Rental Scam?

This is a good rule of thumb when conducting any business in SL. I always send a message via note card to a vendor, landlord, or anyone when I'm doing business.

For all I know the person could be in the middle of having sex when I send them a message. An IM would likely be lost and forgotten by the time they are done, or at least I should hope so.

Agreed.I always send notecards,even if I know the person is online.(But they may be busy,playing with poseballs or AFK) That way they can answer me at their leisure and also I will know for sure they got it.

The way notecards get delivered now, they are as easy to lose as an IM. If a notecard gets sent after your IMs have capped, you won't get a notice that it was sent. All you can really do anymore is hope that all your messages get sent to email.

I believe everything still kicks over to email even after IMs are long capped. So, while I agree that sending a notecard can be good advice for the consumer as a way to follow up after no response, the capped IM is no excuse for lack of response. Every business person should have their IMs kicking over to email.

Furthermore, I occasionally get a tenant who'll send me a notecard instead of an IM, and all I get in my mail is "inventory offer from so-and-so." Then when I finally read the notecard 6 hours later (and I have to remember to go look for it in my inventory), it usually is a question I could have answered in 30 seconds if they just would have IM'ed me.

What? They can't multi-task?

Whether they can and whether they should are two entirely different things.

Yes, I agree that there's no excuse not to have your IM's go to email. I still prefer to send messages via note card. One reason is because you see so many profiles asking for it. Thinking now I guess I'm running on the assumption that we're talking about a matter that's more than a quick question. If it's simple I will send an IM but if I get no response I wouldn't be offended, I'd just send a note card then.

One day I had a customer ask a question while I was AFK. When I came back I almost deleted it amongst some others by accident. Had I done so I would have lost their question and their name. Another reason why note cards are good. I'm a goof.

Whenever Iv'e rented or bought land in SL I got to know the seller "well"...and as time goes by and the plots i purchase/rent become larger..it takes longer to set up a trust.

I recently had a friend refer me to a plot next to his that had come up for rent..he knew the seller..my friend was able to answer all applicable questions etc and I was quite happy there while i rented.

Then i spent roughly a month looking for more prims..somewhere i could expand..I met a man..who had land for sale in an old sim I used to frequent and messaged him about a rental.

This man went waaaay ouy of his way to listen and talk to me about my needs..what i wanted to build..what i wanted to do with the build etc. he took me to various parcels of land. I was honest with him about what I could afford and how far in advance i could pay..we looked at two or three parcels and ultimately both came to an agreement about one being "perfect" for me.

What i'm trying to say is..if all you do is walk up and pay a box and expect everything to be right and perfect..however small or large..well you're gonna get a "box".

These are real life bucks these renters are dealing with..if they want your buisness they should be able to spend at least an hour with you to gain your trust..if they can't sacrifice that time for you..move on.

Theres alot of information and variables in purchasing land such as terrain type..ban lines..group permissions...deeds...music URLs..prim alottment..object/ script creation permission being group only or anyone..wether or not the parcel is mature or PG and the rules and TOS that accompany those etc. ((just to name a few)).

Do your homework...talk to the neighbors..talk to people who rent from these folks...find out if they're easy to get incontact with.

Especially for people who rent...make SURE that renter gains your trust..if he doesn't you may not be ready to own land..or not supposed to be renting from them

~Lana

Amen Lana.


Also as I mentioned in another thread there is a *real* rental scam going on right now where an avatar hangs out around rental properties and suckers people into paying them directly instead of paying the estate owner, so, people who are planning to rent need to be careful to perform their due diligence and make sure they are paying the right person.

I've spent, on a busy Friday evening, eight solid hours answering IM's at full typing speed except for a few five minute breaks, logging out in the wee hours of Saturday morning only to find, Sunday, a couple dozen notecards waiting for me. Which I respond to, during yet another IM hurricane across a number of hours.

If that volume dumped to email... sir, if I were to answer them, I would not sleep. I'd be at the secondlife userbase's beck and call 24/7. Sure, there are lulls... but then weeks at a time with no respite in sight.

No, an assistant can't help. They seem to want to talk to me. A huge number start out: "Hi" and proceed to "how are you" and so forth. Is this bad? No. I like people. I answer everything I see. I generally get on easier with new residents, too - they seem to have far less attitude. Maybe that's my problem too - inworld so long, that answering IM's for several hours is exhausting, not always uplifting.

The simple act of "send me a notecard" has the remarkable effect of filtering it - if even the tiniest amount of effort is involved, the firehose of text cuts down to something almost manageable.

