is this a new way to get residents to rent..

or have i just not noticed it before?
I was talking to a friend, when out of the blue from a person he did not know, he received an IM message. It was telling him about a "great new rental" low price..etc..followed by a Landmark sent to come and see. The person was not known to him and i advised that this is actually breaking the TOS (spamming ) anyway we both were curious to see how this chap got his name, after searching through his groups, this person was in a rental com pany group, as was he.

We decided to use the tp given..upon landing the guy was there , so I asked a few relevant questions (politely) and he left without answering...as we stood there about 7 more people tp'd in from the same rental group as my friend and this guy..all to see these homes.

So obviously hed got an invite to this rental group..then proceeded to IM each member directly and sent them the landmark to his own homes, which actually were VERY similar to those of the rental group he was spamming but cheaper.(very laggy though) Someone did actually rent the one we were stood outside while we were there.

Curiously, he did not show as the owner of the land that the homes were on, or as owner of the estate, but maybe thats because he was an alt...the land owner was a late 2009 birth.
Is this common place? How do you feel about this sort of "marketing"...would you rent from a person like this? Would you question how your name was found? would you even care if the rental was cheaper than what you paid now?

edited to add : both of us alerted the landlord of the group he was spamming and she is taking action with an AR.

bumpity bump

It was very common to get spammed by clubs and land groups back when I used to hang around Orientation and Help Islands. People would be hired to go there and spam newbies.

Is in world spamming a TOS violation?



ETA: To answer your question, I don't respond to spam either in SL or RL, whether it's email, telemarketing, or the wad of crap that arrives by post daily with my name spelled incorrectly.

apparently so, I have send in a few AR's about unsolicted spammy IM's from those whom I do not know or care to know and who wont quit it. lol Im on my rubbish laptop or id go cut and paste for you, the land owner also stated that was against the TOS and was sending in an AR..(unsolicted IM's of spam)

yes, I recall those days too

But this chap had got into the landlords rental group and was going through her residents and IM'ing them with his rentals and landmarks.(It isnt open join so i presume he grabbed an invite as a resident or through a friend).not just randomly spamming...he was VERY precise and directly competing with her through her own group!!

ithink this covers it...but im not sure (copied from the tos)
(vii) upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, or promotional materials, that are in the nature of "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation that Linden Lab considers in its sole discretion to be of such nature; (

I get the same stuff all the time and just hit decline or delete automatically.I does not bother me although I have deleted stuff that I should have looked at or kept .

PS hope your PC is fixed.

Maybe he rented a place to get into the group (and probably other such groups too). It might be cost effective.

I've had people targeting Caledon residents, especially merchants, for years.

Sometimes someone would take up one of these offers; usually they came screaming back, bringing a few residents of the other place back with them like huddled refugees.

Yep, that experience was worth saving eighty three cents a month over, wasn't it? laughs...

The real desperate ones will actually come to your estate and look up parcel owners, contacting them one by one. Of course, this usually results in tenants reporting spammers to me.

I also sometimes find people with "Mall Manager" tags over their heads sitting in the middle of my mall for several minutes at a time, presumably writing down the names of the vendors.

Oh, the best was when a tenant of mine set up her own minimall and tried to entice vendors away from my mall to the place she was renting on my own damn island. (I mean, not just asking if they'd like to sell in her place, but trying to get them to LEAVE mine for hers.) Thankfully, that resulted in a flurry of spam notifications from my vendors.

It's always something.

Sorry about the off-topic, but they have Spam with BACON??? Awesome.

I got an IM from someone a few days ago.

"Do you like tattoos?"
Yes.

5 mins later:
(tattoo schtik complete with sample photos)

I yelled at him lol and also told him he really shouldn't upload images larger than 512x512 (which of course, being a texture creator, he probably should have known)

Agree.....I didn't know, but now I do! Will be on my next grocery list.

I never respond to in world spam, never accept notecards, objects, anything really, even friend requests from people who 'introduce' themselves by offering friendship. I even had people ask why I declined their spam (go figure).

Everything is better with bacon!

No its in for repair..windows update for explorer 7 apparently has a bug that *can* effect vista & xp "the black screen of death" ( newly configured hard drive coming up lol

thanks for your replies everyone- wow how brazen some people are!!!. I find it hard when we see so many posts here about "my landlord scammed me help"" etccc...and yet today i stood and watched people flocking in to save a few cents on a home with a person who openly pilfered their names from anothers groups, who did not own the land or estate..no one was asking questions..(well,apart from me lol) and they were renting these homes, watch out for a new wave of complainers next week about being ripped off by land barons

Throwaway alt most likely, so the real landowner doesn't get kicked out. This way, he can always claim "That chap? Never seen him before in my life!"

yes,I thought that..but it was a 2007 account...perhaps this is just his method of operation.