Emergency contact information.

As a caring mainland rental agent, I was wondering what a rental tenant could use to contact me if they could not get in world to renew the rent.

If they move unexpectedly, illness or their computer fails and they can’t get online, or log into secondlife, things like that.

I read Offline email and check in regularly, but what if a tenant can’t get inworld??? What is the best method to allow an emergency contact?

A website?
An email account to contact?
Can they get online at all?
Are they ok? I worry and care about their RL wellbeing

Email may work as most cell phones can send text to an email address.

As you can imagine, I would be reluctant to give RL contact info beyond an email address.

I hate to return tenants items if rent is late, and I always give an extension if they have not been online lately (as shown in group info) but that’s a week or two Max.

I’m pretty liberal with nice builds and longtime residents.

I still need to pay my tier, no matter what…

Refund of the rental amount is not an issue as there in arrears, but when to remove Items and restrict access...

OHhh What to do what to do??

Well, the email would not be a terrible confidentiality hole, since I presume you would use an email address dedicated to your SL avatar. This could be an alias on your actual, personal email account (which might imply that you would have to be careful about email headers etc.), or it could be a dedicated account with one of the free email services. I have found the latter to be completely confidential, without any care required.

However, there is nothing like phone access, for when people are traveling or their equipment is dead, and I see two paths there, neither of which are free. You could get a Skype account for your avatar with a real phone number (these can be called from any phone). If you are leery of speaking to your tenants, you could also get Skype voicemail and always let calls go there. Or, you could get a RL answering service, that answers the phone in your SL name. I had one a while ago when I put an advertisement in the paper, and was surprised how cheap it was. Skype would probably be even cheaper, tho.

If you are that concerned, you could create a web-based email portal which does not reveal your email address to the person sending it to you.

I simply use a gmail account for people to contact me when they cannot get in-world. I find it gives me the privacy I prefer and is easily accessible to customers and friends alike.

The Skype idea has merit as well, so either one could work for you.

Best,
~Ari

I see you give a grace period. I allow up to two weeks too. If they can't get a message to you inworld or have someone else relay one by then, it's return objects time.

The longest I ever gave someone was a month. He never did return to SL as far as I know...

A number of folk have set up gmail or yahoo addresses, using their sl name. Seems to work quite well.

If someone were paying rent by PayPal rather than in Lindens (as some do) then their landlord already has their email address. Think about it.

Of course, if you set it to do so, IMs will go to email anyway - and can also be replied to via email so the original sender gets the reply as an IM.

Why not use private messages in these forums? You'd be more-or-less sure that they are who they say they are and it's no less anonymous than SL..