The story of a land

I did some rummaging around regarding this incident involving Tiana. In this incident Land Seller X was the scammer and not Estate Manager Z. But the policies of the EstateOwner & Manager were extremely foolish by setting the Land for Sale for 1 Linden inorder to appear high in Land searches. They have several other plots of Land on their 40 sim estate being sold at 1 Linden.

The Brazilian Mr X purchased Land for 1 Linden and then set it for sale at 2500 L without paying Tiers or rent.....they rely on a quick turnaround sale otherwise this scam does not work. If they can't sell the land during the "window of opportunity" they simply abandon the land back to Estate Owner and only lose 1 Linden!
Bearing in mind that Mr X is from Brazil and the Estate Manager & Estate Owner are from Europe....its easy to establish how many hours they might have in order to offload the land for a quick profit.
Unfortunately Tiana happened along during that "window of opportunity". As to why she lost that land and had her items returned was due to it being stated that Tiers had to be paid immediately....unfortunately Tiana had RL demands crop up and decided to come back the following day to complete the land set up....I guess Estate Manager Z thought it was another scam and hence returned Tiana's items.

My opinion is this.....until Estate Owners stop dicking around by setting Land for sale at 1 Linden (and we know why they do this!)....this is going to be the next fashionable land scam!
My guess is that there are loads of opportunists searching these type of 1 Linden lands and working out how much time is needed to sell it......in most instances they will probably fail, but if they succeed just once in 10 attempts, then the scam becomes worthwhile!

EstateOwners should set the land for sale equivilant to 1 week's rent in advance or 1 week tier in advance or even 1 month tier in advance.....then this sh!t wouldn't happen.
I blame Estate Owners first & foremost for providing the land scammers the opportunities to do this.

It's the same scam that Ayesha described. I wonder why the landowner didn't offer the land to the OP for 1L, or wave the 1L. Maybe we haven't heard about the full conversation.

Well if you get into conversations that involves AR'ing...relations tend to get a bit frosty pretty quick. Tiana probably no longer wanted to be there having had her items returned so quickly.....and Estate Manager Z probably is not interested in having a tenant who is AR trigger happy, he could view her as being problematic further down the road!

Meanwhile Seller MrX is dead chuffed...he made a quick 2500 L and his on his way to the next land scam! He's not interested in listening to IM's hence the mute...he's busy scanning the land Search for more 1 Linden lands and reading the EstateOwners profiles, seeing if they have a team of land managers, checking to see if any are online....and Tiana is disturbing him! This man is busy!

The problem starts with the dumb@ass EstateOwners....they provide the opportunity.

I sell land for 99L$ rather than 1L$ to deter scammers and squatters a bit. If I sell land for 1 week's tier then I either have to track what day, hour, and minute they bought the lot, so I can remember when they're due, or set the rental box as reserved for them for 7 days. Then I have to follow up and make sure they know to pay, because the box won't remind them. With over 400 tenants, even with estate managers, that would be a nightmare. Or, I can put the responsibility where it belongs, on the buyer, to read my very simple covenant and click the sign that says "Click me before you rent" in huge letters to get the info that tier is due immediately and where to pay it.

I am not obligated to change my sane and reasonable policies because some people are scammers and others don't bother to read!

ll will steal your land out from under you just as quickly as a private resident, with the added bonus of deleting your account as well.
at this very moment ll is stealing an island from me, refusing to allow me to pay the tier on it. ll dont want my money, they want the island...
seriously, the best move anyone can make at all is to not 'buy' land full stop. rent your land and let some other fool get caught holding the hot potato.

With 60% of SL users orginating from non- english speaking countries, reading a English worded Covenant may be a challenge to many. I had such a case on Saturday when a French girl rented a fairly large plot on one of my SIMs. I spent a couple hours explaining everything thereafter.

Hippo Rental boxes works quite fine...you can set the number of days it sends out an message to both yourself and renter before rent becomes due....plus you get an email too if they are overdue. You can set the trigger the overdue days for that... It can't get much simpler!

