I can't believe I fell for this : /

I just purchased a security item from some obscure shop .... for a lot of Lindens.....embarrassed at this point to say how much. And I'm not a newbie to SL ..just never ran across this before. Anyway, when I went back home and opened it up ..the note card was empty as well at the object's contents..........nothing but a black box. I also didn't look at the creators profile till after.....grrrrr. This fellow was not even a paid account.

This person had several items for sale ... all for the same price. Does it do any good to report this person to Linden Labs...so they can at least close the shop? If so, how do I go about it.

I've deleted the item. I'm hoping there is nothing this person can do to access my account (lindens)

That alarm should have went off when no notecard was offered to explain the object itself..prior to purchase...

Other that not going for something like this again...lol..is there any suggestions on what can be done against this so called shop owner?

You should have contacted the shop first. Strange glitches do occur.

If you want really good security products, check Quantum Products, and no I don't work for them. Love the Quantum Core though.

Yeah, I've gotten boxes with missing items from well known sellers before and NPIOF doesn't actually mean much...maybe they cash out through a site like SLX or use an alt account for business.

Definitely IM and/or drop a notecard on the owner and give them a reasonable period of time to respond.

Did you IM the creator just in case they didn't have the product correctly set-up? I would give the creator an opportunity to respond in a reasonable amount of time. If no response or satisfaction, I would definitely file on it just to be on the safe side. Best thing would be word of mouth to all your friends and others who might ask.

It is too bad we don't have an SL Better Business Bureau where these complaints could be filed and people contact them before buying products of lessor know sellers.

I think there are some really good hotshot creators out there without paid accounts who make a lot of honest money. I don't think a paid account is necessary unless they want to own the land their store is on.

I doubt they can take your money unless you got the popup and gave it your express permission. A rental system would do this, but I don't think a security system would.

Like Damien suggested, I'd take a look at the creator's profile again and just IM them and ask -- or ask the store. The item is still in your trash if you didn't purge it.

Well, to address the fear of the person accessing your account? They shouldn't be able to from an empty prim with a notecard in it.

As for what you can do? Give the owner one chance to set things right and if that fails, then tell your friends, have them tell their friends and spread the word.

LL won't do anything about this, because they consider this a case of 'resident vs resident' and a private issue.

thanks all.....I have written the creator and asked for their help. I didn't realize that you could do business without a paid account. In anycase I'll give the guy a chance to respond. Hopefully it was just an innocent error...

That happens sometimes... SL is famous for never quite gettin' anything right. Send the creator an IM explainin' what's happened. If he doesn' reply in a couple of days, it may be 'cause his IMs are capped. Send a notecard if so.


I assume you mean he doesn't have payment info on file? Havin' that doesn' mean they're a payin' account. It could only mean that at one time they bought a few lindens.


It does no good to report them for this if they really are sellin' empty boxes. LL will do nothing.

The only way for them to snag any of your lindens would be if the item was scripted ta ask for debit permissions. If it had been, a nice big yellow dialog box would have opened asking for that permission.


Note cards are offered by a lot of venders, but by no means offered by alla 'em.

And how could you even begin to trust a 'BBB' run by an anonymous avatar, where complaints need have no basis in truth? There WAS a SLBBB at one time and it crashed and burned.

What you have found out is that the Second Life "economy" is a cesspool. Remember this the next time you want to make a big-ticket purchase.

The situation you describe falls into the category of the dipsute between residents, in which Linden Labs does not want to get involved. An Abuse Report does you no good.

There is a bright side, as others have already posted. Despite how easy it is to make a few quick dishonest bucks in Second Life, most merchants actually turn out to be honest people who sometimes make honest mistakes. Contacting the merchant, and assuming the best, is a good move and has a pretty good chance of resolving things for you.

When contacting merchants, it's probably best practice to write the situation down on a notecard, drop them the notecard, and then IM them to briefly say, "I have a problem with a purchase, I dropped you a notecard about it." The problem with relying on IM alone is that IMs get capped (lost after someone gets a certain number before logging in next).

When making your note card, include the transaction number of the transaction. Go to the Second Life web site and go to "My Account" to get your transaction history. The merchant will want to know the transaction number for reference.

And be polite. You have nothing to lose by being polite, and assuming the best. You do have something to lose by being angry and pissy, because the fact of the matter is, whether you get this resolved or not depends entirely upon whether the merchant wants to help you.

Then wait a few days. Or a week. Not necessarily every merchant is going to log in every day.

And may as well be patient and hope for the best. The fact of the matter is that if the merchant doesn't respond, there's not really anything you can do about it.

Just for reference, I bought a security device called "The Hawk" via Onrez from BlueSun Beresford because it was cheap and I didn't know anything about these things. Good news, it worked but config was a PITA since it was all chat based.

When it borked on me a couple months ago (after server code changed I think), I contacted him. He gave me the latest version for free and the new one was redesigned to use notecards for base config and had a menu interface. Woot!

Did you look in content tabs? People store items in those boxes.

Not always true, Networked vendors e.g. mostly store the products in a server (which is residing in a save area, out of sight of the vendor location), so looking at a content of such vendor, won't help you see, what you are going to get.