Abuse of AR? - Parcel encroachment

A couple of hours ago, I had an item returned to me. Strange, I thought, but went to where it was and replaced it. I then checked my email, only to find I had an email from LL "Second Life: Notice of Disciplinary Action".

It appears that the item must have been encroaching on a neighbours parcel. Now, I'm always very careful when placing items not to cross my borders (I have show parcel borders perminantly on in my viewer), but I'm only human, and mistakes happen

I own most of the sim that the object was on, and the other parcel owner it was encroaching on has a small plot. Bear in mind, that most of the day, every day i'm logged in and on my parcel. When not lonline, IM's go to email.

The other land owner is also on regularly, and have in the past siad hi to each other...

The item that was returned had been there for at least a couple of months.

At no point did the other land owner contact me to mention the item, instead, it seems he just went ahead and AR'd me for it

I consider myself to be a good neighbour, and will always respond to IM's and potential issues if a neighbour asks me to - theres nothing worse than having a bad neighbour in SL

The SL KB clearly states that for parcel encroachment issues, they should try to contact the itme owner BEFORE filing an AR. Because this person did not, I now have a black mark against me.

Does this black mark stay on my record? Can I get it removed? Should the other person not be punished for abuse of the AR system?

How come that, even as a concierge customer, when I've made AR they normally get ignored, but someone else can bypass the stated (and moral) way of doing things with a small plot of land and get it actioned immediately?

What are your thoughts on this?

Gomez

Are you sure the AR was placed recently? It could very well have been placed months ago. Think: The last time you AR'd someone, how long did it take you to get the bland "Resolved" e-mail from LL?

A

You should probably put this post into a reply to the "disciplinary action" notification, keep a copy for your records, but expect it to be ignored.

You can attempt to seek justice, but it probably isn't worth your time nor likely to yield any action at all. I wouldn't worry about the "black mark" on your record for in the worst case, they'll suspend your account if other "black marks" are logged against you. Should this worst case obtain - which I think very unlikely - you've got documentation of an unacknowledged disputes against LL which will be very handy.

There is one positive outcome of the Bragg v. Linden case which seems to have made LL wary of depriving customers of access except in cases of egregious malfeasance (e.g. sim crashing, grid attacking, etc.).

"Justice" and "Linden Lab" don't often belong in the same sentence.

I don't think a "parcel encroachment" notice counts quite the same way as an "official warning".

It's probably listed on your account now, but unless you were to just rerez the item and go through the same thing with the same person 10 times in a row, I'd think it's pretty harmless .

I believe I read in the Knowledge base that one must have a clean disciplinary record in order to purchase an estate. Is that true? That's why stories like this are very troublesome to me, since Gomez did nothing wrong except make a very common mistake.

Sadly, never - this is for parcel encroachment, griefing you name it - never a reply, the only way I managed to get parcel encroachment sorted (after imming the owner for over a month) was by getting concierge in-world to sort it with me - no AR's have never been responded to (even ehrn multiple ones by several people have filed)...

The problem is, who knows? the AR system is at best a one way system with no means for appeal

Gomez

That is not true, bisides if it were there are to many ways around the system (making an alt, buying from another person in SL etc)

1) Deffinately reply to the Notice you recieved to give your side.

2) As you are Concierage, use Live Chat for what it's for and for what you pay them for and discuss this with them. Be sure to save the chat at the end.

3) If you don't find satisfaction that way, place a call to LL. Though phone fees may prevent this option.

Personally, I would not sit and take a disiplanary action I didn't warrant. As you said, you are human and can make mistakes, but then, so can LL.

~Jessy

Why don't you start by sending an IM to your neighbor about it. If you can confirm that that person indeed filed the AR, you can explain that in the future you'll be able to move any encroaching objects without that person having to file an abuse report.

There is a small chance this neighbor may have gotten confused about what the AR system is for, or whose object was actually on their property. My thoughts are that possibly a third party griefed them a few months ago, they filed an abuse report at that time, and by the time a Linden responded to it, the only encroaching object was yours and they assumed you were responsible. Just a theory.

Well here it is, copied and pasted from the knowledge base:



I don't think you can hide your financial information from LL through an alt or a transfer. That they would actually turn down 1675 cash and 295 a month over a parcel encroachment would boggle my business sense, but that's what they claim.