I think it's fair, in extreme situations. The SL client is nothing like a business tool, at least, not yet.

Des I cant imagine that you dont have reliable assistants. Incorporate your name..start a group where the group name is Desmond Shang in world and distribute that work load

~Lana

Desmond, you impress me. The first time I met you at your mansion you were cordial and engaging even while being amazingly busy. My future IM's when I was interested in a home in Caledon were answered very quickly. I was kind of sad that I was given a large lot of land for L$5 just two days before I apparently made it down your waiting list.

I don't know how you do it. I'd kill to have your time management skills.

My estate is a small squib compared to Des' Big Bang - yet I can guarantee at least two hours a day dealing with residents' issues. Fortunately I have Fatima as a partner who shares the load with me - but factor that into a) RL travel and work; RL living and housework; SL creating etc etc etc - and well my sleep time tends to get a hit.

I too would prefer notecards, but most residents just use IMs - it's the immediacy I guess

Inc

Yep nothing like talking sweet to someone on voice then noticing the keyboard clicking as they IM people and work EBay listings

If people are set on talking to me and I manage umpteen sims..i start a group and all my managers tags will say Lana Tombas Alt. ((real name beneath)). Hey..if anyone asks and insists..say suuure I'm Desmond.

Would involve handing over those babies to compentent hands though.

~Lana

Desmond, we all love and respect you and Caledon, but I think your volume of IMs is something you have elected into with the sims you've taken on, and puts you in a relatively tiny minority of business owners. And in the context of this discussion about what's wrong with this business owner, the size of one's empire doesn't absolve them of their responsibility to handle every customer's issues. You've found a way to deal with it, and that's amazing and enviable.

So in the future, when I make a rash absolute statement that's bound to have exceptions, I'll try to remember to qualify it with, "until you own over 30 sims, and that might not work."

I still assert that the notecard thing, while a very good idea, is not obvious to your typical avatar walking around in SL. I would never know to do that if I weren't a forum junkie. So it's excellent advice as a followup for a person who's getting no response. But I still say (reworded this time) that every business owner should have a way to handle their IMs. Size is no excuse.

Yeah I agree with that Avion, and it's also mandatory to put 'notecards instead of IM's if I'm offline please' in the profile if IM's aren't used; that sort of thing.

Indeed, taking care of people is really important. The *only* thing I outright ignore are blind tp's without even a comment.

Other than that, I've answered every IM I've seen since Desmond was made, with two exceptions (and *believe me* they weren't customer IM's - gods, do I get some interesting ones, largely having to do with my 'no partner' status inworld I suspect).

The other thing, is that it's not just Caledon; I think it's the SL Handbook exposure that does it, too. I get a lot of random people just wanting to talk, because they saw me in the book. Which is actually really fun when I have the time - I like new people. But it can get kinda overwhelming depending what else is going on.

With regard to other landlords, IM's, &c - I doubt this thread's situation falls into the scam category. Scammers rarely try to befriend you, once the money's paid. Sounds more like a grid glitch, or misunderstanding, or who-knows-what. Worth another try, if only for closure and personal understanding, I'd say.

I guess it's just me, but I find it much easier to deal with and track IMs that went to email than to sift through notecards. And if I put in my profile to please send notecards if I'm offline, seems I'd be pretty much assured of getting a lot of IMs just asking if I'm online or not, which would kind of pollute the time I am online. (Admittedly, I have just a few tenants, all of long standing and with parcel permissions to do most everything, so I get very few requests. Hence, in all likelihood, I don't know what I'm talking about. )

FWIW, I also don't think the OP's erstwhile landlord is running a scam. There's really no process short of bankruptcy that screens incompetents from the rental business. Not even in RL.

(Seems it would be a lot more difficult to run a rental scam on the Mainland than on an Estate with up-front fees. Pocketing an ill-gotten week's worth of rent would be a pretty slow way to break in to a life of crime.)

To the OP, I read the first post and a majority of the thread but if I missed something please do feel free to clarify. A few questions popped into my head. When you said you IMd the landlord, did you do so only once or more than that? With the issue of IMs capping most are correct in assuming that the landlord didnt receive your IM.

