Stopping the "Estate Land Sales" scam

So let's see some abuse reports.

Fraud is listed as a viable A.R.

Whisper.

Can someone tell me the difference between land sale and land rental in SL? As far as I know they are the same.

Course i realize this is a arguable topic, but generally land sales require a upfront cost, with a monthly land fee, and land is in your name, whereas rental requires no upfront cost but usually a higher land fee, typically weekly rental fee, and land is NOT in your name

just to futher iterate the original topic, rentals should not be on the land sales search whatsoever, be it exploit or honest rental, its not the correct place for rental advertisement, especially when it impedes land actual land sales

Mainland and estate land sales are entirely different things and perhaps the estate land sales should be removed from the general land search along with the rentals. All I know is that many new people "buy" land from estate owners and are shocked when the estate owner fails to pay their tier, or decides to boot them, and they are left with nothing.

Maybe Linden Labs could develop a new search tab for estate land with appropriate warnings that Linden Labs has nothing to do with these "sales" and let the buyer beware.

Land sales.... you retain full control of the land, including resale.

Land rents... you have no control or rights, and the actual 'owner' could flake out and kick you off seconds after taking your 'rent' money.

So then all estate lands is never land sales by 3Ring definition:
For estate lands the estate manager can also flake out and kick you off and reclaim the land even if it has your name on it.

If I am wrong about the facts below would someone correct me:

MAINLAND -
1) You must be premium member
2) You buy from LL
3) parcel in your name
4) and can resale
5) You must pay monthly tier (usage fee) to LL

ESTATE -
1) You do not need to be premium member
2) You buy from Estate manager
3) the estate owner may or may not let the parcel be in your name
4) Estate manager may or may not let you resale
5) You must pay rent (tier/usage fee) to Estate manager
6) Estate manger have the ability to reclaim land anytime they want

Number 6 in Estate can apply to mainland.

Are you saying LL is the estate manager when it comes to mainland? If that's the case, they only reclaim land if you don't pay your tier or are in violation of the TOS and you are suspended. An estate owner can come up with a myriad of reasons to boot your butt from his land.

I didnt mind the small 'deposit' price when I searched for land. I wanted to pay by Paypal via a 'request payment' from the landowner with all the details of the land that was being sold in the request. Land sales are not set up for Paypal payments. LL take premium member payment via CC or Paypal so it seems they prefer this method of payment also.

"2) You buy from LL " ? ........ Nope!
LL only sell new full sims or reclaimed plots at Auction.

The normal way for end users to buy land is to buy it from other residents.
When you buy mainland, the previous owner is then completely out of the picture. They have absolutely nothing to to with the land any more. Thank you and goodnight.
Having paid the purchase price to the previous owner, you then pay LL at standard rates of monthly tier.

People get into semantics, asserting that both estate and mainland are both simply 'renting'.
That ignores the fact that for mainland land sales:
1) The only party that can throw you off your own land is LL. While you continue to pay tier and don't manage to get your account suspended for gross TOS violations, it's 'yours'.
2) The tier (rent) structure is exactly the same for everyone on mainland. When comparing mainland parcels, the up-front price is the *only* cost differential.

Ok, just to get it back on the topic of estate rental land being set for sale (I think there are plenty of other threads detailing the differences between mainland / estate sales / estate rentals)

I set my estate land to 1L$, to enable renters to have the land in their name. I don't do it to game the search system, in fact I'd be happy for it to not appear there. I specify the price of the rental right in the land description, so it's visible to anybody searching. I also specify it in the covenant, right at the top, which is displayed to anybody who attempts to buy the land.

I could do it the other way around, so that none of the land is set for sale, and once somebody goes and rents it I set it to them. However, there's no absolute guarantee that I'll be able to get in world to do that in a timely manner.

At the moment, setting it for sale is the only system available to transfer land into renters names without my intervention, and I'm going to continue using it for that purpose until something more suitable is available.

Having a certain person describe this as a scam is extremely misleading.

I really dont think its misleading for saying that type of action is misleading, after all went your fresh customers found thru the LAND SALES SEARCH? and you dont think thats a little misleading?, and your also going to continue to do it at the expense of legitimate land sellers.... Stephen maybe you should step back and take a look at what your saying, and evaluate what your doing, cause the hammer is going to fall sooner or later

No one is getting hurt, and no one is getting 'mislead'. Its a method of advertisement, and I just don't understand what the big deal is...

I never said it wasn't misleading. I said it wasn't a scam. There's a difference. I'm not intentionally misleading people, however I do accept that there is a potential for confusion. As I said, I put my rental rate in the description, and state quite clearly that it's a rental in the covenant that people would have to agree to before acquiring the land.

You seem to be assuming that people setting land for sale at 1L$ are doing it to get to the top of the Estate For Sale list. In my case at least, that is not true. I need a way to let my renters acquire their land without me being present, and the only way to do that is to set it for sale. I don't want to make money on that initial "sale" however, so I set it as low as I can. I'm not interested in it being in the For Sale list, I'd be perfectly happy if it wasn't there, or in a separate Rentals list.

I don't have the ability to make it not show up there however, and I don't have the ability to automatically set it for sale only to the person who paid the rental box. If you want me out of the For Sale list, get LL to implement one of those. Until they do, I'm in the For Sale list, for better or for worse.

As for legitimate land sellers, IMO there's no such thing as a legitimate estate land seller other than LL. You're just charging up front for a rental.

