Looking For Residents Who Lost Money In Mixi Isl Land Scam

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I didn't see a general topics?

This post is mainly for those of you that got cheated in the Mixi Island land scam (though it might serve as a warning as it could happen to anyone so feel free to read) please read this:



First some background to get you all up to speed on what's happened so far:

Katisia Menges was involved in land fraud with Mixi Island. From what i understand, Rich Grainger, the estate owner, entered into some agreement where Katisia paid him an undisclosed amount of money to become the sim owner. Whether she bought the property by paying the land or some other way is still unclear.

What is clear is she sold residents land on Mixi, took the money, banned several of the owners and resold the land again. The entire island was sold and parts resold.

As of now, the estate owner Rich Grainger has siezed all the land back and has it up for sale again.

So Katisia Menges has all the money the residents paid in good faith for the land. Rich Grainger now has whatever money Katisia paid him and all the land as well to resell. All the other residents and purchasers of land on Mixi Island have nothing and are out money and the land they bought, most had to convert REAL money to buy this land too.

Rich at first seemed to be willing to help, he was going to talk to Katisia. As far as I know, everytime I've asked if he has talked to Katisia it was no or no response from him so I think that route has been pretty much exausted.

Rich told me Katisia didn't pay him everything she owed. So some of us offered a proposal that basically said we try to find all the residents involved and make up his cost. Which would mean, each resident would have to pay more for land they had already purchased, but Rich would get his cost back at least and most of the residents would still have something instead of nothing.

Although the few conversations I had with him regarding the proposal, usually started with or ended up with 'How I get paid? When I get paid?' which couldn't be answered because we 1/ hadn't found all the residents involved yet and 2/ hadn't gotten any kind of agreement or presented the idea to all involved yet, I still tried not to be discouraged about the idea. I sent the written proposal today for his approval, but after speaking with him afterwards, I get the impression that Rich isn't interested in it unless he can still profit from the residents buying back their land. While the proposal wouldn't have netted him any profit, at least he wouldn't have been out of pocket either, not like everyone else. So, unfortunately, it looks like this idea has fallen through as well.

By the way, this ordeal has made me aware of a major flaw in the island land purchasing system. Whereby,hypothetically speaking, any unscrupulous estate owner could conceivably exploit if they chose. Just sell the sim to another character you are partnered with, have them resell all the land again to sl residents and then have that character disappear with the money (convert the lindens to cash, pull it out of SL and divide the illgotten proceeds). Afterwhich, the estate owner can then wipe the names of every buyer off the region, reclaiming the sim for themselves and reselling it all over again. They just need to blame the other character for running off with the residents money.

This is an exploit Linden definitely needs to close.



Anyway, I was one of the owners swindled and there are alot more of you out there. I am in contact with some of the residents, but not all. Everyone I've talked to so far has filed abuse reports and we have the SL police investigating as well.

I am hoping to find all of you that got robbed by purchasing land on Mixi so that we can approach this as a group effort and not just individually. Please IM me in game (Radd Dyrssen) if you are one of the parties involved.

Anyone needing more information, please feel free to contact me.

For those of you that haven't done so as yet, I suggest you download your transaction logs from the secondlife website so you have proof of your dealings with Mixi and Katisia as well.

Thanks

Radd Dyrssen

Unfortunately, there really is very little recourse. Private estates are always wholly owned by the person who pays LL the sim tier fee. They can pretty much do whatever they want with the land. When you, as a potential land buyer, are looking around at land on private estates, you have to choose carefully. No matter what, you should always expect that there is a possibility that the sim owner will default on his obligation to you, or to LL, or just up and disappear altogether.

What it boils down to is this: know what you are getting into when buying private estate land as anyone else but the sim owner. The best bet is to always rent from private estates, because that is realistically the closest situation in harmony with reality.

Otherwise, if you want to buy land free and clear, make sure the land is owned by you, and LL is whom you pay Tier to.

You might want to take out the names or change them.. You are violating the TOS by using them.. just fyi..