Any place to file a complaint?

This morning I went shopping for some full permission animations to use in my creations, I spent quite a big amount of Lindens there almost 30k Lindens. I noticed they were non mod as they came into my inventory, but as many places box their things and make their boxes non transfer or non mod, I really didnt worry. Once I got home, and I rezzed them to get them off their boxes, I was surprised to see they were balls, and both the balls and the animations are non mod. So here I am, stucked with a bunch of unusable animations as I cant change the names on them (names are loooooooooooooooooooong and that would make the blue menus huge too, or unreadable). Contacted the creator and his response was the following:
CREATOR OF ANIMATIONS:Hello the poseballs should be modify so you can rip them out, the only reason the aniamtions are no mod is to prevent them from being removed out of secondlife with 2nd inventory and reuploaded anywhere. there are no restrictions wihtin secondlife that having the aniamtion no mod should cause you. Even the simple sit scripts that take the name of the aniamtion for the menu have ways built in to change the menu name from that
[13:14] Pleasekissme1 Littlething: I cant change the names
[13:14] Pleasekissme1 Littlething: that's my problem
[13:15] Pleasekissme1 Littlething: I cant change it using perfect sitter
CREATOR OF ANIMATIONS: yes eprfect sitter has the solution for that
I checked wiht the ownerwhen somone else broguht that up
CREATOR OF ANIMATIONS: Ill contact him again I cant remeber what it is to change the menu
CREATOR OF ANIMATIONS: you poaidf for a license yes to use ithem in your furniture not to pretend you made them (Im not saying you are but 2nd inventory allows anything full perm to be taken out of sl into your hard drive)
CREATOR OF ANIMATIONS: and since i told you that perfect sitter does have a way to change the menu im wondering why your still pushing me?
After this, all I got was silence when I talked to him.

My question is simple, is there any place in SL where we can file a complaint for misrepresentation or fraud? He has huge red letters all over his store saying they're full permissions, they even make you join a group after sending an application, landmarks to your stores and so on, just to sell you non modifiable items.
Are we totally unprotected from this kind of fraud?

Thank you for your responses.

There is a fraud category in AR's now I believe. File an inworld Abuse Report

Woah! but this isn't fraud!

I don't know Perfect Sitter, but it is a trivial matter for a script to use a different name for menus than what the animation asset is named. I've done it many times in my own scripts because "full perm" animations are very commonly no-mod.

I beleive Perfect Sitter does allow you to rename animations on the config notecard so they are different for the menu buttons.

I have no idea on how to modify the scripts in the perfect sitter, I could learn though, but that's not the issue here, the issue is he is selling FULL perms, as stated in his store with huge red letters, full perms meaning copy/mod/transfer as far as I know.
Anyway, at the moment I'm out of 30k and no usable animations, as I have NO clue on how to modify the sitter.
This is the first time I had this issue, all animations I have so far (a lot) have been sold to me as full perm and they're full perm. I have not seen partial full perm animations anywhere but in that place.

This is not meant to be snarky, but you should read the instructions for the perfect sitter. Also the creator was very helpful to me when there was a part of the instructions I did not get. It wouldn't hurt to IM him.

IMO, having Copy/Transfer permissions for animations is full perms.

30k Linden is worth a trip to the courthouse for small claims filing.

This page might help you with the changes.
http://digilander.libero.it/usemac/psit2.html

Hello Felix, we all know our own limitations, I'm good with prims, but scripts are completly a mistery to me, I simply drop them in the prims and hope they do their work, modifying them is completly off limits for me.
I learned how to use the perfect sitter because somebody grabbed my hand during the process, giving me precise instuctions on what to drop after what, reading the instructions sounds nice, but they're usually so technical that I would be terrified and simply wouldnt use the product, as I have done with so many many things. I have to say english is not my first language, so I have to translate to my own, sometimes simple english is not understood, just imagine technical one. So, reading those instuctions and understanding what to do is not what I can do, besides, if I pay for all permissions to be able to do what I know how to do, why should I bother in complicating my processes because somebody says he is selling what he's not?

Whether or not it's actual fraud is something I don't know, but "full perms" really does mean mod/copy/transfer and not just 2 of the 3. If they are sold as full perms, then it's certainly false advertising, imo.

