Money tree scam

You're right, I made a few versions, some people got copies of the old versions before I set the radius thing.

Oh I wasn't questioning you - I genuinely did not know if it was against the TOS or not as I tend not to be a big OMG THAT IS A TOS VIOLATION type person. Thanks for clarifying.

bafilius, if you're still selling these anywhere in SL, you are not just violating the SL TOS, but also committing a serious Federal crime, namely wire fraud. You need to stop selling them immediately, and inform everyone who bought one that they need to do likewise.

It's a shame you haven't made more money on it, though. For L$1900, the FBI isn't going to bother. If you'd made US$1900, we could get you sent to Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison to learn the error of your criminal deviant ways. Alas.

I don't think people should hate you for making a mistake, especially if you are trying to rectify it. And I call it a mistake because your creation can only be successful if placed in public areas, areas where it would NOT be wanted. However, a lot of great things can come from mistakes. Maybe your next creation will be something that benefits Second Life.

This guy is really nice, I threw everything I had into one of his donation boxes just now. (Thanks for whoever made that suggestion.) For those of you who must always second guess me, if I was gloating I'd state an exact amount. I also made a suggestion to members of my group to do the same. I'd like to suggest it to any one reading this as well. This organization is amazing and is one of the big reasons I got into this game. I read an article on the work they've done and it's great. Their island is very beautiful and tranquil. Having suffered from severe depression for many years myself I truly appreciate that the work they are doing is an incredible service to humanity. For all you non haters out there, show them some love, check out the island and drop them some L.

Thanks Katt, I have a lot more ideas for things that don't exist in second life yet. Things that will definitely be sure to make people happy. Including a line of extreme niche men's clothing. I'm taking requests by IM in game for other clothes as well.

Of course not.

That's not good enough. It doesn't matter if you use your own land or not.

These things are illegal. They're wire fraud. Paypal treats them as fraud and will shut down your Paypal account if they catch you. They're illegal in almost every country in the world.

You can go to Federal Prison in the US for this if you do it through the mail, under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute. This isn't a joke, it's not a game, it's a serious crime.

This needs action by Linden Lab.

Immediate action.

At a minimum, they need to run a scan through the entire asset database looking for these objects in inventory and deleting them. Yes, they CAN do this, it's expensive but the cost of not doing it is far greater. The results of ignoring this kind of situation in email has led to a situation where I have had to block all mail from several countries simply because the volume of spam cost me too much in bandwidth charges.

They need to determine who's placed them and sanction them, at the very least take away any funds received by purchasing them. Moving forward, they need to notify everyone involved that it's illegal, and that future violations will lead to a permanent ban.

No, I don't hate him for making a mistake. And I think they guy who wants him to go to federal prison for it really needs to think about what that really means.

However, he does need to make amends.

(1) return all the money he's acquired.

(2) contact everyone he can find, both in the group and from examining his own transaction log, and inform them that he made a mistake and that they're violating the law by placing these objects.

(3) Contact LL again and explain just how bad the situation is.

I get the impression that a lot of people putting these things up are fairly new - since they're not aimed at experienced SLers, who'd be aware of the risks and annoyance involved anyway, and they're placed in areas for newbies - which is the major problem. They don't quite realise how much irritation and annoyance they're causing in-world, they don't realise that they could get banned for it and they don't realise the potential legal problems, that this is actually real.

That's the problem here and the reason why I'm concerned that it might not just disappear.

I'm not going to rant on about it to the owners and call them all sorts of names, that doesn't achieve anything, but the existing objects inworld need to be dealt with quickly to avoid the spread, and the item removed from inventories, or we'll be seeing these bloody things for years.

We just need a littel order.......and all wll be fine.

Don't hold your breath. Last night, I was at a small club where two more of these things were dropped off as the perp flew away. We got his name though, and the club owners petitioned. His DOB was Jan. '06, no ratings, no profile, so either he was a newbie or an alt. Either way, LL is typically slow to react.

I recall around the time before oct 2004 we had this happen with a money making ripoff....everyone got their money back.

