I got ripped off...what (if anything) can I do?

Hi - short & not so sweet.

I wanted to learn how to make things - clothing, animations, things like that.

I paid about $4000L for some tutorials at a sim. I won't name it outright but the appearance of the tutorials looks like the "for dummies" books.

I paid $1999L for some bad textures, a flexi skirt maker that doesn't work, a pose stand and THE most basic tutorial 'book' ever. That was one kit alone.

This person is very good at making the contents sound fabulous but then the 'tutorials' consist of a book with huge print and maybe 14 pages (probably two or three notecards TOPS) along the lines of "open appearance mode. click 'skirt'. choose a texture. 'save as'." Then some "BIAB" style bad freebies.

I feel so ripped off. Is there anything I can do?

Thanks.

Sadly, no. Next time, search events first -> education. There are a lot of helpful and totally free tutorials happening every day.

Unfortunately LL does not get involved in resident-to-resident disputes. You're unlikely to get a satisfactory solution. You can only warn others and hope that at some point he or she disappears off the Grid.

Short and sweet yes you most certainly got ripped off. One thing you can do is never buy anything in world ever again. Buy from SLX only and then at least you can rate the items and if necessary write a hideous scathing review which will scare all future customers off. Join the second life TUI group for information on courses and also for connecting with others who can teach you a lot more for free than some crappy thrown together scam fake tutorial package ever can. Silly girl, you live and learn I suppose.

Ps- If I was you I would publicise it as much as possible including putting his name and details of the shop etc in this thread.

Look up "Ivory Tower of Primitives" in search, TP there, and go through the building tutorials in the tower.

I tried Tower of Prims, it was way over my head. I like having the things on hand to go at my own pace and/or to have a teacher there to bounce questions off.

I can't name anyone cos it's against rules but let's just say my "Guide" took me far afield.

The tutes were two or more years old on top of everything else.

The animation book I thought at first seemed promising but then it just took me to some website, didn't even show a URL, and wanted me to download some .exe. Well it did download it, without asking me, but I didn't install it.

They pay for a rather large sim so they must rip people off at a steady clip.

What is TUI?

& thanks all for replying.

OP, ignore this 'advice'. Naming and shaming in that manner may earn you a suspension from the forums.

Thanks Skell. I thought so.

Honestly, the best way to learn building is rezz prims and twist them, cut them, turn them into other shapes etc etc etc. Hit every button in the build menu as much as possible.

Another thing to do is go hunt out full perrm freebies and rip them apart piece by piece so you can get a idea of whats what in them.

I personally think that's the easiest way to learn being a hand-on method and plus its fun. Once you get a idea of building, then move on to texturing and how to twist and position and shape textures.

i followed some classes at NCI (search under events - education) .
they are very good and for free (you can tip the teacher if you like)

They give all kind of classes (building, scripting, sculpty and many more)

Further to your original post, I'm guessing you want to go into clothing design? A good place to start is Natalia Zelmanov's "Mermaid Diaries" blog. Here's the link to her tutorials page:

http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html

Her store (Sirena Hair & Fashion) has a small 'tutorial supplies' wall of free items at the back, which contains (among other things) a looprezzer that can be used to make things such as necklaces and skirts.

Thanks! I will check that out - I will do my best to utilise every tip. I will even give Ivory Tower a new try.

The things at Sirena sound good. I wear Sirena hair and have never noticed those boxes somehow. (Yes clothing is a main interest and the skirt maker sounds great.)

Can anyone take NCI classes?

NCI classes are free for anyone, most join the group to have access to class announcements and the access to the groups IM for any questions to be answered. Its alkso been helping residents over 4 years in SL now.

A great way not to get ripped off is not to buy big texture packs. Its not as if you will ever use more than a few of them anyway.

Most texture sellers pack them up in sets to get rid of the ones that wouldn't sell by themselfes. A 10 Pack of Textures for 400 with 9 garbage textures and plus the one you need is 400 for one texture!

A 12 Pack of textures for 1200 where none are useable for building in SL for anything whatsoever..is a joke.. yet people buy them like they are candy.

I got burned so many times this way in the beginning and decided to put an end to that.

This part Id AR!

Now you have someone using SL to link to an infected website, which is not legal at all.

Id say even call LL and let them know the name of the Creator of the Animation Book. Let them look into it.

I'd AR this for the ninja download, delete that .exe, and run a full virus and malware scan on your PC. There's no telling what else was stealth downloaded from that site.

Now, not to play the devil's advocate here, but we have no proof it was a virus. Could as well have been a link for downloading Qavimator or something.

You could start with Torley's video tutorials - on the SL Wiki. They are very good for getting started and then go on to search for classes in world.

The Animation forum has some links to tutorials - but just a word of caution, it takes years to learn to be a good animator.

The greatest selling get rich book ever written was 2 inches thick and encased in plastic wrap to prevent peeking at the secrets within.


It consisted of one page of text and several hundred blank pages


The text: "Find a way to legally take advantage of folks. I did"

/sarcasm off

I would say find the free tutorials, and such first. Before buying anything in world.

The books on amazon would have been better as well if you wanted to buy something.

There are many good folks out there, but it's definitely buyer beware

With any "get rich quick!' scheme it's always worth pausing a moment to think, "If this guy's idea really works, why isn't HE using it instead of trying to sell it to me and six billion other people?"

Re: Flexi skirts... Ged Larsson (Larssen?) makes a tool for creating flexi skirts. Try his personal version first to play with. The "professional" version is much more expensive, since it's for people who make and sell flexi skirts, but it's worth every L$.

You can find a list and description of NCI classes at:
http://nci-sl.org/Education/Class_Descriptions

and a current PDF class schedule at:
http://nci-sl.org/education/Schedule.pdf

As Toy mentioned, they are free and open to everyone.

they beat me to it, but NCI classes are great, I took a few and am glad I did

ivory towers will seem hard if u skip parts and jump ahead... dont do this.. i did at first and left and didnt return there for 6 months . i tryed it again this time i started at the STARTING point. and worked my way around and did all the little builds and lessons they have u do... then u tp up to the next floor and do the same. i think there are 4 floors altogether but if u skip and jump ahead... then the language they use, like "shift-drag" for example will be over your head cause u didnt learn what it meant on the previous lessons. so start at the start dont skip any parts!!!!be patient, and ivory is a great place to learn. u may have to take your building projects out to the sandbox because auto return is set low in the actual ivory tower building. its like 10 min or so,,... also try youtube. search for secondlife. and they will show u and its pretty easy to follow gl

I think you should contact LL and tell them what happened. Most likely they will not help, but we have seen some rare instances where they gave peoples money back.

Odds are not good but it wont take much time to give it a try.