Restrict land sales/rental on private islands...the only way?

After looking through alot of these threads on whats been going on with the whole land scams and whatnot, I've come to a very sad but very obvious conclusion as to the best option we have right now. As it stands, anyone that rents on a sim may be immediately removed, without refund of any kind, and banned without any ability to fight it. I personally spent a large amount on a quarter of a sim, only to have myself removed from the land two days later, banned from the sim, all objects returned, and muted by the owner. The sim was residential only, and the only thing I had out was my house (empty at the time) and some trees on my island I terraformed. I lost alot of money, and couldn't do a thing about it.

This leads me to believe that there is, again, one logical but sad way to fix this. Take away power for owners of sims to rent out land. Vendors are another story, as that doesn't seem to get abused too much, but renting out land itself just leaves too many vulnerabilities open. Yes, this is a case of the small amount of oil contaminating the whole water supply here. For those that are good businessmen that do their job and do it good, you can thank those that continue to screw over everyone else.

Yes, I've went down the list of other options...more mainland? Nope, takes too much work and money on LL's part. More regulation of private sims? See: Too much work for LL. Private sims owned by LL, with land sold just like mainland? Nope, same thing. Linden certified land renters? Possible, but again...see every answer prior to this.

Linden Labs, you're falling way behind. You sit and let these things go on and now we're stuck at a point where we can't even look to you to regulate things that are causing alot of people alot of money. So now, honestly, I see this as our only true option. Remove the right to rent or "buy" land on private sims.

Hey now! I'm biased here but I don't think restricting land sales or rentals is the only way at all. The vast majority of land here is estate land. Therefore there are plenty of happy and satisfied estate tenants.

The issue would appear to be that estate owners are at times way too hasty in reclaiming land. A genuine scammer isn't here very long. Some people sell their land, some people are extremely strict with their TOS. People running their business this way are poor in customer service.

There are ways to track and trace payments in LL. Maybe estate owners who reclaim land should be duty bound to refund rental fees.

Sorry to hear this. I agreed with you there are just a few bad apples here but they seem to know there way around the system

Again, this leads back to LL having to do too much work. Bad apples is right. Only a few can ruin the whole bunch. Same reason alot of other things are banned in SL. They could have done some work and kept gambling in SL but yeah, see what happened to that...

It's obvious they don't care, or are just too overwhelmed or incompetent to manage things. For that reason, I am taking an ironic stance in that I trust my island owner far more than I do LL right now. I've been there almost a year and am very happy. As long as he stays in business, I'll stay in SL. As far as LL goes, I am cancelling my Premium Memebership, and will no longer use the Lindex, until they show me they warrant me giving them any more money.

If it aids the integrity of their product then they should be doing more damn work.

That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Look at the adfarm problem. They didn't have to ban advertising. They didn't ban selling your land for a high price. A scam is a scam. We all know one when we see one. The scammers are going to lose, here, probably at the expense of some of our liberties, but that's the way it goes.

Integrity of their product?

Copybot
gIntercept
Gambling
Money-stealing objects
Database break-ins
Leaking of private information
Inventory disappearing
Linden disappearing
Ad Farms

Anyone else want to add to the list of shit they haven't done more with to protect the "integrity of their product"?

I guess this is a good point - estateowners are able to put rent boxes but not sell land. They can give renters certain powers through the grouppermissions. This will of course eliminate a lot of business but this will stop scam and will keep the SL economy up- SCAM will KILL it.
Furthermore it will encourage ppl to buy their own sims if they are satisfied and want more powers on "their land". ( hello LL a new way of making money)
Furthermore it will clearify that residents are renters on estate land not owners.
I know many estateowners will complain now - but hey friends look at the actual marketsituation most of you are offering the plots anyway for just the tier.

Simply change the name of that little blue button from 'buy land' to 'rent land'.

Aww Eric, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss! I work for an estate owner, and it makes me cringe when I hear those kinds of stories. It isn't fair to you, the consumer, and it isn't fair to the honest sim owners.

I cannot emphasize enough to anyone who is looking at investing in land: do your homework, check the company out. If they have been around a while, they'll have a reputation, ask around. There are honest, nice, hard working sim owners out there. Search the forum, lots of good ones have been named.

