Receiving L$ from a person for unknown reasons

No - since the time and date you file your support ticket is recorded by LL, I say as long as you don't let your account balance fall below the level of the questionable deposit, you're fine to spend money. They'll see transactions, but they'll also see that you filed a ticket and haven't "spent" that money.

Well you might say that, but it isn't the case.

The money trail is what's important and not the apparent balances retained in any single account.

They will still have to trace any fund transfers via you, up until the point it is cashed into RL currency.

Whether or not you keep an equitable L$ balance in SL means diddly squat if you've passed currency from AL Capone via your account to an avatar belonging to Sidney Capone in Corsica. Who then finances his "business" exporting olives back into the USA.

**

Ok, back in the real world.

The other day I was accidently sent L$500 which was intended as a tip for a stripper in a busy local club.

I thought it best to keep the money and report the incident to LL just in case I'd stumbled across an international laundering cartel.

However, in the meantime, the punter became a bit upset and I had to give a surprisingly expert pole dance just to get out of the place alive.

As yet LL haven't responded. I think they're too busy dealing with complaints logged by club clientele, who reported lasting psychological damage caused by the sight of my hairy buttocks wrapped around a pole.

You may wax hyperbolic if you so choose; the fact is, peoples' accounts really have been frozen when LL thinks somebody has gotten money fraudulently; reporting it and then waiting for LL to tell you it's OK to do anything with it is the logical course of action. Calling live support won't take weeks; I'm sure you can hold off on buying a new end table until the support chat Linden says "it's OK". $Lindens are not tangible things; you cannot "give back the same lindens" somebody sends you, you can only send an equal value. If your reasoning is that sending the money back means that LL won't be scrutinizing any transaction you make afterwards should it turn out that somebody's gotten lindens illegally - well, go ahead I guess.

/me is almost dumbstruck that he and the kid are on the same side for once, but since someone without recourse to expert legal opinion (who seems to believe that common sense applies to the legal systems of the UK and USA) is on the other side, that is hardly surprising.

Pep (Professionally qualified to comment)

Dear Lord,

Ok you win, it's a serious legal issue and the OP's freedom hangs in the balance.

Let's just hope the valuable legal counsel he's received from Pep stands him in good stead, because as the "kid"'s last post seemed to intimate, he's doomed either way..

As a "professional" Pep, perhaps you'd like to point me in the direction of statute and case law covering this, especially the old 5 year thing?

As I say, I have myself had to deal with the new regs (as at December 2007) and might have to change counsel because they seem differently informed to you?

I'm always happy to learn at the foot of the master

PS.. although as an aside, the guys I hire are expensive because they always seem to have other clients to counsel in the middle of the day. You apparently like to spend your 6 minute allotments in SL, oh and "sleeping on a couch in the showroom"...

it seems that paying back or not, living your second life as usual or not, no matter what, you risk getting fucked up by LL

No need to be formal


Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) Section 334 2(b) Penalties




Pep (Last of the free advice here)

Alternate explanation sliced with Occam's Razor:

Perhaps this person merely put the wrong Avatar key into a vendor machine that splits the profits from the sales of their items. The money comes in that person's name because the vendor belongs to them.

I would approach the situation from that angle. Send that person a notecard as you continue to return the money. It could be that they aren't responding because they are away from SL right now or because they just don't go in-world very often or because they use a different avatar most of the time.

EDIT: Nevermind, just saw the OP's post #11, which is the obvious reason.