ATM's and such...

I truly hope this is the proper forum for this subject.

Based upon recent experience with a service provider, I am very skeptical now.

It feels to me that LL should be constructing and enforcing some rule set that works toward protecting the citizens of Second Life against simply being ripped off. There should be a minimum requirement of funds on account with LL or something to back up the deposits of the consumers.

Following a few thousand other SL'ers, I've deposited funds with a service provider, only to find that 3 days later and counting, no funds have been delivered upon a consumer request for withdrawal.

From the stats as far as I can see, the withdrawals are totalling about L$46million. And there is no way for us to know whether or not those funds will ever be returned.

I do not believe that any of the Exchanges or financial service providers are offering any sort of guarantee, we all are simply going with the masses and proliferation induced perception that this must all be some what reliable. But, 99.99% do not know if the services provided will continue from day to day, or if we will simply come online one day and not be able to get get our funds back. Which is the case for me and about 3200 other withdrawal requests from this one service.

Please lets begin some discussion on this matter, and hopefully protect the future of SL. I'd not like to see the environment become a haven for financial scam artists. Of course there will be some, but it doenst have to be a complete free-for-all...

What do you think?

Hello, Hyperbole Beaumont
Have you read this thread:
/327/1c/202156/1.html
Please pay particular attention to post #62
/327/1c/202156/3.html#post1619609

Thanks, and yes I have.

The point remains... There needs to be a more thought through back up system to prevent that, as well as possible scams or pull-outs, from becoming the basis for a substantial loss of confidence in the SL economy as it is supported by third parties.

I've been in discussions with investors about getting involved and participating in the future of worldwide society as SL facilitates.

Solvency is a big issue.

Caveat emptor

The point of my desire behind this thread is to bring about a change.
Status quo doesnt imply appropriatness or permanency.

Buyers have and do take the risks every day...however, I presume that we have an evolving society, as is evidenced by our care to not promote such things as child pornography...but at the same time try to care about the freedoms that we feel most important.

The entire environment is a product. This product crosses many political borders, there are some borders that (similar to gambling type activity) believe that certain types of commerce are under their domain if transacted within those borders.

Will we wait for them to step in and say... no more banks or bank-like activity? Or be proactive and consider the spirit of such control (aside from taxation).

The protection componentry of the statutes are what enable people to have faith in the commercial endeavors that deliver the subject matter services. I believe that the economy is integral to SL's long term viability. I suspect that Linden Labs wants to protect that... So at some point they will take actions. I'd personally like to see forum threads on the subject in "advance" of their proposals/edicts...

Do you need protection ?

It's VERRY simple: Don't give them your money!!

Why do they need YOUR money to get ritch ?
If I know of a system to double my money in a year. Why do I need YOUR money ?
I will go to my RL bank; ask them a million US$ and next year i'm ritch.

It's that simple.

Hyperbole,

The SL environment is far less regulated than real life. Linden Lab set it up that way, that's their policy, and most of the residents like it that way...that is, until something like the recent scandals in the WSE and Ginko. Then everyone screams, "there oughta be a law!"

On the flip side, when LL takes action to protect themselves against real life lawsuits by doing things like banning ageplay and gambling, everyone screams, "they're taking away our freedoms!"

Aside from the impossibility of pleasing everyone, there's a very thorny question, and LL is walking a very thin tightrope here. Is or is not the Linden dollar "real" money? LL has consistently claimed it isn't. Their Terms of Service specifically state that they won't guarantee to give you money for your $L. The trade in $L and real world currency is carried on by independent or semi-independent entities. the Lindex and third parties like Anshe Chung and SLExchange.

On the other hand, $L works in practice just like real money. You can buy stuff with it. You can exchange dollars for $L, and $L for dollars. The idea that $L is play money is a useful legal fiction...but if it's ever challenged and discarded, the implications for all of us are staggering. Would you like to pay sales tax on your in-world purchases, for example? Or income tax on your shop's earnings?

All these issues have been discussed at length in other threads. The upshot of it all is (IMO) if LL actively stepped in to regulate SL banks and investment services, they'd be opening a huge can of worms that could ultimately destroy SL. Much better that everyone should let this one lie. Simply observe "Caveat Emptor" and never risk more in SL than you can easily afford to lose. Virtual worlds are new and ever-changing, which is risky enough...plus there are all the risks involved in investing money with people whose real identities and addresses you don't know, in a totally unsupervised financial environment.
Keep your investment money in a real world institution. Use SL for your play money.