If you 'didnt' send another IM, it could be as simple as SL being so wonky that you are laying blame on the wrong landlord. In the past when I did rentals I would often have IMs asking to be invited to the group for the renters and/or their friends/family. There were many times that I didnt get these messages right away and would send those group invites as soon as I saw them. Many times I had to re-send them because SL ate the invite while they were offline. This could have happened in your situation. If you failed to contact them again later, they wouldnt know there was still a problem or that you didnt get the group invite, and wouldnt know if or when you are online if you didnt accept the friend invitation to communicate with you. You didnt expect them to search you up randomly during the day to see if you were on did you? That would have been a pain, so I am sure that isnt the case.

They probably figured they would be able to actually communicate with you when they saw you come online, more than likely not even thinking you would decline the friend invitation. If they have more than only a few rentals, I would imagine their friend list is quite large. If they didnt realize you turned down their friend invitation, they would have likely just thought you were offline since they probably dont search through that area of their list.

Having group invites get eaten is common. The last home I rented was fabulous, but it took a full week to get an invite to a friend of mine because every one the landlord sent never got to her. I know she was sending them because my roommate got hers right away. These things happen and most often the best thing to do is be persistant in communicating by way of IMs and notecards.

The only reason I am so concerned about the post is you right away question it as a scam when it could easily be a misunderstanding. In this time in SL, there are scams coming at people left and right. While I can understand ones worry, I do hate to see people jump the gun and cry 'is this a scam?' with each misunderstanding.

I would suggest, for your own peace of mind as well, that you continue to try and contact the landlord. The prim count rental boxes are skarood, so thats not their fault (why people use those with how wonky they are is beyond me really >.< and the group invite could just as well be accidental too. Good luck finding a new place to rent, having a home is fantastic within SL when you find just the right place.

When I first posted this thread, I did mention the "scam" hypothesis, but I did put some effort into making my post sound more inquisitive than accusatory. At least, that's what I was going for - if my post did come off as accusatory or defensive, know now that wasn't what was intended.

I'm not absolutely convinced this landlord did everything he could or should have to resolve the issue - however, it's clear from the advice of others in this thread that I could've done more as well. So, once again I'll thank you all, and I'm comfortable considering this situation [Resolved] (as our friends the Lindens might say) and putting it behind me.

Contacting the landlord to explain the situation seems moot at this point; I've visited the place and all the rental cabins are gone, replaced by empty fields with "For Sale" signs on them. Things move on.

As an interesting (I think) postscript; since I first posted this thread, I HAVE visited more rental agencies and properties, and have finally rented a new place. I'm paying around three times as much, but I don't mind because the place is absolutely perfect for me. The location is perhaps the best possible place in all of SL (in my callow opinion), considering my interests, and the landlord is awesome. He personally showed me the place, and after a look around I rented it on the spot. He (being right there and all) invited me to the group immediately, and spent what must've been no less than 20 minutes with me, acquainting me with things. He gave me a box full of notecards which explained how everything worked, but that wasn't good enough for him; he actually hung around and taught me how to operate the doors, windows, radio, and parcel permissions, and stayed with me until I felt comfortable with the controls. He explained prim limits and how to get more, and also explained certain other perks and privileges I would be able to enjoy as a renter at this place. When, after all of that (which was much more than I expected, and certainly more than I felt was required of a landlord), he finally sent a friend invite, I was quite happy to accept it.

I'm not going to post the landlord's name, because I don't want to seem like a walking ad. But I was highly impressed with the service, and felt like sharing. After starting the thread with what basically amounts to a whine, I hope this provides a bit of balance.

Thanks for the update Dakota and congrats on finding such a great place with a great landlord.

The Crime
Under section 1343, it is a crime for a person

who has devised or intends to devise a scheme or artifice to
defraud, or
to obtain money or property by means of false or fraudulent
pretenses
representations, or
promises
to transmit, or cause to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication, any
writings
signs
signals
pictures, or
sounds
for the purpose of executing the scheme or artifice. 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (2005).
Much like the wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, it is simpler to say that wire fraud consists of devising a scheme or artifice to defraud and then using the nation's telecommunications networks to carry that scheme out.
The Punishment
A violation of section 1343 can be punished by

a fine,
imprisonment for not more than 20 years, or
both.
If a violation of section 1343 affects a financial institution, the punishment will be

The formatting of your post was a bit rough - But - this is a very interesting point.

It sure sounds like it fits the spirit of wire fraud at least to use Second Life to intentionally obtain money from people and then not provide the service promised.

bump

since this one didn't get Deleted w/o Comment.

Why would this thread get deleted? There is no account named in a bad way and its a legitimate RA question with good answers as to what happens sometimes when renting from a less than competent/scrupulous landlord and tips on what to do when assessing land to rent.