The Long Arm of LL Reaches Into SLX

SLX is not a bank

It's amazing but people actually do, I trust Slex as much as anyone else not to "steal my money" (the guy the OP references broke the TOS by being suspended by LL so they aren't stealing it) but in general the only time they have my money is when I have to have some in to pay some Slex fees or after a sale before I withdraw it. The safest spot for you're L$ really is you're own virtual wallet.

If I read correctly, SLEX did not "take" her money, they merely froze the account until such time as they could be assured that there was no monetary fraud involved in the LL ban. Given the ease of laundering money through third party $$ sites, this only makes sense as a precautionary move. Better to freeze an account than have the Feds crawling up your butt for sketchy transactions.

Frankly, it sounds like you are shilling for Apez more than protesting SLEX.....

I keep about as many Lindens in my account and Alt account (Carli ) as I could afford to lose without getting too disgruntled.

I would be really annoyed if I lost my business of course.

But other than that I cash out.

If I use it to by Microwave Spaghetti at lease I'm relatively confident it wont be taken because I was reported by a AR happy mob mad at something I said on the forums trying to get me suspended.

Course the spaghetti is not safe from my teenagers, but thats a totally different issue.

The smart choice is to not leave huge amounts of money anywhere that is not fully insured. I never leave more than 30k L in my SL account and hold the rest in cash for tier day. I cash out the USD to PayPal and leave a couple months pad for tier. This ensures that even if someone hacks my account they are only going to get a couple hundred at most and if SL goes poof tomorrow I don't lose much.

Then why would LL give another SL resident (The owners of SLX) any information about a resident's ban? Is this a privilidge that LL offers to approved Linden resellers through their Risk API program?
I'm shilling customer service vs. this knee-jerk reaction from SLX .

They didn't. The offender stated they were banned and asked for money transfer to another account.


This could also be a pretexting attempt, which could also result in a lockdown.

A typical ban is a one week suspension, not a permaban. Even if you got a one week suspension due to a case of mistaken identity or something else beyond your control, that's hardly the end of the world. Just don't try to take your money out of SLX that week?

I am saying that there must be some system in place for LL to alert SLX when a customer is banned. I have as of yet to find anything regarding this in LL's TOS or the description of the Risk API program. And how does LL get past the privacy clause? Resellers if Lindens are all SL residents. How does LL tell resident's about other resident's bans?


What is the procedure to prove that the SLX funds are fraudulent? From what I see that happened here - SLX Admin 'heard' a person's account was banned from SL and immediately (without any investigation at all) froze the account. That does not seem to be a very safe 'system'.

This is exactly how I do it. Anything could happen. SL could even disappear overnight and I don't think there would be any way to get money out after that.

What I meant to say at the end there was

"And what if SL is no longer in "good standing"? Will SLex give you your money?"

I send anything over 5000$L back to my RL personal account. I never leave any real money anywhere that is not insured. I pay for big things with real money and only use Lindens for small purchases.

Yes, I realize this.

But surely you have seen the threads where people complain that people they AR'd have vanished off the in-world search so they organize to AR them again.

Basically if the people who reported you want you banned bad enough, I am concerned it could happen.

I have far less faith than I used to have that LL will always catch attempted "character assassinations"

Especially since people are organizing virtual lynch mobs because of "only volume works when ARing" idea.


While I am sure most people who are banned are guilty

- I am positive not *everyone* is.

Probably true, Colette, but I guess it's just not something I worry about much. I find it easy to get along with people, even those I might not really like. I'm the type of person that thinks it takes far less energy to just go with the flow than to dive headfirst into any drama that might be going on around me, and I think that kind of laziness is pretty advantageous in SL. I really do think it's ridiculously easy to avoid conflict and getting into trouble, and if one of these days I end up eating those words, them's the breaks.

'IF' the ban is warranted and 'IF' there is a real investigation and 'IF" LL reports the ban to SLX without revealing AR info to another SL resident - Then those are the breaks. BUT there is no documented system in place for LL to report bans to SLX - so how does this information move between these two entities? I sense a 'one-hand-washed-another' situation here with no real policy in place.

Seems reasonable enough.

But a lot of people seem to more live in drama.

Enough of them that I just don't see "just don't get banned" as a One-Size-Fits-All plan.