I have replied to it (with an auto reply saying that SL's support system has changed and I need to create a ticket) :/

I've spoken to concierge earlier, they said they do not get involved, but will pass a message onto the linden that was involved.

Phone fees from the UK to the US are free for me (voip) It may come to that next!

Gomez

I doubt very much that one count of parcel encroachment would count against you buying an estate.

I'm also surprised about this, I reported a overhanging particle three times in about two months after contacting parcel owner (who didn't know how to return objects) and the person who placed it.

Finally I resorted to live chat to get it removed (because I didn't consider it to be an important enough issue for concierge initially but got fed up of no action being taken). The first thing they asked me was if I'd contacted the parcel owner and the owner of the object, so it seems strange that the OP had no communication at all and received this message.

Yes, this is the process i've always used - contact the object owner first, then if no reply after a lot of trys, use the fficial method (which normally fails) then live chat.

I'm amazed that the other parcel owner did not contact me - i'm online every day, and very approachable - after all, who likes unfriendy neighbours!

Gomez

Man a slap on the wrist never feels good even if its not on your record. Sorry your dealing with that Gomez.

Np Xplorer

At least you know from experience, we are a good neighbour

Gomez

We've seen a number of complaints here in this forum about people who find they've muted someone without knowing it. Whether it is due to a random double-click of the pie menu or just random SL weirdness, we don't know, but it seems to happen rather frequently.

Just to be sure, check your mute list to make sure you haven't got your neighbor erroneously muted.

Once you know they aren't muted, take the opportunity to be the bigger man about this. As they are your long-time neighbor, obviously it is better for all concerned to maintain a good relationship and forget about their AR. I would suggest sending them an IM like this:

"Hi <neighbor name>, this is Gomez, your neighbor in <sim name>. I was just notified by the Lindens that one of my prims was encroaching on your parcel. I'm very sorry about that, I didn't mean to put anything over the border. If you notice any other encroaching objects, please feel free to contact me directly and I will remove them promptly. - Gomez "

Yes, it's a little kiss ass, and the smiley is a little overcute, but it communicates to them that (a) you are not angry and still want a good relationship with them, and (b) that they should not be afraid to deal with you directly on matters like this.

Also, if you do find they were muted, be sure add something like "I noticed that I had you muted, either by accident or SL bug. The mute was unintentional, and I would like to apologize if it caused me to miss any messages you may have sent."

Hopefully that will help everything in your sim stay nice and friendly with no more abuse reports.

Hi Ava

I very rarely mute - if i do it's normally "noisy" objects - never people (you never know what they may be saying).

It seems to have stepped up a little this evening, with the parcel owner that filed the AR spamming our visitors to the club with landmarks I've asked the recieipents to report it, but who knows....

Before anyone says "we've only heard one side of this story" - yes, very true, but it beggars belief what has started this off, and I certainly have not heard from him recently, so who knows

Just goes to show that what you may one day regard as a good neighbour, the next - wow! - Looks like he may have been at the cooking sherry

Gomez

I guess I didn't express that very well. I'm talking about a bug or something that results in someone being added to your mute list without your knowledge or intent. It's worth checking just to be sure.

Sorry to hear that he's going all wacko on you. One would hope he's been accidentally muted and is just desperately trying to get your attention, but it sounds more like he's just being a jerk.

It's still worth a shot trying to communicate with him to see what is upsetting him. Hopefully it's something that can be resolved, at least to a state of detente.

Yes, I've checked, and definately not muted....

I have attempted to IM him several times, but no reply - even though he has been online.

He's not been there too long (2-3 months), and his "mall" seems to be getting more deserted by the day, so it may just be a case of this being his "swan song"

Gomez

Whooho! I got a reply to my ticket to support!


At least there is a perminant record of what happened my that can be used is defence.

Gomez

As often laggy and unreliable as SL is, it is entirely possible that your neighbor did try to send you an IM about the problem and you did not get it, it got lost in bunch of other chat lines when you were clubbing, or it got deleted in a crash before you were able to read it.

They may have tried to contact you and assumed you were ignoring them.