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

Calling you competitor's offerings "sickening" is indeed not appropriate.

Ok, then I retract what I said about your land - at least you are listing the price honestly. What I said about the rest of it still stands, even with all of Prokofy's whining. Listing it for $0 or any price other than what the resident has to pay for it is fraud.

Fraud and abuse proliferate in the absence of tight regulation and enforcement (real life or virtual). Insisting the opposite is a mind-boggling affront to common sense. It's like saying that relaxing pollution restrictions reduces pollution -- Orwellean doublespeak.

Well I am sorry Anshe that's exactly how I felt when I saw it.

No, hon.

I know that scanners only detect released publicked land, duh.

That's why I wrote "land scanner TYPES" -- those kind of predatory types willing to make a buck by scavenging around the landscape, often taking advantage of people's mistakes. Every society needs bottom-feeders, I don't knock it really, but I do call it bottom-feeding.

No, I don't think the clothing thing is the issue at all -- except that the whole reason these threads even exist is because Cristiano and others in the *other* big busineses that are *not* land owning businesss already have a huge grudge and a huge beef that Land Sales exists in the game, instead of Animations Sales or Script Sales or Vehicle Sales. They all think even Land Sales itself is unfair, let alone land sales of any kind of offering.

So the answer is, instead of this constant squabbling, we need to just let the Lindens make a new list with all the categories, and also have commercial events, too.

So the land is $1 and no tier fees? If not, what are the tier fees? Ohh NM, I see. $8.50 per month. Interesting.

I love how you always portray the land business as some poor misunderstood thing that everyone is against. Prokofy, this is about fraud, and you have no way of defending against that, no matter how many paragraphs you type. I do own land - 117,000m of it - and whenever I have sold it, I listed the price honestly. Is that so hard? Apparently, since all you can do is dance around the issue and raise smoke screens like land scanner use because you don't have a single leg to stand on in this argument.

There you go once again painting a whole group of people as something, typical of you. I don't think land sales are unfair at all - did I think price gouging was unfair? Yes, it was detrimental to SL when people had to pay $25/m for land -it was a barrier to entry. Once prices came back down to earth, it was fine. The market bears what it will bear, and it has shown it cannot sustain high prices. There is some inherent unfairness in that you don't pay a fee for listing in Find on land, and have a dedicated tool to sell your product, but others do not. Of course you never wail about the unfairness of that because it benefits you.

It amazes me how you wrap this flag around yourself as a misunderstood land seller championing the good land baron fight, while maligning every other group possible. That is the sickening part, not Anshe listing land to newbies. Fraud is fraud, Prokofy - listing land for what it is not for sale at, be it $0 or any price other than what you are selling if for is fraudulent advertising.

Ok, back on ignore.

Yes, I see a grudge alright. And that grudge is preventing you from seeing that advertising land sales at $0/m is no different than me advertising my products in the forum with a $0 sign next to them. Both situations create an environment where the potential customer has to travel to the location of business to discover the real price.

I agree with you on this. But lets not jump to conclusion before we know detail. Maybe Nexus and Adam try to advertise rental here. Does it say anything in the land description?

It refers to secondserver.net for details, but after looking, I cannot find any details on the land. Also, this is not the first example of it - it goes on a lot. In fact, Prokofy is always sqwauking about listing land at $0 to make it appear. I am glad you are using the list honestly, Anshe. As I've said, I have nothing against your private island sales at all - I think what you are doing is interesting. One thing I am curious about. A big selling point of your land is to get away from mall lag. Yet, you are the largest owner of malls in SL. Kind of a double standard there?

That's IT, Anshe. In my opinion, by specifically targetting newbies, you have finally stepped WAY over the line.

It is time to call for a halt.
I suggest that anyone else who feels as I do might like to let the Lindens know, perhaps by email, or by posting to the hotline, as I have just done thus:

_________

"Bait and Switch" aimed at our most vulnerable


Please rule immediately on what is now being advertised in the "Land for Sale" list.

This is what the innocent newbies find, looking to purchase land, before they may have any grasp of how the land-holding system here works, except perhaps from reading the documentation, which will have told them that "land sales" are something different from what they are about to be offered.

Amazingly cheap looking land, 1L$/m, right at the top of the L$/m ordered list, same price/m as real first land.

They select it, in the panel on the right they find this:
They may not even know yet what IM means. They may not realise "Anshe Chung" is a private resident's name. All they absorb is "For Sale for L$1024".
I remember, for the first fortnight or so the whole thing was total brain overload for me. I would have had no chance of wisely assessing this in my first month, or even properly understanding the significance of the description on the website.

If they go there and click "Buy" they are told they cannot, and referred to a very complicated external website with a different offer, and a hard sell they are totally inequipped to rationally evaluate.

This is a classic "Bait and Switch" specifically aimed at our most vulnerable (isn't it 60 or more per day?).

Please RULE NOW. And act immediately if you feel it necessary, as many residents do.

I agree that the $0 land is appalling abuse of the list, but this targetting of the most vulnerable is even worse. I just can't believe she's done it, in total disregard of so many peoples expressed concern about customers being possibly misled and confused. Aimed right at those who could not possibly understand an offer the full significance of which many of us here have had difficulty in unravelling .

I specifically avoided mentioning Anshe's land, because I did not feel that it represented a deceptive advertisment. Upon reading the details of her land sale, it became evident that she was selling/leasing land at a discount to new users. This is not something which should be attacked. No matter what other problems you may have with Anshe, I think this is a very nice idea.

Please don't take a serious issue and blow it out of proportion. We're not on a land baron hunt.