First of all I'd like to thank Rene for the research . He illuminated me a bit over that!

Second: the island owner never ever came with another offer to me, although it was obvious that I wouldn't mind renting that land. But either he was not happy with having someone who knows how to make a report and does it, or maybe he didn't like the idea of having a school on his properties, I don't know. In the same time, I never asked him if I can make the deal with him under the circumstances, being disturbed by the fact that he didn't even bother IM-ing me to ask me why do I have my house in that parcel. If I would have been a scammer, I wouldn't have left too many traces on the place, would I?

Some of you were wondering why are we ready to pay thousands of lindens for buying land and paying tier, and to be honest, I find this quite odd. From time to time (about 2 times a year or so), I get bored with the environment and look for something better. I always found offers of thousands of lindens, so I take the one that is most convenient for me and my weekly income. Right now, I rented 2k sqm and 468 prims for L$3500 per month. So you see, seeing an offer for 16k sqm for L$2500 and L$7000 per month made me think that it could be a good offer, although if it would have taken some effort from me to pay it until the opening of the school. I would have made research if I would have known how and if I would have had time. I am a builder and a class runner, and this occupies a lot of the time I spend in SL, and I am not very fond of TP-ing here and there all the time either. And I guess that a lot of ppl are like me, and I am sure now that the scammers count on that.

As I said, the only lesson learned here was: Be afraid ... be VERY afraid!!! ... and it is really sad: it kills dreams, it kills hopes, and makes you sick and tired of way too many things.

Tiana, the same thing sort of happened to us and Rene was great in our situation. The difference was I had been a resident of my former land baron for over 2 years and still got the shaft.

What happened to you is very discouraging. We felt the same way and presently rebuilding our business for the 3rd and hopefully final time. Yes it is a setback, but don't let it stand in the way of your dreams. Don't relinquish your dreams!!!

Right.

Instead of blaming the scammers who are actually taking the money and running the scam.

That makes sense, yeah. Blame someone else who is also the victim.

Moral of the story:

READ THE COVENANT before checking the box that says "I have read the covenant".

At work we had a spate of thefts that boiled down to people not locking doors. Now the thief is the bad guy, but locking the doors is a bloody simple solution to cutting down on theft.

Leave the doors of your property or car open at night and see how much sympathy your insurance company have for you when you try and make a claim after being burgled.

It's dead simple....i have zero sympathy with any Land Baron that sets their land for sale at 1 Linden! He or she deserves all they get. By doing this "Land listing trick" they open up a can of worms in allowing would-be opportunists into Estate Land flipping! If they would set their lands to say 1 weeks rent in advance (which is still be a relatively low figure)...it would deter these scammers.

Land scammers can only scam if you allow them to. Ciaran's analogies above highlight that.

With over 60% of SL users coming from non-english speaking countries...it can be rather tricky to de-cypher a Covenant. Online translators aren't that great...they don't translate precisely and especially the more technical terms.

Linden Lab selling islands and allowing people to re-sell parcels on them without any oversight is like the state selling guns and allowing folks to shoot each other without punishment.

Irresponsible and bordering on criminal complacency.


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1 weeks tier on parcel of land will not guarantee that someone wont try and scam someone else by having them buy it for 1 months tier. It's been done by tenant/scammers before. Requiring someone to pay 1 months tier in advance will kill marketability because intelligent consumers will simply go elsewhere where they can pay rent by the week. There is no way I and many others would rent on an Estate where I have to pay by the month because of the comparable lack of stability of estate land compared to mainland and the fact that it could be scam. In the end there is no such thing as a foolproof plan because there will always be a greater fool to confound it.
Uninformed consumers provide the opportunity. You don't have to be a Mensa member to be able to read and comprehend a land covenant and as it has been pointed out ad nauseum that, if one bothers to take the modest time required to educate oneself about the differences between Estate Land and Mainland, common sense dictates that one never actually spend any significant amount of money to "buy"estate land parcels.

If someone is imprudent enought to engage in land transactions from a position of ignorance about what land covenants are and the basic differences between Estate Land and Mainland that is not the fault of the Estate owner.

