SL Beggers

Is it just me, or do other business owners get SL beggers turning up every so often asking for free stuff? I'm sure that "hey ur stuff is really great but ive got no money, will you give me [productname] for free?" is a very persuasive line, but it always fails to persuade me. This is inevitably followed by "if u give me ur stuff I'll show all my friends and they'll all come and buy lots so it'll be good 4 u too". Yeah, right. *sigh*

I've been good. I've yet to orbit, nuke or torment one of these twits. But o gods, sometimes it is tempting!

Hey...I'm broke ur stuff iz da shizz. U giv 2 me 4 free plz? tks!

All their equally-skint friends, yep. Giving in to something like that is like being the only schmuck that opens his door on Guy Fawkes Night and gives money (they want a pound now, not a penny) for the Guy. Within ten minutes he has a queue of kids, dragging knackered skateboards with a carrier bag-stuffed jacket and a balloon head tied onto them (oh, the artistry of those Guys!), going halfway down the street...

u giv meh jobz now?

Make something hideous and put it in a box that looks like something cool. I bet it wouldn't be hard to script a great looking hat with a giant invisible sculptie -- er, donkey or whatever-- covering the entire head, that would become visible after about 20 minutes.

No wait, that would probably be a sought after commodity.

more than that we get tons of ppl with these great little (emphasis on the latter) schemes that insist we MUST incorporate into our products and then give them half of the proceeds for...
also the you must sell me your product X at full perms and i will promote it properly for you ... lots of those ones LOL.

my favorite tho.. i make promo stuff .. dollarby or 5L or free even.. the amount of ppls who want those trans... or even full perm... and walk off terribly cheesed if i say no.

I'll have to be on the lookout for the beggers...but I did have an interesting experience during my first month in SL.

I had rented my first house on a sim with a real "neighborhood" look. In my freebie exploring I found a doorbell and thought it would be so cool to put it on the outside of the house.

The next day, I was inside and the doorbell actually rang (which startled me a bit). I opened the door and this guy was standing there and rezzed an airplane and asked me if I wanted to buy it. (It was a real cheesy looking contraption as well). True to door-to-door salesmen, after saying "No, thank you" a couple of times which only resulted in him rezzing a few more of his "products", I basically had to close the door in his face.

And after he left I deleted the doorbell.

I don't get so many people asking for free money. I do get a fair number asking for jobs, any job apparently for any amount of pay. You'd think when people were job hunting they'd try to find something that fits their skills or interests so it's always a little suspicious to see someone with a blanket request for any work whatsoever.

I have to ask — are you business owners aware that beggars are haunting your stores asking other customers for money? I have always given because it is usually not much that is being asked for, but I became particularly annoyed recently when I was asked, gave twice the amount that I was asked for, and then 10 minutes later was asked again, because the person just forgot that I had already 'given generously'.

(These beggars frequent skin and hair stores more than any others.)

I'm curious whether you are aware of this or not.

Yes I think we are all aware but as this is normally done by IMs its rather difficult to catch if no one tells you at the time, also you cannot police a shop 24/7

I'd only be aware of it if any of my customers mentioned it to me, which they have not. I don't log all chat that goes on in my store (heaven forbid! Imagine having to read through it all...) and even if I did, I've no way of knowing what folk say in IM to each other. The couple of times I've had beggers pester me while I was shopping, they've done so in IM.

Yes, I agree it always seems to be done in IM's. But if you want to stamp it out have a simple reporting method so that one only needs to click a sign and enter a name. Send that person a warning, if they do it again ban them from the store.

Ahem ... I actually DID do this once or twice when it came to a low cost but highly detailed Avatar Maker.

I did promise to promote the product.

Guess what? I did just that. Now, I have no way of knowing how many people that saw the AV and asked where I got it from actually went out to have a look. I'd already done my part by telling them where I got it and handing them a landmark.

My point? Do not assume the worst simply because someone has offered to advertise for you in exchange for a product that they cannot afford at that time.

