People Stealing Money?

I'm just wondering if there is anything a person can do if a large amount of money was stolen from them.

I rented some land from this chick, 1/4 of a sim for 38,000 for a month. Before I gave her the money, she agreed to let me build what I was wanting to build, which was some small houses I wanted to rent out. Before I was even finished building the first one, she told me it was ugly and I couldn't do it, but she never even waited to see what it would look like finished. I started to build another type, and she said it was ugly as well. And let me just add that I am a proffesional builder and my custom houses sell for 20-30k. They are not ugly. She complained taht I was using up too many prims, when I only had 60 prims on the land. I think she was just trying to get rid of me, then took away my right to build and woudln't give me a refund. I still had 3 weeks left on the rent.

I think she had scammed me by letting me pay the rent and then not letting me build. If there is a scammer out there like that, is there anything I could do to stop her from doing it to other people? How do I get the word out that that type of scam is going on?

nothing you can do. move on and learn from this experience.

rent from one of our locals here. way safer!

That really sucks.

You got scammed. LL will not get involved and there is nothing you can do. Please don't name her name here even though there is no moderation to stop you from doing that.

Did the covenant say anything about the type of build you could do?

FYI, Sarah Nerd is opening a new sim, Nerdy Sanchez. She designed an awesome sewer system and the sim has a very original urban look. 1/4 of the sim is a sandbox or you can rent a huge plot to build on at a reasonable rate and she won't give a crap what you build and will never screw you over.

Welcome to sl and it's people.

Learn never to underestimate anyone and what they'll do. Greed has no bounds in there. Know that in anything that requires money you can't trust anyone. Not renters, sellers, shop owners, not anyone.

Talk is cheap and most talk a good game. It's losing money that's expensive and common.

Sorta sounds like RL. Funny that.

~Jessy

Assuming that it's the Estate owner's intent to drive you off without a refund so she can sell it again, the scam is called "Island Pump-and-Dump" (which I learned from Carl M., in a sadly similar thread). Sorry you got caught in it. There's little you can do to help others avoid this, beyond doing more of what you've just done: letting everyone know about how important it is to be aware of the Estate owner's reputation, and the lack of any legal recourse when the owner violates a land "covenant" or any other agreement.

And thank you for not naming names. Besides being against forum rules (for several good reasons), in this case it could just give a false sense of security for those thinking of renting from a different Estate--which could be just as bad if they don't do their homework first.

Don't start.


Ok, it's been said once so don't trip over yourselves running in to mention it also. So annoying.

Also annoying is that if I was to slander you on this forum by name, it would stay up indefinitely since there is no moderation.

QFT



(libel actually but same concept)

If I were to look into renting, there's a very,very short list of people (or their companies) I'd consider either renting from or taking advice on who to rent from.

There are too many scammers to risk giving someone money to go with an unknown, and top that off with LL's "Sux 2 B U" policy.

This isn't a plug, just basing this on what I've seen in other SL related forums. Good:

Steve Mahfouz
Raymond Figtree
Sara Nerd
Desmond Shang

Admittedly, the number of scammers out there is probably a small percentage, but I'd still rather go with someone I've heard of.

And?

And?


Saving us from ourselves then?


Oh, 2 for 1 day.

At least this answers my question as to whether the "you don't have to do things if they make you sad" would end with Cory leaving or not, as Phil had blamed the "love machine" idea on him.


http://www.massively.com/2007/12/11/was-cory-linden-fired-or-did-he-quit/

And now I'm testing to see if actually talking about them gets any reaction -- under the old regime, it seemed to be a bit verboten.

UR MOM!
LOLZ

you're welcome, and you're welcome too...lol (that I didn't name names) I don't like to get involved in too much gossip.

OK, no arguing!! lol kiss and make up...

Back to the point:

It seems to me that LL should probably take action on scammers, doesn't it? To know that you can just do whatever you want, and screw over whoever you want makes it pretty scary to do anything. This is not the first time I was scammed...There was this shop that sold certain unmentionable items, and I wanted to buy one..and no, it's not genitals...lol... anyway, the dang thing cost me 4,000L. It would have been worth it had the vendor worked. I IM'd the owner of the shop and let her know about the vendor not working, and she was like "That is not my fault, you need to report the problem to LL" ugh, it's not like she couldn't give me another one...it wouldn't have cost her anything...She was just hoping I'd try and buy again I guess...yeah right, I'd never go back to that shop again

When they say buyer beware, they really mean it.

I'll tell you what, if you ever see me or one of my business in SL, know that I will never scam you, I freakin hate scammers. If you buy something from me, you can bet it'll be copiable and if my vendor doesn't deliver, I'll give you another copy cuz I"m cool like that...and if you buy an outfit from me and it looks like S*** when you put it on, I'll give you a refund, cuz that's just how I am

GOD I HATE GREEDY PEOPLE

*HUGGS TO ALL THAT REPLIED TO MY THREAD*

The person who ran Ginko stole hundreds of thousands of real dollars from many residents and LL did nothing.

LL does not have the manpower to even send someone to keep an eye on this forum.

There is absolutely no chance they will intervene someday in the countless resident to resident disputes.

Maybe they could outsource it.

There is no merit from the fact that the stuff is copyable, but there is merit in the other things you mentioned.

"Copy" keeps a merchant from having to constantly replace things the asset server screws up, as the customer can just rez a new one.

Penny Im so sorry this has happened to you.

I really dread reading threads like this. That an estate owner thinks they can behave this way is outrageous.

Bit of a closing gate after horse has bolted observation here but....
Always check with other renters/landowners on an estate, even if theyre not on the land when you look at it you can IM them and most people are friendly and helpful.
Take time to chat with the estate owner, ask questions about the covenant, if certain 'types' of build are mentioned ask about them in detail...and keep a copy of the chat in a notepad.

And Raymond, maybe you should have a list of poorly behaved landlords as well...name and shame.

As a final note.....this IS only one side of the story but it seems to be an all too familiar one

What get's me is people keep saying, "there's nothing you can do," as though the "LL look the other way policy," would fly, in a properly prepared, class action suit or that this "landlord's" name can not be found out and sued.

At what point is the critical mass going to shift and people say, "we aren't going to take it anymore!"??

Sorry to hear you've been scammed Penny.

Although I joined SL in 2006, I've only just started to use the forums and I am shocked at how many people are getting ripped off in SL (and I bet it's only a tiny percentage of people that are coming here to tell us)

It's reasuring to know we can come here and at least find out there are some honest and trustworthy people out there - even if it doesn't get people their money back.

I will certainly be telling people inworld to check the forum out!

How about Prokofky Neva or Anshe Chung? They own a hell of a lot of land between them.

People will rent from whom they feel comfortable with, the key to a successful rental business is your repeat renters, if you're a bad landlord you won't be around for long.

However I'm fed up with people saying there's nothing you can do. There is something you can do, you email LL, you turn up at office hours, you whine, you moan and you yell foul until you're blue in the face.

This worked for banking, publicise the scams, make it heard loud and clear. You may not get your money back, but you put pressure on the powers that be to stop ignoring this scam.

The same goes for other scams too.

Exactly Rebecca. People need to make a noise about it.

Absolutely