Can't buy land on "Azure Islands", but it is listed for sale in the land listing!

Sure I like pricey namebrands, but sometimes a girl needs to get a bargain. I looked in the land listing and notice a nice piece of land at the very top of the list for $0L per meter. WOW! I wanted to get this hot deal right away before someone beat me to it, so I high tailed it over to Andromeda to get my new land plot. I wasn't sure the land would be there at that low price but to my suprise it was still available! Woot! I squealed with glee, clicked to purchase but, this is what happened...





I was unable to purchase the land. I don't understand why not, it was clearly listed for sale! Can someone please explain to me how this works? Thank You in Advance!

I am also going to ask in the linden hotline forum in case they dont know about this werid land glich.

Oh, stop it with the fake drama, Eboni.

You know full well that is a private island with the new deeding system.

And just like Ansheland, this land doesn't sell when you right-click on it.

I am SO GLAD one of these forum posters finally went on a little in-world field trip (which I did weeks ago and already walked through these steps).

It won't right-click and buy even though it is in the for-sale list.

GOOD!

That means a clueless newb will not be fooled. He will see that it has something DIFFERENT about it. He will look at the land itself and see what it says, which is usually "IM so-and-so for special arrangements" or he will study the add or look at a notecard.

IT WOULD BE SO MUCH WORSE IF HE RIGHT-CLICKED AND BOUGHT SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN LINDEN LAND. BUT HE CAN'T. SO HE WON'T, DUH.

And when he pays money for this thing-that-is-sold -- call it cream cheese -- he will realize he has something not unlike what he gets from the Lindens: land he can have access to, live on, build on, terraform, put a radio on etc. and pay tier to the owner.

Yes, it's different. Yes it's in the land sales list. But what is misleading isn't the land sales list.

What is misleading is Linden Labs, and their claim that they want businesses, they want rentals, they want players to join, they want commerce to thrive and more people to join the game, but they *get in its way*.

They *get in its way* by not coming on the forums right now, or yesterday would be soon enough, and saying:

"We enourage players to rent in zoned residential communities. We urge buyers to look at the terms carefully because this is different than our Linden Land. We will have more easy-to-understand descriptions in our next patch with the land offerings listings to help you distinguish among the types of offers.

Meanwhile, Linden Lab recommends that you educate yourself thoroughly before buying or renting and land in SL, from Linden Labs or any other seller."

Nobody is fooled, nobody is ripped off, least of all Eboni, who is a sharp connoisseur of fine lands LOL. So let's all get off this particular hobby horse and get Linden Labs to focus on creating a more conducive climate for the land business in SL.

I didn't read your whole post Prokofy. I took you off ignore long enough to get the basic of what you wrote and then you will be going back on ignore.

$0L per m2 is false advertising. I can't buy the land, yet it is listed in land sales at the top of the list. It needs to be removed. End of Story.

Thanks for Responding!

I'm so glad you're for a free and liberal market economy, Eboni! LOL. Yeah right.
'

No, not end of story. It stays. It is there. And the Lindens left it there. Because they know this stuff needs to get advertised. They are aware of the issues. Stop pressuring them to remove them.

Your vehemence on this will only be explained by fears that islands pose competition to your own land or other business elsewhere. But that's unseemly. There's room in SL for all kinds of business and competition only helps the whole economy to thrive.

Let it go. End of Story.

Advertising is one thing. Deceit is another. Bait and switch is illegal in almost (if not) every state of the USA.

You want to fucking advertise? Then set the price of the land to the actual price. Otherwise, you are behaving both unethically and illegally.

My comment isn't really intended to insult any particular person. It's just such common sense that I'm shocked someone has to say it. Listing the price as anything lower than what you actually intend to sell it for is a serious breach of business ethics, and an actionable offense. Please change your sales ads to reflect the actual price of the land.

Well, if you follow the logic some of you have been pushing, especially Lindar, this land is not for sale. Not for sale in any normal sense of the word, like Linden land (so you say).

There isn't an upfront purchase price. So yeah, it costs you $0 to buy because you don't buy it, and there is no purchase price

You want to play that game, let's play it. It isn't for sale, you just got done telling us with all kinds of indignant posts and threads galore.

Ok. It's not. Therefore it's sale price is $0.

When you get out there, you get the rate card and the terms of how to rent it.

End of story. It's just a workaround. Don't get all hot under the collar about it. It's a workaround of a severe problem in this game, which isyou can't advertise normally on a list -- it is heavily, heavily, censored and controlled due to the commerce-allergens of especially a small group of older player FIC types.

Time to get them on Claritin and let the rest of the residents move on. The Lindens have tolerated this workaround now for some weeks. They have indicated they'll be working to improve this type of thing in future patches. Your continued screaming about this just reveals more about this small but vocal group hampering commerce in the game.

You've completely missed the point, Prokofy. Whether or not the land is for sale or lease is irrelevant. The problem is that the price listed for the land is intentionally misleading. By pricing the land for less than they actually intend to charge for it, they are gaming the system. It is a textbook example of bait and switch. It is illegal regardless of whether or not they are selling their land or merely leasing it.

Let me reiterate my point: the sim owners are in the unique position of being able to set their land for whatever price they want, and not having to worry about someone coming in and buying the land for that advertised price. Thus, they are given the opportunity to game the system and push their sales listings to the top of the pile. Unfortunately, the current system does nothing to ensure that the consumer will actually be able to obtain that land at the listed price. Thus, we now see the rise of dishonest and illegal advertising practices in SL. Though I appreciate their desire to sell/lease their land, they could just as easily advertise that land at the ACTUAL price which it will be going for. It would still appear on the list, and no dishonesty or illegality would be involved. That is not, however, what is going on.