Along the same line, it always amazes me how people, when ready to purchase land, are quite willing to pay my avatar directly. Most have known me less than an hour, and they're way too trusting. I always direct them to buy the land, not pay me directly, especially when we're looking at larger purchases.

Slightly different, but still along the same thought: before you invest in a business venture, of any kind, investigate. I have seen a number of people who lost tons of money from jumping into a business with one or more associate they barely know. USe RL common sense in SL.

That still wont do anything, because that still gives estate owners the right to pull rank on ownership of the sim, remove the land from your possession, return all your stuff, ban you, and keep all your money. THAT is the real problem here, not the semantics over "renting" and "buying".

Well if it's done on estate land and mainland fair enough.

As for estate land, I've suggested before that the purchase screen should be different with a message pointing out that they are going to have to pay tier to an estate owner.

[Sigh]. Another poster begging for net-nanny to come save "us" from ourselves.

Fraud needs to be dealt with; that is a crime. But otherwise, the first, best step for Residents is clear: Unless the estate owner is absolutely, positively, irrefutably trustworthy -

On estates, never "buy," always rent
On estates, never "buy," always rent
On estates, never "buy," always rent

Repeat fifty more times. Pass it on.

Yes indeed, the problem is the scam. However estate owners should have those rights. If the rental period is up people often don't take their stuff with them for a start.

There are some big and reputable landlords who charge up front fees for their land. Their tenants are happy and many estate owners set their land for sale for a week's rent and point out it's a rental.

If there is someone reporting a post, you would think that it this person had no guilt /he she would want resolve the issue through arbitration not by hiding under a rock!

I am forced to agree here. As long as estate owners can reclaim the land at any time with absolutely no recourse, they should be forbidden to "sell" the land for an up front price.

Rent the land for whatever their market will bear, but no selling.

As much as the Lindens would like to sweep this issue under the virtual rug, it is getting worse and will not go away until something is done to stop it.

Hey maybe someone needs to replace the !quit text in the obsolete copybot protector with this phrase!

Which is why I qualified the advice. Agree wholeheartedly - a really good estate landlord is worth a price. One that is "absolutely, positively, irrefutably trustworthy." Would they were all such.

And BTW, I really do feel sympathy for the OP; I am not one of those whose attitude is Tough s___, suckah." I can understand his wanting a drastic solution after getting screwed over like that. It's just that I think the net-nanny is the last resort, not the first, because it is likely to do Residents as a whole more harm than good: The solution to the problem of getting screwed over is not mass castration by Those In Power.

I meant just on estate sims. LL had already set their definition of 'buying' as obtaining land that is then 'owned' by that resident in the eyes of LL. To include the same word on estate sims suggests a resident gets the same thing, and they clearly do not - the estate owner 'owns' the land in the eyes of LL, not the 'tenant'. I think it was very short-sighted for LL to have set it up the way they did; they obviously did it to speed up growth, but it was always going to lead to possible legal problems further down the line.

<shrug>

If sim owners have their powers removed from selling or renting their land what are you proposing happen to their estates. You think LL will repay them the purchase price?
I dont really see why all estate owners should be hobbled because of the poor practice of a few.

I also never see the estate owners side in these...'my land was stolen' threads....and there are ALWAYS 2 sides to every story.

I don't want to get into a big debate about this Hiro but an estate owner who allows resale is operating the LL model. Philip Linden's definition of land ownership when interviewed on channel 5 news was that it was land that could be resold.

Plenty of people resell estate plots. None of the land here is owned, estate or mainland and I don't own my island. LL own it, I lease it and then my tenants sub lease or rent from me.

Oh I totally agree with you; no one is doing anything wrong here; people are only operating within the system that LL have provided. I am just putting forward my opinion on that system that LL have created.

As for ownership definitions, no I don't really want to get into long debate either.

Based on your views, then, I 'd be interested to know if you wouldn't mind if the little blue button was labelled 'lease' on the main grid, and 'sub lease' or 'rent' on estate land?

Probably 99.9% of daily land buying (trading) goes through smoothly and uneventful during the lifetime of that plot ownership.....it always has done ever since Estate Owners had the ability to sell land. The hoohah here is over the 0.1% deals of dishonest land owners, some of which are repeat offenders and base their business model around it.

If you read all the threads on RA in it's entirety, one would get the impression that the 0.1% is the actually the norm when it comes to Estate land sales.........it isn't!