There is some truth to this. There have been cases of organized groups of griefers doing multiple ARs against anti-griefers. Haven't heard of this tactic being very effective lately (it once was, apparently), so maybe the Lindens on the Governance and Response Team have wised up?

I'd am less worried about griefers attacking anti-girefers than people who thought they were doing the right thing by reporting someone they "heard" was bad.

--------------------

These organized AR groups to go after "AD farmers or whatnot" really concern me.

I think they should have been banned before Adfarmers.

Vigilante justice is only ever just coincidently.

Ah! OK. Yeah, one should AR only from your own personal knowledge of an abuse. (OK, maybe if you really, absolutely, positively trust your Significant Other who tells you about it. Maybe.) I think AR's not posted at close to the time and place of the offense without a very good reason or corroborating evidence get heavily discounted anyway.

Well they definitely used to.

But people are telling us now that it takes a tidal wave of ARs to get anything done now ..

Which tells me the system is taxed...

So if wrongfully accused these days your defense team has gone from being Johnny Cochran to the public defender.

I believe as someone else mentioned earlier it's part of the Risk API. How exactly that works I haven't a clue. I cash out monthly so if something ever goes horribly wrong I wouldn't lose all that much money. That's a simple way to manage the risk, which I personally don't think it much of a risk. I cash out monthly more because I tend to need the money.

I have recently had straightforward ARs resolved very quickly, myself, despite my being the only reporter - I don't really see any difference from a personal point of view. It has always been the case that mass ARs draw more attention than a single one, and sometimes this will end up with an unfair result, but this has always been the case.

Hmm

then perhaps its mainly perception?

Though I suppose perception is as bad as reality if it leads to AR mobs.

So how will they be assured? Can someone from SLX call LL and get information about our account statuses? How can they know what anyone's account status is unless we tell them aside from looking in search and seeing if the account is there, which gives no indicaton as to whether or not a person is able to withdraw L$ from the Lindex or not. I am sure there are plenty of people who cannot withdraw from the Lindex and still withdraw at SLX.

I ask because it makes me wonder if this is just a clause in their TOS to protect themselves or if they are actually able to get our account information from LL.

QFT

copy pasted from LL's site:

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO THIRD-PARTY EXCHANGES

User-to-user Linden Dollar exchange activity is a consistent target of attack for attempted fraud and similar malicious activity. Because successful Linden Dollar fraud is a matter that adversely affects all participants in Second Life by damaging the virtual economy, Linden Lab has the following policy with respect to any Second Life user that purchases Linden Dollars from other Second Life users other than on LindeX:

If Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, determines that a Second Life user has purchased Linden Dollars for real currency through any means other than LindeX, and that the seller of such Linden Dollars acquired such Linden Dollars through fraudulent means, or any other means in violation of the Terms of Service, then Linden Lab will consider the buying user a complicit party in the fraud or violation. As a penalty for participation in such fraud or violation, Linden Lab will reduce the Linden Dollar balance of the buying Second Life account (and/or any Second Life accounts owned or operated by, or affiliated with, the owner of the buying account), by any amount up to 150% of the amount of Linden Dollars involved in the transaction. In addition, repeated participation in such fraud or violation will result in suspension or cancellation of the buying party's accounts. (The selling account will of course be suspended or cancelled on a single fraud or violation at Linden Lab's discretion.)

We recognize that some users wish to operate a legitmate Linden Dollar exchange, free of fraud. For these users, Linden Lab has developed an Exchange Risk API. Use of this API will allow a buying exchange operator to receive the result of Linden Lab's determination of the risk associated with the purchase of Linden Dollars in a particular transaction. For any transaction that uses the Exchange Risk API to determine Linden Lab's risk evaluation, where that evaluation returns a result that indicates the transaction has acceptable risk, Linden Lab will not apply the above penalty policy to buyers. If the Exchange Risk API is not used, or it is used but returns a result indicating unacceptable risk, the above policy will apply. The Exchange Risk API uses the same risk assessment factors that Linden Lab uses for LindeX. We believe that this policy and API will allow legitimate third-party exchanges to operate with relatively low fraud activity.

If you're an operator of a third-party exchange, you can apply for use of the Exchange Risk API by emailing your name, Second Life account name, and website URL that facilitates your exchange to