How did I lose ownership of an object?

This has happened to me twice. I was given a no-copy object as a gift, and I put it out in a public area. Some time later, I find that it now belongs to someone else! The first instance, I just discovered it when I tried to move the object. The second time, I saw an odd item in my transaction log where a person had paid me for something I didn't have for sale. I went in-world, and the object was still there, but no-longer owned by me.

If I accidentally had a no-copy item for sale, and someone bought it, wouldn't it just be gone? How can it be owned by someone else, but still be sitting there? Both of these objects contained scripts.

What do I need to check to make sure I don't lose more objects?

Right click it, edit, general tab, make sure the for sale box is NOT checked

If it were set to sell the original, someone can buy it and it will remain there if they don't "take" it.

Thank you Arch, and Gaybot.

So that brings up another issue. I was under the impression that you couldn't transfer ownership of an object to someone else without taking it into inventory and giving it to the other avatar. Is what you describe above the way to do it?

once an item is sold, ownership transfers. This is how the shops in SL operate - the vendors don't have the item in their personal inventory - it's in-world.

You can transfer ownership by leaving an item on the ground set to sell original and the other person would come along and buy it, as apparently occurred here. You do not ever have to take the item into your own inventory or physically give the item to someone else to transfer it.

Yes, it's one way. You can set the for sale box to do different things, u can sell the original prim/prims, sell a copy of the prim/prims, or put things in the contents folder of the prim and set it to sell contents.

Simply set the box for sale or check the "share with group" or "allow anyone to copy".

You can go to your MY ACCOUNT page of the SL Webiste and then select MY TRANSACTIONS from the list in the upper right. This will tell you who bought the item from you.

The list is only kept for 30 days, and you'll have to select the date(s) you think are when this happened, but if you can figure it out, you might be able to buy back your item for the amount you "sold" it for.

~Jessy