You can never be too trusting

A good friend of mine recently bought a kinda well known country dance establishment.

The place had been through a few "issues" with former hosts and stuff and was becoming a shadow of its former self. The whole sim was bought off of the person, sold as seen including the contents. The first 2 or 3 weeks were rocky for them, they had never owned or ran a club before but eventually they got dj's hosts and hostesses.

Then recently some "things" started happening between the new owners and the former owner. Tensions rose and the former owner (even though she said she sold the club to get away from club management) then started to get hostile.

3 days ago in the sim right next door (theres irony) the former owner of the club, one of the current dj's of the club (now sacked) and someone else opened a new country club....but heres the kicker...

...parts of the club my friend now owns started vanishing...

First it was a small mill at the far side..."its an SL issue" we thought...so i built her a new one.

Next it was the dock..."the dock sucked anyway, looked like it was built by a 3 year old" i said, so i made a new one.

Then the dance machine at the beach vanished, the 3 horses stabled in the shopping area vanished and the dance machine inside the main club vanished.

By the time the second building had gone we already knew it was the former owner nipping in and out of the sim and taking bits of the sim which was sold INCLUDING the contents. My friend whos the new owner didnt want any trouble so there was no confrontation...but eventually after the dance machines vanished they had no choice but to ban the former owner turned theif. The main club building, the shops surrounding it was held of to the new owners name, but large sections of the sim's contents wasnt...

If you buy a sim advertised as "contents included" from someone, make sure you go around every single inch of that sim with the former owner and the deeds of those items are transfered to you if possible.

With Linden Labs saying they will not get involved in disputes im starting to be wary of everything i do, everything i buy.

Its a kinda of "wild west" scenario thats going on in SL right now with virtually no buyer protection at all for the consumer (unless its a mainland issue) it kind of amazes me that SL has managed to go this far this fast with no kind of consumer bureax or protection at the basic level.

How do the folks manage to set up large estate rentals, massive malls, big popular clubs? If it was me i would be looking over my shoulder seeing if someone was gonna come up behind me and stab me in the back.

The mechanics here is pretty simple: things that don't have transfer permission don't get transfered when a parcel is sold with objects included. They just stick around until the new owner turns on auto-return or otherwise returns them.

The other possibility is that all the now-missing objects were set "Share with Group" so the former owner (presumed to still be part of the relevant group) snatched them back.

In any case, banning the former owner from the land--while possibly the right thing to do anyway--won't do much to keep such items from being reclaimed. (This might work, though, on a private island, where one could ban them from the whole sim and any neighbors.)

But I'm not sure that mechanics was the mystery anyway.

Yup....regardless of the particular personal issues here......some items are simply NOT transferrable so selling land with objects included is really an irresponsible way to handle it since anyone familiar enough with the mechanics is gonna know dam well certain objects really can't be 'sold'.

If indeed the seller wanted to get rid of things on the parcel....they really should have walked around with the buyer and gone over which items could be transferred and perhaps even set them to sell for 0L so the buyer could purchase them ahead of time. Either way....once object return is set...all non-transfer items are going to go bye bye. And really.....if you want to avoid griefers and lag from folks rezzing stuff all over the place....it's wise to set a public place to 'no build' anyway. It sucks that you're dealing with this....but honestly...best way to start a club is to do your own design and build yourself or buy the things you want to create a unique atmosphere.

Actually the "wild west" was fairly safe and crime free, especially when compared to the more "civilized" times we live in today. I guess a quick hanging did a lot to keep crime in it's place.

Come to think of it, though, if the objects were set to the same group that still has the land, and the former owner just vacated the group along with the land, then the no-transfer objects would just hang around until the new owner returned them manually (either individually or by owner in About Land / Objects).

I kind of disagree about no-build. I used to set my store and other public parcels that way, but now I just use auto-return, so folks have somewhere to rez something for a minute or two. I could easily get burnt by some griefer's self-replicating crap, but that's likely to create enough excitement to get all their junk poofed anyway, and maybe even asset-blacklisted.

I've just gone through a similar process after buying Hoini.

The previous owner and I started by going round and selling/buying all the individual items for 0 Linden. This can be a nightmare to do so we decided to shortcut it by me selling him the various plots for 0 Linden, then he sold them back to me again for 0 Linden, but with transfer of items on the plots.

Saved literally hours of time.

However there are some items that are simply non-transferable. He retains ownership of these, there is nothing either of us can do about it. I simply trust him not to 'Take the items into Inventory'.

At some stage in the future I know I will have to buy replacement items but until then the residents can continue to enjoy them.

Most people are pretty decent, actually. There's a small percentage that will rip you off, and there's only one way to get past this: expense it as a 'cost of doing business' and move on.

For instance, I have a few people default on me every week. I'll lose between 200 and 400 USD a month profits when it's bad (say spring, when people trade online time for fresh air). Some I 100% believe are in trouble, in these tough times - these are the decent people I'm referring to, and will make it up to me when they can, or gracefully exit.

Others I have *no* doubt live in a better home than I do, drive a better car than I do, but still treat me like I've got deep pockets like Bill Gates and ditch me for $L 1000, $L 5000 or more.

It would be ludicrous and insane to name and shame residents, so I obviously never do - one can never really know what happened. But just like real life, stores thrive on the good business with good people, and simply have to eat it when people shoplift. Or pass on the expense to the good guys.