Lack of English comprehension skills is no excuse (it's also not applicable in this case). If one doesn't understand what the land covenants mean one shouldn't do anything until one can get clarification on the same by talking to the Estate owner/manager or having someone provide a reliable translation. You wouldn't do it in real life so you shouldn't do it in SL (unless the money is so trivial to your that you cannot be bothered in which case you really don't have a lot to complain about).

Additionally, one should always be wary when an offer looks too good to be true. It usually is.

Then you're in the wrong business. 1 weeks rent in advance acts as a deterrent. This type of scam inorder to work requires a quick turnaround sale before the Estate Owner notices and comes along to check if Rent or Tiers have or are being paid. I'm betting quite often this scam does not work and they're forced to abandon....but that loss is only 1 Linden. If the land price were 1 week's rent it might be 1k,2k,4k or whatever.....the scammer would not take that risk. Let's be quite clear here, this "1 Linden Land listing" trick only emerged last year.....despite this a lot of reputable Estates do not employ this method.


If the only way of trying to sell land is by setting it for 1 Linden and then walking away, then what can i say! I have been selling and renting land for 2.5 years succesfully under whatever market condition applies at the time. Normally i'm full, but if a plot becomes available....i set the land for sale properly which might take me over half an hour.. i go through a process of 6 different methods of advertising inorder for the land to be seen......if i still can't shift it, as a last resort i'll use a 7th....which is to buy a classified advert. Thankfully that 7th method has rarely occured! I managed to get enough visitors to my lands to give me a chance of making that deal.
(P.S Most of my residents pay me 1 month's tier via Paypal or ingame with Lindens. That has always been my way.....Renters however can pay me weekly via a rental box)

I also have 1 Mainland sim which has home rentals. Those Group lands are never set for sale for obvious reasons! You should see the number of visitors i get on any given day, when 1 becomes available....i never have problems renting it....max i lose a few days of occupancy. Again it comes down how you market your lands....you don't need to employ dubious land listing tricks if you know what you're doing!



We don't live in a perfect SL world, I've even had English speaking folk that either didn't read the Covenant fully or not that bright enough to understand it. I do spend the time explaining all parts of the Covenant so they do understand from the outset, its part of my job!
I also vet potential residents, I don't sell/rent to just anyone......if i sense they going to be problematic and become a headache for fellow residents, I don't go ahead with the deal. I've returned monies on several occasions because of a bad gut feeling....."a stitch in time saves nine!

I had a French girl buy a large plot of land on Saturday, she told me she read the covenant as her English wasn't too bad....i still ended up spending several hours explaining everything. She was only a 1 month old avie....so it wasn't due to her not being bright, she just didn't know the in's and outs of SL. I didn't want to sell her the land to be honest...as i thought this was going to be another headache. She literally ended up begging me to sell the land because she wanted that Desert theme land....in the end i caved in.

Not everything is so black & white!

I still stand by my quote regarding 1 Linden dollar Estate Land flipping.
"The problem starts with those dumb@ass EstateOwners....they provide the opportunity."

The insurance company aren't paid to have sympathy, they are paid to insure my belongings. My policy does not provide an exclusion for unlocked doors.

Does it suck for the insurance company to have to pay for my carelessness? Yes, but it was all spelled out in the contract. If it was written in a language they didn't understand, they were not obligated to sign it.

This is a similar issue as people who set their land for sale to $1L to "anyone" and then when it is bought by just "anyone" for the $1L price they set it to themselves they claim their land was "stolen".

Both problems are caused by a failure to read and understand consequences before proceeding. It's too bad when it happens, but nothing is accomplished if the person who made the mistake doesn't learn from it and places the blame on someone else.

People need to educate themselves about land before shelling out money on it. No matter what the language barrier it's still pretty easy to tell if the person you are paying is or is not in fact the estate owner.



It emerged the first day estate land was included in the land list and there were several threads about it in the old general discussion forum. There's a reason why estate land and mainland now have their own categories in the dropdown menu, it wasn't always that way. It used to be that they were all lumped together and if you had the list sorted by price you'd have to search awhile to find mainland because the land list search function was flooded with estate parcels for $1L.

