A lesson in fraud

I own Lucia Bay (island with skill games) and every now and then people give me demos of games to try out. I rezzed one and it immediately took over L$65,000 from me before I could delete it. I filed a claim through the website, got a reply that they can't do anything on their end and I should file an abuse claim through the game (which I already had.) 6 days later I receive an email saying that the issue was taken care of and all recovered lindens were returned (account was credited L$0.)

Just wondering why they couldn't recover the Lindens.. They really need to implement a better system for these things. I mean, I lost almost $250 (USD) and all they did was ban an account...I mean really?

I even asked that his name be released to my lawyer (yes, I was going to spend more than I lost to get him arrested) but the Lindens ignored this request.

*sigh*

without granting debt perms?

Ouch, sorry that happened to you!

I don't think LL will release the name of a user unless there is a court order involved. Also, without verification, the only logical thing they could semi-reliably give you is the person's IP, which means a lot of work.

I am very sorry this happened to you. Its more work but if you want to do testing, do it with a alt specifically for testing and put a couple dollars in the account just to be sure. If it happens on your alt then it minimizes the damage the hack script causes.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention again, however its sad that hundreds in game will never know because they do not read the forums.

You'd need to subpoena LL for the account details (if it's an unverified account, then all you'd likely get is an IP in which case you'd also have to subpoena the ISP to get a name).

They told you that all recovered lindens were returned, and you didn't get any? Do you think that someone simply forget the part about crediting you? Have you asked them why they were recovered and returned but you didn't get yours? Perhaps there were very few lindens left in the thief's account by the time they dealt with it.

I'm sorry that this has happened to you.

I heard a similar story over the weekend RL from someone who used to run Casinos and was burned in a sting by someone they trusted. Lost a lot of money. Didn't really have a leg to stand on.

submit a ticket and add the email to it and say they have returned L$0
add the transaction log from myAccount of what the thief stole

if they say they can`t do anything or you`ve been credited *again*
resend it with all the info AGAIN with a warning of taking further steps as they are facilitating(sp) with fraud or what ever the term is along with the Linden name wich took care of it the first time

they have been return people`s money when stolen and banned accounts that do that, so if they don`t in this case, they`re digging their own grave

If the guy who did it was expecting to be banned they would clear out their account often, so it is likely they had zero Lindens and/or dollars which were indeed all handed back.

As said above, LL needs the RL legal documents to comply with this request. Once your lawyer sends such documents as needed to LL, they MUST comply, or be sued themselves for all manor of things. Not the least of which would be accomplice to fraud, and failure to comply to a court order.

Of course, LL won't give that information without that legal document for all the other host of lawsuits that could be filed if they did.

I say to get your lawyer to get the right documents filed and hang this person out to dry. However, it's your dollar that has to do it, so in whatever choice you make, good luck.

~Jessy

had a second though heh

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=4386


so because they couldn`t arse with helping you right away and left yopu to hang for 6 day, they knew that account would be cleaned out for you to get nothing.

i`d go after the linden who said you should go trough the support ticket system instead of disabling the offender right away with these amount of stolen money

If you phoned concierge or someone told you that you will get it returned and it didn't happen, then please phone concierge and point out that you never received the Linden dollars. Simply assuming that they are not returning it, is a bit naive on your part. The person you dealt with is just human and probably simply forgot to return it. So do something positive- get in touch with them and ask for your Linden Dollars.

A lesson indeed

The thing with L$ though is it is a closed system -- you cannot smuggle L$ out of the country in a suitcase. If the crook cleared his account, LL will still have a record of where every one of those L$ went. LL can recover them from whatever accounts they went to (and they have stated in the past that when they recover stolen L$ they can take up to 150% of the amount) If the stolen L$ were traded on the Lindex then LL has noone to blame (and punish) but themselves.

For what it is worth, I simply do not give debit permissions to anything. I've done it once or twice with objects that I had scripted myself, i.e. products I was making and testing, but even then I delete the object as soon as the testing is over. I have never granted debit permissions to anything I didn't script myself. I have an alt who has very, very limited funds, and it's one of her responsibilities to accept debit permissions when that is unavoidable. That way if there's some fraud or theft going on, the losses are somewhat limited in that the alt never has much L$ in her balance anyways.

-Atashi

how does a rezzed object take your money without you giving it permission?

next time, let a dirt-poor alt open your demos.

also, you should have your dirt-poor alt open that thing back up and find out what the script is so you can be sure to never rez something with sort of capability again.

It can't, but I reckon those games require permissions to operate properly anyway, so the OP probably intentionally, willingly granted permission.