As a content creator I would assume that you would understand the need for creators to protect their content as much as they can from potential theft or misuse. Time and time again animators find that their copy/transfer/mod animations are being sold by others as opposed to being used within objects created by others OR they are finding them being distributed as freebies OR finding that their animations are being uploaded to other grids (as the animator in your chatlog described). To combat this, MANY animators are choosing to make their animations no mod.

As a content creator myself I know that I would be beside myself if I found that my creations were being misused in any of these fashions.

The items being no mod do NOT make them unusable. It simply means that they way YOU use them within your creations with Perfect Sitter or other animation script systems may need to be different. As the Creator of Perfect Sitter says on his own website at http://digilander.libero.it/usemac/psit2.html , "You can easily change the menu buttons labels! Just edit the LAST ITEM of the notecard lines (by default it's the animation name)."

I would advise that instead of making accusations about a product not being what is advertised and not being usable that in the future you may want to seek advise on how to make it work. As the animation creator said in his chat with you, he had in fact previously spoken with the creator of Perfect Sitter and confirmed that the button names were able to be altered and was willing to try to contact the Perfect Sitter creator for more info. One option would have been for you to contact him as well.

Just my two cents (or 2L)...

~ Desi

You're right Desi, but my question here was not about my ability or limitations to use scripts, but about where to file a complaint, as he is announcing to sell full perm animations, he can simply say they're copy/transfer but no mod, then we would know if we should buy them or not, but when they say FULL PERM, it should have FULL perms
I do sell my creations non copy, but I state that, many people ask me to make them copyable, I say no and they can decide if they buy them or not, but I dont go saying its full perm so when they get home they find out they were lied to.

In Perfect Sitter, you are not required to modify the scripts. You DO have to modify the configuration notecard (called multipose settings) in order to orient the avatar properly on the seat.

The entry looks like this:

<-0.80530, 1.04768, 0.41368>,<-2.23989, -1.26403, 1.08019>,longest_name_ever_for_a_sitting_animationv2 M,1536,Sit

After the orientation vectors (<-0.80530, 1.04768, 0.41368>,<-2.23989, -1.26403, 1.08019> all you have to do is add a short name at the end of each animation config line.

The instructions in the notecard are very clear. The animation in the case above will just display "Sit" on the HUD.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

lmao, was that english? it could have been chinese for me
/me cries in frustration

While I understand the point...that Full Perms means all 3 perms are yes and that was what you believed to be buying and not what you got, I guess I wonder why you are bringing it to this extreme. The main complaint I see in your original post is this:



You have a creator who (per your chatlog) was trying to be responsive and help you figure out how to work with Perfect Sitter and the animations you received.



I suppose you are within your right to make a complaint as yes it was advertised as Full Perms and it is only C/T. I guess I personally would go the flexible route of understanding that there was an error made in how to list permissions and take the opportunity of learning something new in SL since Perfect Sitter CAN change button names. There are a lot of people in SL who would be willing to assist you in learning how to do that--mostly likely including the creator of Perfect Sitter.

Again...just my two cents...

~ Desi

Full perms is copy/mod/transfer. If the seller doesn't want to release full perms, he shouldn't advertise full perms. If he's right and you don't really NEED "mod" then that won't hurt sales. If people DO care about mod, and he's hiding the fact that his products are no-mod, then he's engaging in deceptive advertising.

The OP deserves a full refund, whether you think there's a workaround for this problem or not. "Almost full perms and there's a workaround" is not the same as "full perms".

If they were advertised as full perm and were not in fact full perm, that's fraudulent.
Full perms is copy/mod/transfer. If the seller doesn't want to release full perms, he shouldn't advertise full perms. If he's right and you don't really NEED "mod" then that won't hurt sales. If people DO care about mod, and he's hiding the fact that his products are no-mod, then he's engaging in deceptive advertising.

The OP deserves a full refund, whether you think there's a workaround for this problem or not. "Almost full perms and there's a workaround" is not the same as "full perms".
That's their right, but they then have to disclose that when they sell it. Not claim that they're selling the product "full perm".
Irrelevant. The product was sold "full perm", and it's not "full perm". If the seller made a *mistake* then their response should be "I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I will correct my advertising and give you a refund", not "There's a workaround but I can't be bothered looking it up for you, bye".

