Fishy Auction

A few weeks ago I did a ticket on two pieces of land that bordered our property in game. These two 512 lots had been abandoned and claimed by SL but had not been put in the que for auction yet. I told SL we were anxiously awaiting these two lots to go up for auction as we wanted to link large masses of land.

SL was kind enough to clear the land and put them in the que for auction immediately. The two parcels went up for auction at the same time. We focused on the one parcel we wanted most because we were in shock when it went all the way up to $50,000 L for a 512 lot! $189.74 US Dollars!! $97.65 per square meter!! We owned land on two sides of the parcel and the other two sides are collecting junk. The lots are on a SIM that has no water or snow, just land. It was looking very junky for quite some time. Lots of the parcels have been collecting junk and pyramid scheme stuff, etc. It does not make any sense that anyone else other than ourselves would be willing to spend this kind of money for this one 512 lot. None of the lots on any of the rest of the SIM have ever sold for remotely as much as this one.

The second lot we wanted we had to give up on as we couldn't afford both at these prices. It sold at auction for $16000L $60 US Dollars. The same day it went up for sale for $10,240L $39.24 US Dollars and we bought it. Why would anyone bid land up that high and then immediately turn around and sell it at a loss. I smell something rotten!!

I've seen this before, too. I ended up having to fight my way to L$45k for a 512m2 once. Other ones I didn't fight for ended up getting sold at silly prices then went on sale right after for less than they were auctioned at.

I really miss being able to see detailed history of who-bid-what once the auction is closed.

Why should the history be secret after the auction closes? I can understand during the auction, but it should be a matter of public record afterwards.

Money laundering by criminal elements?

Or perhaps someone realized they made a terrible, terrible mistake.

There is nothing to say who bid or who won the bids, it looks like there is a lot hiding behind some of these auctions.

I live in the same region as Evo and was watching that auction closely...very, very fishy.
that 512 jumped from under $5,000 to over $50,000. Then the other piece being bought at $16,000 and for sale for $10,500 was very funny. The person who was selling it had a blank profile. hmmmm.

funny how there is no disclosure huh?

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I does smell like an LL scam...could it even be legal?

Unless someone at LL can prove otherwise I do believe it is a scam. Maybe LL can clear things up here? Of course being silent about it is proof in itself.

Time to speak up LL.

Since they paid an absurd amount of money for the lots, once can imagine their going in purpose might be to to subdivide the lots into 16 sqm parcels, and extort the surrounding residents into buying each one out for something on the order of 5000L per 16 sqm parcel.

In the auction system it's quite possible to bid on the wrong piece of land, simply by selecting the wrong one from the list in the first place and failing to recognise one's error. I've done this myself, when there were 2 lots for sale in my sim. I bid for the smaller one by mistake and set a maximum bid thinking I was going for the larger one. I won the auction but paid about twice the going rate for the land!

Alternatively, the bidder might have meant to enter L$5,000 as their maximum bid but types an extra '0'.

Either way, I think error is the most likely explanation. The winner is probably standing on the rim of that huge volcano wondering whether to jump in!

The only reason i can think of, is that they want to hide the details, so that certain deductions that could be made from those details, cannot be made.

Now just what is it they dont want us to deduce ???
This is now an exercise for the conspiracy theorists to continue.

What I think is this: They hide the details to keep the accusations 'bidding wars' from occurring. Never mind the fact that it's going to happen anyways. In other words they don't want to hear, "But my enemy bid it ups so high, I can't afford it! They only did it to annoy me!" They don't want to police the auctions, because to LL the only thing that matters is that it sells.

This does not look like the work of an add farmer. We own large masses of land on two sides of the property and the other two land owners on the other two sides are allowing junk to collect on their land. We are the only possible residents in this area that an add farmer might think would care enough to extort money from us. It does not follow that someone would gamble $189.74 US Dollars on the hope that me & my partner would be willing to pay $606.37 US Dollars on a 512 lot.

But the auction system bids up to your maximum price... that means at least TWO people were prepared to pay 50,000 if the price reached that surely? That's even more fishy....

Maybe they just wanted a plaice where they cod hang out without herring other people making a noise? Or perhaps they did have another porpoise?

EDIT: Oh, sorry... was the OP the other bidder or did they give up way before the 50000 level?

It wasn't a mistake. The person that was upping the ante did it in steps.

And it doesn't explain why the plot that auctioned for 16K went for sale the same day for 10K. No one does that except when there is nothing lost...like when a Linden is behind it.

You have to run to the land after the auction closes and see the name of the owner to find out who the winning bidder is. The new auction system sucks.

As somebody who's won but had to fight for it, I'm more interested in seeing who was driving the price up on me...

I wonder if the lack of post-auction history is an artifact of the new system - like, that's just the way it works - or if it was a concious decision by LL to hide these details.

I appreciate the trouble shooting possibilities here, and I do understand that people make mistakes. However, it was not a matter of bidding on the wrong property in the sam SIM as these were the only two lots in the SIM up for auction at the time, and they are both the same size.

The land did not go up to 50,000 until we lost the bid at around 37,000. After we bid again, they came back in and upped their bid to 50,000. So this is not a case of an extra zero.

I wish there were a more logical or innocent explaination other then a possible inside job; but so far, these other possibilites do not follow sound logic in this scenerio.

I appreciate the trouble shooting possibilities here, and I do understand people make mistakes. However, it was not a matter of bidding on the wrong property in the same SIM as these were the only two lots in the SIM up for auction at the time, and they are both the same size.

The land did not go up to 50,000 until we lost the bid at around 37,000. After we bid again, they came back in and upped their bid to 50,000. So this is not a case of an extra zero.

This does not look like the work of an add farmer. We own large masses of land on two sides of the property and the other two land owners on the other two sides are allowing junk to collect on their land. We are the only possible residents in this area that an add farmer might think would care enough to extort money from. It does not follow that someone would gamble $189.74 US Dollars on the hope that my partner & I would be willing to pay $606.37 US Dollars on a 512 lot.

I wish there were a more logical or innocent explanation other then a possible inside job; but so far, these other possibilities do not follow sound logic in this scenario.

Of course, Max already made this point with a lot less words. So what else is new?

I wonder about this one time few months back when friend was telling me what was happening to her during a auction myself.....but who in there right mind including a insider would think a 512m2 lot would be worth extremely high amount?

Somebody who needed that one specific 512 to make their big parcel the correct size or shape or not have a hole in the middle?

The "last land in the sim" can be very expensive.

In the last two days, I saw one such 512 fetch L$60,010 and another go for L$110,010!

As a matter of good faith, you would think LL would make bidding histories available after an auction closes. If nothing else, to cover their own asses in all this. If you stop and think about it, LL's has a major, MAJOR conflict of interest as far as auctions go. What could be an easier way to make more profit then to jack up the final sale prices of things you own? Especially when you don't have to prove to anyone that you didn't do it? I mean, this isn't Ebay who sells other peoples stuff for mere commission, this is LL selling their own product behind closed doors, and no way whatsoever for the people buying to know if LL might have had a staffer on an alt with free lindens going around and forcing final sale prices up a bit.
I'm not trying to breed and theories or anything, but the fact remains it's a very real possibility under the current auction system. It's something to think about.

/me fails to see the irony..

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/03/08/what-are-you-doing-next-saturday/