I am in complete agreement with you. Anshe is not the issue here - while I disagree with private island land being listed the same way, she is doing so honestly - she is listing the right price. I don't see what she is doing with new players as predatory or dishonest - she discloses the terms and conditions. There is a such thing known as buyer beware - and just because you are new at something does not mean you should not inform yourself before making a purchase. If Anshe were being deceptive,I would agree that it is a problem - but she's not. I may be critical of Anshe at times, but in this regard, I am in support of what she is doing.

The issue is using deceptive pricing to attract people to look at your land. Deceptive advertising has no place in the land listing or anywhere else in SL - and the only person willing to defend deceptive advertising is Prokofy.

Thats a perfecly valid viewpoint, Ardith, of course. For me this is the little extra straw that finally snaps my patience. Maybe I am over-reacting. Lets just wait and see what others think. And how the Lindens react.

One thing. I am not on an anti-landbaron crusade. However much you may disagree with me, please pay me the respect of accepting that my motivation is what I say it is.

Quoting from a much earlier post:

"My motivation is threefold. To protect less knowledgeable players from confusion, to ensure that they know there are real extra risks BEFORE the sales pitch sucks them in, and to keep a level playing field in the price comparison lists for those who are selling land normally".

Lindar,

I respect your motives - the issues are just being blurred here, and the other side of this problem has already been well hashed out. I wanted to make sure the false advertising issue does not get lost in the semantics game known as lease vs sublease. Also, as far as pricing, the playing field is level - Anshe is selling for $1/m, the same as first land, just offering larger plots.

See, even Ardith is talking sense now. If you are all such Friendz to Noobz, how can you oppose what Anshe is doing?



Yes, isn't it great when you can pin something evil on me?

I personally can't get a $0 to show up in the list. It only shows up to me, like my $0 sale from the Governor after the auction only shows up to me in the list. So what are YOU squawking about?

I'm for people placing ads on the list. They've used a workaround. They're using it actively, unlike me, who has no access to it because evidently it only works with private islands. Anshe and Nexus, who hasn't weighed in yet, are using this feature.

I first discovered this feature of its listing (at least to me) when it is set to $0 to me when I was trying to move one group out of another in two neighbouring sims so that the two pieces of land could have one merchant groups.

That land has sat out with $0 for sale to Prokofy Neva for weeks -- months.

During that time, tenants moved in, never feeling betrayed or lied to, they didn't seem to notice or care.

During that time, exactly one person came rushing up -- he had been flying by in the world, not looking at the list -- because he thought maybe something was available for sale. He then quickly turned that around and told me he was concerned I was leaving my land out in danger of being taken. I explained it would go nowhere as long as it was set to sale to me only.

During that time, with this land and another I had like that, people came up to me, read the ad on the FINDPLACES, right-clicked on the land or hovered to see that it would say something like $350/1024 and they'd get it. They didn't start screaming in indignation that I had brutally deceived them. They got it.

This experience of accidently setting it to $0 and then seeing how people reacted is what convinces me that this hype about it being a fraud and a scam for poor unsuspecting newbies is a lot of crap. People are not as stupid as you think.

I have yet to see one genuine, actual, non-fake, non-alt newbie come on here and say "I wuz robbed" or "I wuz scammed".

Playing the card of "Prokofy is for scamming" or "Prokofy defends evil" is merely a low trick used by the FIC to maintain their privileges.

I don't defend deception. I don't defend bait and switches. I defend people using a workaround in this game where commerce is crippled to try to crack it open a bit more and get it out of the hammerlock it has been in with a certain class of people and evidently some Lindens.

Let it go. Nobody lost anything. Least of all you. Why don't you just work out a vendor for animations on Ansheland or Nexusland and shut up.

I love it. Your posts are like delicious angry sandwiches. You get all huffy and tough in the beginning (just to invalidate the actual meat inside), and then you end it with a temper tantrum.

It's like the FIC BLT!

Actually, that's exactly what you're doing. You are, quite literally and obviously, advocating an illegal practice. How many times does it have to be said? If you knowingly set land for sale at $0 solely to entice people to come and buy land at a higher price, then you have committed bait and switch.

With respect, Cristiano, I think the playing field is not level.

Chalk and cheese are being mixed together as though they are the same.
There is no reason to believe that these different offers, if advertised separately, clearly described, and listed like with like, should stabilise at the same price levels

An informed market may well decide that leases are much less valuable than sales, or even much more.
The rights and obligations are significantly different, as is the person you trust and obey. No reason to believe that value can be fairly compared in an undifferentiated list based on L$/m, and headed "Land for Sale".

In this thread, though, I think we are discussing the other aspect - whether this is offering something apparently simple and standard to the uninformed, and when they arrive, swapping it for something not-simple, not-standard, and tricky for even the most experienced of us to assess.

Fair enough, Lindar. I apologize for assuming that you were in any way deceiving us. I can understand your desire to ensure that newbies don't get defrauded, but I feel that concern is probably unfounded. However, I respect your intentions. Again, sorry for assuming that you had an agenda.

If I seem less worked up about Nexus's $0 offer, its because I was expecting such a thing. Also because I have not investigated what he means. Does he demand an up-front payment, in contradiction of his advert ? I doubt it. In which case this is no worse.

Is he simply advertising rental in "Land for Sale"? How can anyone object, if they don't object to leases which just happen to have a normal-looking up-front charge ?

These are the results of letting these inappropriate insertions go on too long.

Completely predictable. What was not predictable was Anshe directly targetting the most vulnerable, instead of waiting a little till LL had sorted out the listing problem.

Prokofy is using his brute force repetition method to skirt around logic.

You are defending deception. Its one thing to use the "workaround" and set the price to what people are expected to pay, its bait and switch when you use the "workaround" and set the price to 0. Its not the workaround at issue in this thread, its the misuse of it for bait and switch.