Your advice about having an alt do it is sound.

Considering this is a scam involving objects where the victim is EXPECTING to grant permission, that's pretty scary/scummy.

not to mention short sighted on LL's part.

the entire debit permissions system needs looked it.

You should be able to limit the amount of payout and it should default to not ever paying the creator or last owner of the device or the script.

Additionally there should be a setting where it will only give refunds.

Now that gambling is outlawed theres simply no real reason to allow rapid large payouts.

Mag,

Sorry this happened to you. I know you can't post the person's name here, but can you tell us about the game so we can keep an eye out for it? Please send me an IM with the name, and I'll pass it on to the other game owners I know.

The way these games work, to try it out, he would have had to give debit permissions. It would make a lot of sense to use an alt, but there are so many great and legitimate game makers in SL that a potential fraud probably didn't even occur to Mag. I could have very easily made the same mistake.

Thats pretty simple to avoid by the scipter by using an Avatar UUID/key.

Tho, maybe, an idea for LL is to built in an option when you accept debit permissions,
that it will show eventually built in "loopholes" or however you call it in English.




The large amount at once is not the real problem. (ofcourse, for the robbed one it is).
Smaller amounts in longer time is what happens to people too sometimes.
Best is only accept from people you REALLY trust (and even then you are never 100% sure ofcourse). If you are not sure, us a lowfunded alt to test it indeed.

I just discovered you can also keep your lindens in USD credit and when you need money take it from there. And only buy what you need, it directly comes out of your credit.
Thus leaving you a zero balance but you need to have it 25 dollar increments. Not sure if this would help though in this situation but they can't take lindens without a balance or your permission I thought.
Yet sometimes when things are really laggy its easy to not to see the debit permission pop up sometimes. I have even run into this.

I echo this sentiment and must ask: What was the name of this game or script so that we can avoid this ourselves.

I thought it was impossible for a rezzed item to take money without granting permission. This is clearly a bug in SL that needs their attention to be fixed ASAP. If others are aware of this exploit, it could cause havoc. Please file reports with LL, sending them the script etc. They need to be aware of this vulnerability.

One of the FIRST lessons we are taught in life is to Never accept Candy from Strangers.

Then people grow up. and ALL the useful lessons of childhood go streight into the Bin.

Never EVER Res something Given to you by a Stanger Outside of a Script Disabled Zone. If you are unfamiliar with the source of an item use a little caution. it COULD be a Thief object, It Could be a Runaway self replicatiing device, it could be any number or variation of griefer device Commonly available.

You've just had an expensive lesson, Considering what it cost you, Don't waste it. You obviously didn't value the FREE advice your Mother gave you.

Angel.

Best. Advice. Ever.

I really hope peopel start reading these answers to these kind of posts BEFORE they get all their funds taken.

It does not matter how many lawyers you hire, what you file or who you talk to.

You can't sue when you gave permission.
You can't have somebody arrested when you gave permission.
You can't get your money back because... Well just because the Lindens won't do that.
You can't get their name because you have no case because you gave permission.

Fact is.... You gave permission.

See the Lindens have a loop hole in their system that all these clowns that do this kind of stuff use. Its called "Granting permissions".

Another words its not possible for anyone in SL to take money from you without YOU giving THEM PERMISSION FIRST.

So another words you had to of given the item permission to take your money. Was you tricked into it? Most likely but the point still remains that you had to give the ok for the item to do it.

I really think SL needs to find a way to flag these types of items somehow. Either with some sort of script analyzer or take better steps in investigating these claims so that they can go look at the item that was used to judge if it was intended to just take money or not.

This whole area can get very sticky on a legal point and to be honest as wrong as it seems, the Lindens are going to cover their butt first before anyone esle and doing it the way they do it now works to their advantage.

Don't get me wrong I feel for ya and I would be highly pissed. It's not right and the Lindens should do way more then they do to control this type of action but unless it becomes a huge problem where it gets the attention of the media like the whole bank schemes did, the Lindens will do nothing to change it. They have the "permissions" loop hole.

I have affectionately nick named this "PacMan". They ran a PacMan on you.

When ever you see that yellow screen of Linden death, READ IT FULLY.
Do NOT click anything on it till you read it.
And if you have no clue what it is or its not a trusted source for example somebody you know and trust then select "NO".

The second you give PacMan a "yes" your screwed. It's a 50/50 chance your going to get taken.

Hope this helps.

And remember...............
DON'T FEED THE PACMAN!

in a law suit add LL and make it VERy public
if you cant get the cash back cost LL a few more zeros then you lost