For most products I would agree and you are right full perms means copy/mod/trans, but mod for animations only means you can mod the name of the animation. The creator of the animations does need a fine print disclaimer explaining this.

If it is just a matter of principle then fine, but as another poster pointed out to the OP, solutions were presented and the animations they purchased are hardly unusuable without the ability to mod the names, especially with the perfect sitter scripts they are using.

"Fraud" by definition requires intent to deceive, not mere inaccuracy. I agree that that anims should have been labeled "Copy AND Transfer" or something like that, instead of "Full Perm", but I've encountered the same terminology used by several animators for the same set of permissions, so it's almost standard parlance in that business, misleading though it may be.

I really think the place to complain is to the animators who follow this practice, not to LL nor to some (shudder) virtual Better Business Bureau.

You'll note I wasn't disputing her right to complain. I agree...she didn't get what she paid for. I won't even dispute her right to ask for a refund.

However...in my personal opinion...it's not the choice *I* would make. I personally check perms in the contents of the vendor before I purchase. I personally understand the need for no mod (don't get me wrong--I understand the issue is that he advertised full perms and the animations aren't). I personally see an easy work around (adding one little tiny word at the end of a line in a notecard that the user already has to edit). I also wouldn't want the creator of what I assume are quality animations (as 30K was spent on them) to be out that amount because they made a most likely innocent mistake (I truly doubt it's purposeful deception). Even if I get the refund I still keep them in my inventory and they ARE usable as C/T. Personally *I* CAN be bothered to learn to add a one word pose name on a notecard.

I'm not saying that's what she should do. By all means....if she feels strongly about it then she should do what she feels is right. The above would just be my personal approach.

~ Desi

Totally agree.

Changing the name of an animation is an action a customer may want to do. For example, I have a lot of animations with complex names like "[DD] M9 cute walk 5 blah blah..." that I REALLY would like to change to "DD cute walk 5" because it's a pain in the tuckus to type into a notecard for my AO. A reseller might want to give the final customer an anim with a name that conforms to *their* standard naming convention. If they are not allowed to do that, then they *must* be informed of that before they buy it.

It may be a minor thing, but it is not "full perm", and it's advertised as full perm then that's fraud.

It's not "just" a matter of principle. There are legitimate reasons for changing the name, even if in this case there's a workaround for the specific purpose the OP is currently interested in using them for. There are other situations where a workaround is clumsy, or even impossible (for example, you're replacing a specifically named animation where you don't have the source of the animation script).

I have in the past purchased products where the creator accidentally gave them the wrong permissions. In almost every case I received a full refund, because most sellers are honorable. I would expect no less if I were the OP here.

As a seller in SL, I don't believe I am misstating myself when I say I have never left an unsatisfied customer without a full refund. I've also, on occasion, provided free upgrades to people who I am certain did not actually buy my product in the first place.

This is just basic customer service. If the seller was advertising those animations as "full perm" and is not willing to make good on that, or offer a refund, and fix their error... then I would indeed describe what they're doing as "fraud".

they're perfectable usable if you know how to use them
I dont!
There, I recognice my limitations
That's why I buy only FULL perm.
But as I stated before, my question is not how to use them, as I have no time, nor brains to learn to use something I didnt buy, my question was if there's somewhere I can complain, so he stops saying they're full perm, and he gives me a full perm set, which I paid for.
I dont think LL will intervene in this dispute, but I would like to know if there's a better business buro of some kind in SL, or in the internet that can mediate in this.

If the seller does not correct the misleading advertising and make good, then there is intent to deceive. It doesn't matter that other sellers are also engaged in fraud.

In the past month there's been at least one thread on the forums where someone was permabanned from XStreet for repeatedly relisting sculpties with similar limitations as "full perm", so it's not just me.

Do you dispute her right to a refund (not just "to ask for a refund"? Do you dispute that the seller needs to also fix their advertising?

And, yes, that would mean the OP gets them for free. That's their commission for letting the seller know they screwed up. I've given people full refunds for full perm products in the past, with no complaint, because that is just what I expect to be done.