I wonder then, if a quick temperary fix for LL would be to have a opt out function on the land sales search, where if your land is intended as rental and not outright sale you can chose to opt out of the listing. Might be fanicful thinking but I do see the need for rental management to be able to get their product out to people em masse in the same manner that land sales are.
Though it's not really on topic, as the thread is about the exploit in the land sales seach, I do feel that general misleading contributes to the larger problem of the land sales search.
I DO remember LL saying something on thier blog about new seach structure, but from what I read there was absolutely nothing about the land sales tab in it, which means LL might not be responding to the issue

Since I know LL is more apt to do something when financial gain is in the mix, I dont think adding a listing fee is a bad idea, for one it would knock off the "advertisement with no interest of sale" people, 9999999 for a 1024 plot , um ok, and second it would maybe limit the amount of rental listed in the land sales search

I'd love to see LL split the mainland and estate 'land sale' into two separate tabs. Personally my rental properties are listed in 'land sales' because that is the only automatic mechanism that LL has provided. I set my available properties for sale, and the sell price is the 1st month's rent. I like this mechanism because it means that new customers can get started immediately and I don't have to be online to help out. They get the parcel in their name, they can customize the options and start building and don't need me around. And they don't need to worry about finding a rent box and I don't need to worry about chasing them down to talk about rent.

My parcel names / descriptions are clear that the land is rental, that there's a covenant, and that the 'sell price' is the first month's rent. I have not had a single customer say they were confused or that they didn't know they had to continue paying the rent each month.

I don't have a problem with the L$1 stuff if it's actually for sale. I vaguely remember, as a noob looking for land, going to a few L$1 listings only to find out after that it wasn't a super-amazing deal and very quickly learned to ignore the L$1 land.

I am a bit uncomfortable with the term 'land sale' because you never really own anything in SL. Mainland might be a 'safer' purchase, but you only need to find your formerly-beautiful parcel to be suddenly surrounded by adfarms and spinning xxx signs once, to realize there are some benefits to a well-managed estate.

On topic: I remember reading about this exploit a few months ago when the original thread started. I can't say that it's hurt me though -- most of my residents have come to me through referrals. Having my available lots listed in the 'land sales' search (even if they're on page 10 or whatever) has not played a big part for me, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, I wouldn't 'opt out' if that were available, because every little bit helps.

-Atashi

I would like to see a proper in-world rental system that is part of the SL platform in the same way as land buying. The 'rent land out' option would work like the 'sell land' option, except that the tenant can't re-sell the land and you still pay the tier. At the end of the rental period the land and its prim allowance revert to you.

That would be an alternative to the rental boxes in the case of whole parcels of land, but the boxes would still be useful for renting out shops etc.

Hi Atashi, to me that sounds like outright sales, because you chose to call it rental is a matter of preference, but you sell land it deeds in the resident name... thats sales

I'll tell you of a expereince my hubby had just yesterday that prompted all this, looking thru land sales search, he found a plot listed for L$1 it was rougly 27k meters in size, on the private sim of kandee siomething, the company owning the sim was Breeze Realty, (am I allowed to name companys?).. He teleported to the plot, found not only was that plot not for sale , but no plot on the sim was for sale, was approached by the sim owner, and asked what size of plot he was looking for, he replied with the plot that was listed for sale for L$!, inwhich the sim owner replied that he should "smarten up" , no plots are really for sale for L$1. to which my hubby replied, then why would it be listed for L$1 when there is no land for sale, and suggested maybe the sim owner should smarten up. the sim owner replied with" we'll se how we both smarten up" and of course was ejected from the sim....

It was kind of funny that in that short time 4 people teleported in and heard fragments of the conversation, and all of them expressed displeasure with this listing tactic

A deal where the 'seller' can take the land off the 'buyer' by
- taking it back on a whim with no recourse for the 'buyer'
- selling the sim
- going out of business

?? All of those have happened to enough people that it's a known issue.

That's not a 'sale' to the person who pays.

I prefer to call it rental rather than sales, for the following reasons --
* I do not allow resale of parcels, the 1st month's rent is not refundable or reclaimable by transfering the land.
* The land is covenanted and residents are expected to abide by the zoning rules and other restrictions (eg. although technically they can set up general banlines, it is prohibited by covenant.)
* Although I have no desire to do this, I could reclaim the land at any time for any reason.

Any one of those, IMHO is enough to make me not want to call it 'sales'. The first point being the biggest one, I think. If I charged a 'realistic' upfront fee and I allowed resale, then I would consider calling it 'sales'. In the end though, the way that everything is skewed in favor of the estate owner, I am more comfortable leaving it as rent, plain and simple.

That experience you had with the L$1 / 27k meter lot sounds like the exploit that was discussed... it seems wierd though, why would you want to attract people to your estate just to piss them off? Something about that business plan eludes me...

-Atashi

Same can be said for LL reclaimation of properties also, you can view LL current reclaimations and resells here http://ld.auctions.secondlife.com/Scripts/LotSearch.asp?submitFlag=1&PrevURL=%2Fdefault.htm&TitleOnly=N&SearchMode=&ProdName= so again, in SL there is a definiton of sales, that is not the exact definition of sales in the real world. But then agian in the real world, if you dont pay your land taxes, mortgage payment, or evade taxes, or get sued, or get busted with marijuana, you may also lose your home and or properties

I have no idea at all doesnt seem like a good practice to have your first contact with a potential buyer be negative one, but enough people are doing it that it must be beneficial somehow.

THERE ARE MULTIPLE TOPICS GOING ON IN THIS THREAD

1. it is not a scam to set land for $1 and have it as a rental. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE ORIGINAL POSTER IS REFERRING TO

2. The scam is showing your land for $1 but the land is really $14,400L. THATS the SCAM.

I hope everyone tries to pull back to the original topic because it really is a matter in need of attention by LL.

Why L$1 then? Why not one week's rent or one month's rent? Wouldn't that be fairer to the perspective renter?




And I don't rent mainland from LL then?