Get real Prok. You are simply trolling now because you are smarter than this. This tactic is no different than if anyone listed ANY product or service at one rate to draw customers in and then the actual price was something else. But because its one of your LIC (Landlord Inner Core) members you'll bend in any direction to defend them even if you know its not right. Anshe, you and others keep saying you want these land 'sales' in the same land sale list as LL. But now we see abuse of the land sales list by listing something so cheap its sure to draw people out. If these types of 'sales' can abuse the system by posting misleading prices (and yes I know $0 is a clue that something isnt right), then remove them completely. They could have easily put the 'purchase' price in the listing instead of $0. If this had been an event or product advertisement from one of the FIC you'd be tripping over yourself to get in here and flame them head to toe. And dont deny it.

This is sooooo obvious. The land should have the real asking price listed, not a lower price! No amount of bafflegab about the land listing system changes that.

Clear as crystal. It's not for sale, it shouldn't be on the sale list. Case closed.

Paragraphs upon paragraphs of specious pontification can't alter that.

Actually it is for 'sale', but not for $0 and you cant buy it by yourself via the GUI. My problem is that its 'luring' people out and making the land sales listings inefficient. People have to go out and find out the 'real' price and then read all the special terms. It defeats the purpose of the land sales listing all together. If the LIC wants to continue to use the land sales interface until a better solution is in place, it is more than fair to ask them to put the actual 'purchase' price in the listing. If they continue this practise then I could care less if LL pulls the rug out from under them and removes it completely from the listings even if an alternative isnt in place. If they act responsibly and put in the correct price then I have no problems letting it stay in the listings until a solution is found by LL. This is just my opinion.

How hard it is sometimes not to say "I told you so!".

Oh no! I just did!

______

This is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. "Bait and switch" is exactly it.
Withdraw ALL private sim land from the "Land for Sale" listings immediately.

Until such time as a separate list can be established to give these landowners the advertising help they need.

Prokofy can puff up his self protective feathers all he wants to (as we are talking about the land business so of course anything goes - it is ALL THE OTHER GROUPS THAT ARE EVIL), but this could not be more clear: false advertising is fraud. No way around that. No semantics, no smoke and mirrors, it is fraud. If you want to use the land finder to sell your land for a certain price, then list it for that price honestly. Anything else has zero defense. I know there will be a long winded retort, but consider the source.

You also can't cry foul that this is anti-Anshe, though SHOCK she is doing the same thing - her land is listed at $1/m. The land in question being listed for $0 belongs to Nexus Nash. Fraud is fraud, it does not matter who is doing it - bait and switch is both sleazy and just bad business. As an amendment to my quote, I will add - SL members are not anti-business, but they are anti-fraud.

Just some odd things I've noticed... Probably coincidence...

Several of Anshe's sims are name A'something. By using A' it makes them appear first in the sim list drop down box.

Now by pricing her land at $1/m, her land appears first in the land sales list if sorted by $/sqm too (well minus the $0/m ones).

Of course the name thing really doesnt have an impact, the latter does.

I didn't expect that from Anshe. 1$/m ? I'll have to go look.
This goes on getting worse.

Well, I think there's a larger message here for the Lindens and everybody, Chris. The message is: keep hampering business, keep giving into this screaming minority that hates commerce (except their own lol), keep thwarting and social-engineering natural entrepreneurial activities of residents, and what you will get is more and more resorting to fraud (if you want to call using an existing land sales list for this purpose "fraud" or "an exploit" which I'm hardly prepared to do).

That's my experience in RL too. When you overly restrict business, suppress natural human economic activity, create too many regulations, then people are forced to twist and turn and go around and then they inevitably find themselves on the wrong side of "the law" -- which isn't really a just law, but just over-regulation. The way to make good and honest business is to have freedom for business and the natural checks and balances of competition, plus institutions like the Better Business Bureau, but not suppress and harass business by trying to portray it as "criminal" when the original intent here is not to defraud, but to get advertised. When you criminalize business, it tends to then become a wish-fullfilling process that makes business in fact criminal.



No, I think if you can't right-click on the land, there's your first protection. Get mad all you want, but nobody made you buy anything that wasn't what you thought it was. All the money is still in your pocket.

The land that I listed at 1 L$ per sqm I actually sell for 1 L$ per sqm. It is subsidized starter land for young avatars

Mmmm, yes. I know my deals sometimes are unbelievably good

OK I have already posted my thoughts plenty of times on this subject in general. Having read this thread I decided to take a look at the land sales list only to see "Starter Land - only for avs under 30 days". Sickening.

How are they good Anshe? Conisdering all the discussion going on at this time over this particular subject, I find it particularly bad taste that you aim this at newbies. Jesus, half the older players cant figure the whole thing out yet.

Ah the Tiger land is for furry newbies then? That is the land that was appearing at $1/m.

Yes, there are 8 subsidized plots for furry newbies specifically

Considering you are in competition with me, I will simply ignore your comment

Wrong on several counts.

First land scanners detect released public land that goes for $1/m. Land scanners do NOT detect the price of player owned land.

Also you seem to defend the land sales listing of private sim land at $0 by saying the players are just using the tools LL gave them. Ok. These forums are tools LL gave them as well. What if I was to post some pictures nice clothing I made in the new products section and next to them put $1 or $0 and then the location of my store. Players would rush out to my store to find the clothing at a different price. This is NO different.

Oh I see, so being in the same business means I can not have a voice? I have lost all respect for you Anshe, sorry.