Scammer: all store owners please read!

Maybe i put this on wrong forums, if so please put it somewhere else.

Today me and a friend went to a well known tattoo shop to buy some tattoos. She had just bought some and could not open the boxes so she asked me. I couldn't open them either. Then i bought some other tattoos and same thing. Empty boxes.

Then i checked the maker and saw he was little over a month "old" and had no ratings or anything else in his profile. Then i knew we were scammed.

This guy had put ALL HIS OWN BOXES in the store in front of the originals therefore making it look EXACTLY like the originals. It was not possible to see the scam for anyone unless u bought it.

Luckily the real estate owner was there and she helped me and my friend to get the money back and our tattoos.

Needless to say i have reported his sorry ass but i wanted to warn you anyway cause people like him should be banned as soon as possible. I won't put his name up here but if you want to know his name so you can ban him from your grounds please IM me.

http://slcaveatemptor.blogspot.com/2006/06/scam-alert-invisible-prim-over-vendor.html
When it comes to avoiding such things...

This is exactly why Midnight City has a 1 minute autoreturn. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience.

We really need a way to get this scam information to every newbie that arrives. All to often the damage is done before they find out. Most of them would not be on the forums immediately so a post here will not do it.

Learning from experience notwithstanding, I think it's better they be forewarned.

I think I heard about this guy. The designers that rent in Image Reflections were warn about this guy.

This is great to place in forums. Sorry you had to go thru that. I would like to know his name again in case is the same. I will try to IM you in world. Thanks

That explains why I was sent home while trying to buy hair at Panache.

Ugh, sad news.

It really sucks that we have to go to a 1 minute autoreturn and or no-rez. specifically for a place like MC where it is fun to rez a car and drive around.

I think we will need a new land management tool, in which we list the persons who are allowed to sell on your estate. People could still grief, but atleast no payments to a scammer are made.
But i'm afraid that it would need some mayor overhaul of the code, since setting something for sale is one of the basic properties of a prim.

Thanks for the support and replies and if only i had known earlier about that link earlier lol.

I would love to put his name here but i don't think it's a good idea plus i'm sure the Lindens will sort it. On the other hand it might be a good idea to make a SL store forum somewhere outside of these that keeps track of these scammers.

I was lucky to not have any damage thanks to the kindness of the land owner but for the store itself it's very bad since they lost income.

On another note, i'm truly amazed by some loosers in this game. If you want money, you work for it yourself instead of stealing it from talented people who spend hours and hours making it.

I wish all people would do that.. That would end this form of griefing.

1 piece of advice! If your buying out of a box, and its suposed to contain something inside it, don't buy it unless you can see the stuff inside it first, and the owner of the box is the same person who owns the store or vendors nearby it.

And just how would you seperate the legitimate scams from the vendetta scams?

I can claim anyone I don't like is a scammer. And if this info was distributed to all nOObs, that would be quite scandalous indeed.

You always must police the police.

It could probably be avoided with a script in the vendors, but that would require repeated sensor calls and malls don't need any more lag.

Not to list out the names of the scammers, just to give information that there are scams happening, of what sort and how to avoid them. I have a notecard giver in my warning signs in Pando Square that list how to avoid being taken by someone claiming to be an employee and selling directly out of their inventory. I suppose I'll have to rewrite it to include the other scam of invisible boxes covering legit ones, how to tell if this is what is happening, and who to IM if they think they there is a problem.

I've avoided the auto return thing simply because I've never required a group for the vendors. We all simply have too few groups for this and I figured I'd spend more *irritation time* adding and readding folks to the group than I would calm maintenance time playing janitor to stray prims once or twice a day. So far, its worked, but I am ever vigilant for a need to change policy.

Char

You can avoid this by waiting after you click buy for the contents of the box to download so that you can see exactly what you are getting, an empty box or one with just landmarks or notecards in it will be obvious.

Still its tragic that we even have to worry about this sort of thing, someone who tried this in a real life situation would be in jail so fast charged with criminal fraud that his head would spin. This is exactly the same level of criminality yet because its the internet there really isn't much of a sanction, or apparently a deterrent.

Unless the vendor uses fastpay or some of the other payment scripts instead of setting a box contents for sale.

I check my stores 3 times each day and use CTRL+ALT+T to check for invisible prims over mine, as well as selling the box contents.

Probably the best method for the average customer is to right click and check properties of the vendor - if it's anyone other than the merchant, IM the merchant immediately.

ROFLMAO Serves you right!! *giggles*

Scams.....*I have to seen scams recently in the game Beware of purchasing Slot Machines & Money Objects, from so called newbies * creaters that are young in sl age* they are useing second, third and who knows how many other accounts....they have some type of codes or scripts in them that allows them to CLEAN OUT all your money even set as low pay outs, in 1 go! And the winner is a newbie as well , most likely the creator using yet another account ...knows who purchsed it and where it can be found to use it and take the money from your account! Then they just disappear! On to creat another Theif! You would think SL would be able to catch them by their CC or account info. but i guess they have other ways of payment to avoid this tracking. Be WARE !!

Be Ware of ANYthing you buy or get free containing Scripts!