And it certainly was not being done in 2006/7. This started last year, when the market started plumetting. Whatever the reason....it leaves it open to Estate land flipping. Hence why the OP opened this thread....she was a victim.

People should educate themselves, but we don't live in an ideal world. I'm finding more and more new residents are renting & buying land....so quite possibly they haven't had the time to learn all aspects regarding land. I bought my 1st land in 2006 on my 10th SL day....i was really wet behind the ears, i knew relatively nothing! I was very fortunate i had an understanding EstateOwner who offered a lot of advice and support......it wasn't just about making the sale and then scarping off!

I'm not in the business. I'm a renter of estate land not a landlord. That should be fairly obvious from my post. I speak from that perspective when I say that renters are obligated to learn about the nature of Estate land versus Mainland, land covenants and land transactions in general to protect themselves from fraud. It's not even a point for argument, it's simply an empirical fact in SL.
It's a deterrent not a guarantee. There is more than one type of scam artist when it comes to Estate land scams. There are also tenants who, after enjoying the use of the land and paying the rent on it, attempt, and sometimes succeed in recapturing some of their payment by "selling" the land to an uninformed resident when they move on. There is also the scam where the Estate owner "sells" the land and then reclaims it under false or no pretenses which is why I would never do this:

...unless I knew the Estate owner very well. There are plenty of other Estate managers on the market who will transfer the title in a parcel of Estate land to my name for payment of rent on a weekly basis.
They are all renters. Statements like this only serve to perpetuate the confusion and ignorance of residents about the difference between Estate land and Mainland.

While the rest of your post does show that you are reasonable and compassionate landlord, it takes away nothing from my prior point that if someone is imprudent enought to engage in land transactions from a position of ignorance about what land covenants are and the basic differences between Estate Land and Mainland that is not the fault of the Estate owner.

You mean like in RL, where tons of people who took out mortgages that financially overstretched themselves despite reading and signing contracts......only to lose their houses & lands a few years later? Those sort of comprehension skills?

Exactly.

Here's a thread from August 2006 regarding the very same thing. This is the first week estate land was included in the general land sales search list IIRC. Note that there is mention of selling estate land for $1L. That's merely the oldest one I could find on short notice. But it's been going on for quite a long time and most certainly did NOT start just last year, as you can see from the datestamps in the discussion.

/130/d1/132788/1.html

Yes- i take it back....it looks like some estate owners were experimenting with 16sqm plots to see what happens in the estates listings.....but I'll conceed thats when it first occured



This wasn't prevalant as it how it was last year......that's when every man and his dog were listing lands for sale at 1 L.

To you it is....to me they are Lessees and Renters. The Lessee can resell the land or rent out to 3rd parties, the Renters can't do these 2 functions...not on my Estate anyway. There is also a slight difference in my Tier and Rental fees structure. Tiers are a few dollars cheaper....and as the upfront costs are reasonably low, the Lessee can actually make back the purchase price within 6 months of living there from those savings. I make more money from Renters, but i prefer Lessees because they tend to stay much longer and are more committed to the game imo.

There is no difference between a Lessee and a Renter. They are fungible terms in the English language and real estate law. Mine is the perspective that matters because the discussion thus far has been what a tenant's perspective should be in renting Estate land. All Estate land is subject to recapture by the Estate owner and any tenant who is willing to actually pay a real purchase price for "owning" Estate land should be aware that they are subject to the mercies of the Estate owner and therefore ultimately have no more rights than a renter.

Because i conduct my Estate business in an honest way....i consider them as Lessees and Renters and it really doesn't matter what you preach. There are plenty of honest Estates that run their business properly and shouldn't be tarred with the same brush because of few rogue traders. If you want to be pedantic about terminology....then technically i'm a Renter too.....i rent server space to host LL Estate & Mainland sims. If i don't pay my tiers...LL will reclaim them and i will lose all the purchases costs, which are considerably more than any plot owner.