How to lose 2000 USD.

It's been posted everywhere else but on here, so what the heck.

SecondLifeInsider: http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/04/09/ui-bug-costs-second-life-user-thousands/
SLExchange Forums:
http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=12066&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The crux of it is that an Italian lady was cutting a 1024m piece of land for sale while all the bugs this weekend were biting. She says she set the 1024m for sale for 21000L and the 44,832m went up for sale instead - I've seen similar things when there is lag.

Whatever happened, happened. But it was a mistake. So for a split second, this 44,832m - almost an entire sim - was set for sale for 21,000L. And Landbaron Merlin, a known bot owner and immediate reseller, purchased it faster than the speed of cancel and resold it IMMEDIATELY for 12L/m - 540,000L.

Many people, when they find stuff like that, would allow for the human error. Even landbots. But Landbaron Merlin dares to be different and effectively made off with $2000 USD on an error which is unfortunately more common than most people will acknowledge.

Linden Lab's response is that they don't interfere in resident transactions. They haven't really done much to reduce risk for residents in this regard - and they haven't responded to the loss of 2000 *real* dollars. Landbaron Merlin has been ignoring IMs all day.

Long story short, Chaos Mohr is holding the land for the ladies, and so far the community has come up with 71,000L + (kept up to date on my blog here: http://www.knowprose.com/node/17505 ). While Linden Lab does nothing, the community has stepped in and started helping. At 117,000 L, the land can be sold (it is oceanfront) at 21L/m and everyone breaks even. at 519,000, the original owner can purchase her land back at NO cost for holding the land. The only one who gets a financial pat on the back is Landbaron Merlin, since LL seems to reward such negative behavior.

You can take a look at the land here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Atira/214/127/36

So what's this post about? It's informational, really. It could happen to you, and you could expect the same official response. If you are so inclined, you can help out - if not, no skin off my back. If you choose to help out, your money will be logged so that it can be returned if Linden Lab or Landbaron Merlin does something of worth. It is also to show that this is NOT a scam.

If I really wanted your money, I'd have a sexy female AV and meet you in places in a mature sim. This is an isolated case where the community can help another resident - if it chooses to - where Linden Lab and unscrupulous landbot owners have failed.

Personally, I'm pretty torqued that this sort of thing happens to good people in SL while those that display negative behaviors continue to run around, flaunting obvious loopholes in ToS and Community Standards. But that's just me, and I'm Nobody.

I know this won't help my PR much but I've cut and joined a lot of land in my time and I've never seen such a bug. Why has everyone got to blame everything on the mysterious "system"? Just accept that the seller personally made a mistake because she wasn't careful enough.

Bug or not, this is a matter of a very dishonest peron, and LL's lack of action on a transaction that involves a large sum of money. She made a small error, Should she really be forced to suck up 2K usd because some greedy prick hides under the TOS, and she made a simple error?

I don't know why you haven't had the problem. Perhaps it's a latency issue. I dunno. Will never know until someone looks into it, or at least acknowledges that it is a problem. That you haven't had the problem doesn't mean that it does not exist.

Either way, it was an obvious mistake. I know how you deal with mistakes with people. You may grumble, groan or even yell a little, but you usually give the land back at the price the mistake was made at. Call it what you will, it's widely accepted as a good practice.

So your own actions speak on this louder than anything else.

$2000 US? That's a big chunk of change, and it is incidents like this which really get people riled up with pitchforks and torches banging on programmer's doors. It is unfortunate, but people typically stereotype against things that they don't understand. I hope that they can differentiate one bot from another. FWIW, Landbaron Merlin has the classic male freebie skin and shape but can't dress very well.

Perhaps other bot owners could give him tips on appearance, but that is way beyond the scope of this post. I may open a business for dressing bots a bit better. Landbot Hax would be a good place to start...

Of course I agree that the fair and honorable thing to do is return the land. I just wanted to make a small side point about blaming LL for every tiny thing that goes on in the game.

Unless you guys all plan on donating $2000 everytime someone is careless it's hard to imagine what the solution is beyond a total revamp of the land selling system. Even on eBay people accidentally sell stuff for way less than what it is worth. There's probably no hope at all for a completely fool proof system. Off the top of my head the best I can think of is some kind of 24 hour period during which the land is held in escrow or something and either side can cancel the deal. Of course, a proper auction system wouldn't hurt either.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't LL already do this once to prevent this type of mistake... though depending on where you read it and what the account is any number of things from a simple mistake to the pathetic way SL handles latency issues in transactions.

Reglardless of what caused it the bot runner did a pretty crappy thing and one that unfortunately does give you few honest (and this is the only time I'll ever use honest and land botter in the same sentence) botters a bad name. What's even more unfortunate about this is that even though people who see this won't buy from this one person he probably has any number of alts to launder the land through (a simple person to person land sale will do it) and even if he doesn't most residents A) don't read any of the forums or blogs which have brought this up, and/or B) won't change their buying habits as long as they can get a good deal even if the seller is a sleazeball like Landbaron Merlin.

Assuming, of course, that she was careless and this was not a latency issue or other bug.

But I dunno. Maybe I'm just different. When I see crap, I try to make it better. Maybe I'm not ruthless enough. Maybe I should walk around and just wait for the big sleep. For some reason, I can't. When stuff like this is in my face, well - I sort of have too much moral fiber, I guess. It's a big liability, as you say. It really is. And in the end, it doesn't mean much I suppose.

I just feel better knowing that I tried to do something positive. Granted, this doesn't qualify me to be like you or LL for that matter (and how similar your perspectives seem to be!), but hey. It's just the way I am.

