may get caught, or they may not, depending on how far GOM or PayPal thinks it's worth going.

given paypal id's are actually basically email addresses.. and people register on GOM with email addresses... would an automated flag and wait system for people registering GOM with a *different* email address than used in paypal.. aka if i use [email]myname1@yahoo.com[/email] as my paypal ID, and register on GOM with [email]notmyname@yahoo.com[/email]... flag the GOM registration for audit/verification via an email directly sent to the papal registered email

not only would this stop people from quickly setting up scams with stolen paypals (since they would not be recieving the email from the account set with paypal in all likelihood, just the cash flow via the paypal system)... but it may even serve as an alert to the people whos accounts have been hijacked (aka 'what the heck is this here gom and why did they say i wanted to pay them $300')

i think thats a better system than arbitrarily forcing new players to wait 3-4 weeks before they can actually use GOM at all... that a critical 3-4 weeks of time that having access to some extra lindens to play with and buy things is very valuable to a person getting into SL, and many SL merchants who have come to rely on these new player purchases, which wouldn't be possible in many cases without easy GOM access for these newer players.

One thing you've forgotten.

$2K USD was made on a sweet deal.

PayPal is notorious for not refunding monies for "virtual property" because according to them, you can't prove that virtual property exists.

A secondary PayPal account could have been created, the money pulled out into a PayPal check or money order and cashed.

It would be nice if the Linden's or GOM could go back to PayPal and say... "This is a scam, please refund our monies..." But PayPal won't. There is no such thing as virtual items, therefore, there is no such thing as a virtual scam for money.

I'm not pointing the finger at IGE, what I'm pointing out the obvious. The individual knew that IGE was accepting Linden's that particular day and that they wouldn't have to hold onto the Linden's for any length of time. The individual also knew that PayPal would do diddley squat to refund any of the monies. I just wonder what stolen PayPal accounts were used to fund this transaction and if those individuals are SL'ians.