I caught someone setting one out and he seems pretty easy about it. problem is there are countless otehr doing this banning only does a temo thing untell they use alts to continue the work.

If LL is slow to react this time, it's going to be a big green light to the big time spammers on the net.

Does anyone know what permissions Magic Money was distributed with?

If it's no modify (and can't be renamed) it might be possible to modify the existing detector to rez a "blocking box" over the Magic Money dollar sign, which doesn't take money and when clicked warns that the system is a scam. This could then be left running in a sim to catch any new ones place.

The problem is, this itself comes dangerously close to breaking TOS (since the box would basically be a classic "vendor griefer", though it wouldn't take money), and it would mean that the pyramid was brought to a halt, causing the lost investments that are exactly what makes pyramid schemes bad.

The existing "investments" are lost. Restoring them would be a huge job, and not worth doing.

The bigger problem with _online_ pyramid schemes, because they typically don't tend to produce a lot of income... instead people copycat them and try and restart the pyramid with themselves as the end benificiary... is that they flood communication channels with noise. Until they started being slapped down hard in email they were at times a bigger problem than spam.

Not that bad of an idea, except that there's already enough load on the system with listening scripts, particle effects, prim hair, etc., that another script isn't really the ideal solution. Especially in popular sims which offer the most ideal spot for these virus deposits.

Easier low tech solution.

If you find one - rez a box over it. No scripts - no nothing
Set Autoreturn on your land (amount of time that suits you) - Ban anyone you know that sets them out.

I think it might be a good idea to atleast include a simple touch_start script - otherwise, most people will not get a pop-up when hovering their cursor over your box.

Script for automatically tracking those objects in each sim, put in attachment:

key tracked;

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSensorRepeat("Magic Money!", "", ACTIVE, 96.0, PI, 1.0);
    }
    
    touch_start(integer c)
    {
        if (llDetectedKey(0) != llGetOwner()) return;
        tracked = "";
    }
    
    sensor(integer c)
    {
        integer n;
        
        if (tracked == llDetectedKey(0))
            return;
            
        tracked = llDetectedKey(0);
        
        for (n=0; n<c; ++n)
        {
            vector d = llDetectedPos(n);
            llOwnerSay("Found at (" + (string)llRound(d.x) + "," + (string)llRound(d.y) + "," + (string)llRound(d.z) + ")");
        }
        llMapDestination(llGetRegionName(), llDetectedPos(0), llRot2Fwd(llGetRot()));
    }
    
    no_sensor()
    {
        tracked = "";
    }
}

*updated a bit*

Surely if you want to stop this kind of thing happening you can do the following:-

Goto my store, I will give you one for free, place this in your favourite location and sell that for free too ! (having one in your place will also stop others from trying to add their own due to the auto delete feature)

If you find one that bugs you and the owner doesn't seem to mind, then surely they won't mind you putting your own item next to it. Now if that item tells you that you can get one of these things FREE! what are people going to do? pay $100 or visit your place to pick one up free of charge?

Or if you are REALLY nice instead of giving them a land mark to your store you can give them the magic money item for free.

I've created the auto giver and FREE magic money item.

Of course you'll need to pop to my store to pick it up but they are both FREE!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Keswick/143/34/30/?title=FREE%20Magic%20Money&msg=WHY%20PAY%21%3F

Enjoy!

Paul Lobo

Um, is this some sort of satire?

All permissions should be copy, transfer, no modify.
Would it help if I posted the offending script?
I'm hesitant to do this as it may help other spammers or griefers.
But maybe it could show security holes as well.
I'd be willing to do this if the right people told me it was a good idea.
Not the the people who are telling me I should be nailed in the ass in federal prison for ripping people off to the wopping sum of about US$8 - $12 to my account so far.
I really made this thing just to be silly.
If I wanted to make some serious money I would have asked for L$1000.
No one has lost more than L$100 to this thing so I think the viral havoc is really worse than the financial hardship it's caused.
I wasn't going to give copy perms but couldn't distribute it any other way.
Some advice would be appreciated.