And you're the way you are. And your bots are the way you make them. And still... you still give land back when there are obvious mistakes, which actually goes against what you are saying in some ways. Yeah, sure, you're crusty sometimes but you allow for mistakes. You are human. And if you respond again like this, I'll tell everyone to give you a group hug when you show up. LOL

j/k.

Well I know we don't agree on this one but I think not allowing use of such bots that can buy faster than a human can hit cancel would be a great step.

Not just fair and honorable - honest. This is theft. It was taking something that he was neither intended nor entitled to have.

I just gotta shake me head sometimes at how people can take advantage of others and just look the other way.

Seller's mistake or UI Bug, Seller, know thyself.

So the seller made a mistake or not does it really matter? This person lost 2000 dollars and someone took advantage of it.

LL should consider providing an option to seller, and the seller can manually set a value for the minimum price of a square parcel. so whatever the seller do, they will recieve timely notification while the value is lower than preset value.

This barely helps (on the other hand it won't hurt!) since the people who make mistakes are the kind of people that are unfamiliar with the land selling process. The only way land selling can be safer is if the system protects people from themselves automatically.

SL should not be like the good old "Far West", where a mistake could make the difference between life and death.

Modern civil countries do have laws and regulations about the situation presented by the original poster. I know mine (Italy) has and I believe most of the counties in the world have.

LL is to blame, really. Because they should really come up with a more safe system to sell land. It's not about LL babysitting us, it's just the right thing to do.

Enough said.

It would not be difficult at all for LL to do one of two things. Either put in a one hour waiting period before any land set for sale can actually be bought, giving the sellers time to fix any mistakes... or just make bots a violation of the TOS and ban anyone who uses them.

i'm seeing several silver linings here. Not the least of which is the moderator leaving this post unlocked for more to see. It's much appreciated if only because it may keep one person from making a costly mistake.

Time and time again I see that generosity and kindness triumphs over greed in the end. I doubt sincerely that Landbot Merlin is enjoying his ill-gotten gains. Maybe he should change his name to Landbot Midas. More appropriate a literary reference. And we all know how Midas ended up.

Can someone explain the subtle difference to me (in RL) of -

a) Someone making an honest mistake, and putting something up for sale, and leaving a zero off, i.e car at $10,000 instead of $100,000, and getting support from the law and the courts to put that mistake right.

b) An old lady putting things she thinks are junk from her attic into an auction, and some eagle-eyed antiques dealer picking up a $100,000 painting for $100, and there is nothing that anyone can do.

It seems that mistakes can be corrected, but ignorance is punished.

I could be wrong but I doubt law enforcement (in the US or UK) gives a crap in either case. Although, to be honest, I can't imagine any scenario in which you could accidentally sell your car for a tenth of what you planned unless there was some trickery involved such as fake bills or bouncing checks or whatever.

If I dropped my wallet in the street, the ONLY way I could expect to see it, and its contents safely again, is if the the person(s) finding it had honesty in their genes and upbringing. If there are people out there scouring the streets for such goodies, or employ technology to give them an advantage over human mistakes/errors, then we stand no chance.

I am glad that no one can/or should be able to utilise the prolifercation of CCTV cameras we now see in our shopping malls, as this would give them an advantage, similar to the high altitude flying of vultures.

I am surprised that the ability to snap up land, at speeds resembling the speed of light, in a programme labeled 'Community' should exist or be tolerated, and this 'loophole' should be, and can only be, corrected by LL. If they won't listen to the power of the people, then they should remove the sign above the door 'Community'.

If the land baron (no names mentioned) is taking advantage of this situation, then his only motivation is self greed. The very business he exists within, should also apply some sort of ethics to their own trade. Could there be a way, whereby a 'holding company' can act as intermediates for anyone wanting to sell land, in much the same way that we have bonifide land/estate agents in RL? Revenue for doing this work can be for a set and recognised percentage of the transcation to protect all parties. This would put the landbots out of the loop.

This is not a tiny thing for most people who join SL. The real estate process, and especially its RL value, is not explained to a newb by LL.

This constant series of disasters and the continuing bot-ching of SL could be easily solved:

Take. the. land. selling. process. off. world.

Put it in the SL website along with the highly successful land auction process. You'd reduce the load on the database. The website still allows one to view the land. You could review completed transactions to forecast expected results.

Or give a person the option to auction the land. That way the market sets the price and a newb doesn't have to have sudden knowledge of real estate prices from the past 12 months and can go his/her merry way, instead of leaving SL in disgust.

This is a very sad story. LL know about land bots, surely it can't be too hard to impliment a system where there is a delay between putting land up and it being able to be purchased, that way there is time for people to sort out any problems/mistakes which occured before a bot grabs the land from under them.

There should be more warnings about bots too, not everyone reads the forums. At least let everyone know of problems that could be encountered. We are talking about a lot of RL money where land is concerned, you get a lot more protection in RL with large purchases/sales.

The sad thing is that whatever solution is implemented, the honest and innocent people will suffer.

Landbots, camping bots... whatever happened to good old HUMAN PLAYERS?

Broccoli

]
I think bots stole the human players while they were asleep and resold the bodys to science before they woke up and realized what happened.

I have made stupid mistakes before (like leaving off some zeros); sometimes the buyer scampered off, benefitting from my mistake--and sometimes the buyer graciously acknowledged I'd made a mistake and returned my property.

Either way, I was not deluded into blaming anybody but myself for my mistake.

Some buyers are opportunistic; one could make a case that their actions are unethical, but as a RL ethics professor I know that people will disgree as to the ethics of the matter. Other buyers are simply fair--I've gladly paid a "restocking" fee in exchange for not losing a lot more than just the fee. Still other buyers are gracious. Praise this buyer, damn that one--make your case. But don't pretend that we aren't responsible for our own actions--even if our actions are stupid mistakes.