A Mystery!

I just went inworld, and had received a Notecard. The person says "I have looked at your property and it is lovely" and wants me to buy their property and maybe give them one of my parcels as partial payment for their property. The person wants me to pay L$180,224 for 16,384m. I can't afford to pay that much (and L$11/m is way over what I'm EVER willing to pay.)

No name on the Notecard.

The location given for the property they want me to buy is "Sephira". There's no sim by that name, according to the map. I Googled that word and "Second Life" and got no "Sephira", only "Sephiroth", which isn't the same thing at all (!) Needless to say, no coordinates were given, either.

I can't see any way of replying to this person. If I had even a sim name, I could IM everyone in the sim, I suppose (though I don't really have that much time on my hands).

I'm sorry to be rude to this person, who will receive no reply from me and assume the worst.

So I guess my question is: wtf? Is this sort of thing a common occurance?

If you right click the notecard in your inventory and choose properties you should be able to find the creator of the notecard there.

EDIT: It occurred to me that another way would be to go to your transaction history on your account page, just make sure you have show L$0 transactions selected.

Right click on the notecard and choose properties. It will tell you who created the card. Go to your transactions, it'll tell you who gave you the card.

But since you have no interest in doing this...why bother?

Well, I just played around with the word "Sephira", and if the person actually meant SAphira, then the proposed L$11/m deal is over some unattractive land-locked land.

So, no--there's no way I'd be interested.

But I'm grateful to you both for the ways of finding the avatar-name of the sender---sure enough, that worked!

(I feel dumb not to have thought of that, but at least I learned something, today!)

Oh, and I should say--I just prefer to say 'no thanks' rather than to ignore a person, unless the person has become a persistent pest or such.

I recently had a landlord going nuts on me because they'd gotten three notecards complaining about a vendor who rents from him. I knew nothign of this, but they had notecards with me as the creator. Hence, replying on notecard creator is unreliable, particularly in already-questionable circumstances.

Checking transaction history or the "near to me" history window will give you the actual name of the person who sent the request. Sounds very much like a scam to me.

Now THAT is scary. (Yikes, why would LL permit such a thing?)

I did as you suggested and checked my Transactions, which in this case did show the same avie name as the Properties of the notecard. I sent the person this reply:
.................................................................

[10:42] Ponsonby Low: Thanks for your notecard, and I appreciate the compliment on my land. I want to be frank with you: I don't pay L$11 per meter even for prime ocean-front land--it's just too high for me. But thanks again for your interest. (Also, if you are sending that notecard to others: you wrote "Sephira" and there isn't a sim by that name---the Map has nothing, anyway.
[10:42] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
..................................................................

As you say, could be a mass-mailing scam. I suppose the person would target avatars less than ___ months old (I started SL five months ago). They'd suggest making a large payment through PayPal, maybe, or just request the 'swap' to take place---and the sucker would end up transferring their land to the con artist, and get nothing in return.....

Well, who knows. Could have been legitimate---just a person hoping to get paid L$11/m for land worth less than half that, maybe. If that could be called legitimate.

Further developments in the 'scam or no scam?' saga:

I was AFC for a few minutes, and came back to find an IM:

[11:21] XXXXXX XXXX: It is Saphira, my error. I would be willing to negotiate on the price.
[11:37] Ponsonby Low: The most I pay for landlocked parcels is L$3/meter. I will be away from the computer for a while, but should get back to you tomorrow on whether I'm willing to offer the L$3/m, after I get a chance to look over the property. If you could send the coordinates in the meantime, that would be great.
[11:37] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

................
(the avatar's name isn't "XXXXXX", of course.)

In the seconds since I started typing this, the person came back online and IM'd the coordinates.

The person didn't claim to be Nigerian Royalty, did they?

You shouldn't mock like that. Nigeria, as a nation, has been good to me. Only recently I recieved a business proposition from Mr Charles M'Tali of First National Nigerian Oil Company. It seems a man named Engineer Paul K Harding, from Pittsburgh, was working in Nigeria and had a car accident. He has no family but was owed $10 million in unpaid fees for his services that need to be collected. It turns out that Nigerian law only allows funds to be transferred from a deceased person's account to a foreign account. They are wiling to pay me 15% just to have the money resting in my account for one day.

The money isn't there yet, but it should be there any day now.

Conan, I just received this yesterday:

From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson


Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to [email]wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov[/email] so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

No need to even 'allow' it. It would be very easy to do, requiring no hacks whatsoever. Any one of us could do it to anyone else, in fact.

oohhhhhhh...very nice.

Damn- that looks like Skell's Forum pick... hmm...one wonders what he does when he is not here with us...

Busy being a bad guy, usually

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3090/2741578414_2ca77f4415_o.jpg

Meeeooow... /me purrrrs

It's amazing, the amount of money flowing out of Nigeria these days. No wonder everyone there is unhappy. We're getting all the cash that their dead-in-a-ditch engineer relatives have.

/me grins and offers Sephiroth vs Angeal and Genesis, for Maureen to perv over. Mmmprettyboys...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ZaSipHuO4

That Sephiroth guy's head is too small for his body. Good video though, nice graphics.

Oh, believe me...I already had that bookmarked!! But thank you for thinking of me.

That's what I thought too

Dear Mr Paulson,

You will have your money soon.

Just your luck, I am a United States taxpayer, and in a matter of days, my representatives in Washington will arrange to solve your problem. We simply can't let business as usual stop on Wall Street!

The blank check will be in the mail. In fact, probably several. I have no doubt that Wall Street, its speculators and executives will be back on their feet again in no time.

You will be happy to know that I am a solid earner, living in a very very modest house and thus, my mortgage isn't out of control. I simply can't bear the thought of the people living way up the hill from me losing their stately homes. In a way, it's a point of pride knowing that I, too, am helping them maintain their American Dream.

You can count on me, sir. But in the rare eventuality that something happens and I cannot pay, don't worry, my children will be there for you to pick up where I failed.

Sincerely,

Des

I like these scams. One can't help but feel that people who fall for them deserve it; not just for their stupidity but more the fact that to fall for this you have to be ghe kind of dishonest person who is willing to assist shady people circumvent financial regulations.

Oh, a Congressman