True, that could work. But since I've had no complaints from customers telling me that it's happening in my store, I've got no terribly compelling reason to do so at this point. Alternately, perhaps if it's happening to you, you could mention it to the owner of the store in question (ideally with a copypasted chatlog of the event), and/or mute the offender. I generally mute beggers if they persist after a "no, go away" response. It saves a lot of aggravation, I assure you!

I don't think that not wishing to employ someone as an Unskilled Advertising Associate is really "assuming the worst". If they want to get into advertising, perhaps learning how to do so effectively might be a good start. I run a business, not a charity. I give money to beggers in RL, but in SL nobody *NEEDS* a cat avatar or a flash new skin or whatever. I already have lots of folk wearing my avatars around the grid. I really don't benefit much from one person more doing so, and it's not worth it to me to give them a free avatar (that took me months to create) in exchange for a service I do not need and didn't ask for.

I've only been aware of it once in my store and it had a surprising outcome. Someone paged me by clicking one of the paging pillars and I responded. She asked for 10L which I refused. Then I saw her close to a couple who were shopping and I asked one of them about her (IM). I was told she was asking for money, so I ejected and banned her.

She came straight back - into the rugs dept (seperate parcel) but she couldn't go through to the main part of the store. I talked with her and she said she wanted to buy a fireplace. I said I didn't believe her but I unbanned her and followed her. She actually bought a fireplace which amazed me. She was actually shopping, had the money for what she wanted, but used the opportunity to beg while she was there.

I've known this happen, but not for a while. Maybe it's the places I frequent these days? No-one has asked me for L$ in a long time. The best answer is, I've always thought, a polite refusal followed by mute if the beggar persists. Often it is only trivial amounts being asked for, but its the principle (not the principal, haha). As Nimbus says, no-one actually needs money in SL - they aren't going to starve or die of cold, or even be unable to take part in a world where most events are free (or in some cases, offer you stuff to attend).

Apart from begging for L$ or goods, the other nuisance around stores is the resident offering to sell you stuff you don't want. Some places explicitly ban this, quite rightly IMO. I know Grendel's has a policy on this, threatening bans to beggars & peddlars - no idea how they prove it if it's all done in IM. IIRC this was the last place someone tried peddling to me and they acted all offended when I pointed out they shouldn't be doing it. I used to get it a lot around freebie stores... I didn't fall for it when I was two weeks old, never mind two years! Usually they're re-selling freebies, of course, or just taking money then muting their victim.

I get these every so often, which is annoying when my products are less than a quarter of the price of the closest I could find to a competing product-line. Currently my stuff is priced to pay for my land rather than turn a huge profit.

I will not give freebies except to my friends. It's why I go to lengths to ensure I have a good set of records of purchases so I can verify if a person bought something from me as I've had a few people try the fake support request tactic.

I have a lucky chair and a few freebies. People don't ask me for free things... probably because I put one color of each dress in the chair as a kind of demo. If they have the patience, they can have a freebie that way.

At least once a week, often more times, I get someone saying they are either:

a - from a real life Egyptian museum/society and/or
b - creating an Egyptian museum in Second Life

and therefore they would like me to donate Egyptian artifacts for free.

If they have no mention of this 'project' on their picks and/or didn't say please, then I just tend to ignore them now, to be honest.

Not a content creator, but I am hit up for lindens at least once a week, when out shopping. Big stores, small stores...no matter.

But hey...I never thought to approach the shop owner for goodies..."hellooo there...oooh, your stuff is so shiny! I can haz fer free?"

I wonder how much these people make lol.


/me stares at her 1 linden balance

Quite a lot, I should imagine. I was hit up for "just 100L" in Bare Rose the other week, because the beggar wanted to buy an outfit there. The store was (as it always is) absolutely packed with people. If just 10 of them answered the beggar's pleas with the requested 100L... well, what a quick and easy 1K that was, eh?

Wouldn't surprise me in the least. She wanted to buy the fireplace, but was trying to cover her costs by getting the money back from you and your other customers.

I was shopping in a hardware store in the past (IRL) where the store's security had apprehended a customer that had bought a *lot* of expensive items, yet sneaked a pack of screws or nails worth a couple of quid into their coat pocket. You'd be amazed what people try to get away with, even when they have money.