Land Owners Beware!!

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to warn everyone about transfering land.

A couple of friends of mine recently tried to rearrange their land situation because one of them may have trouble keeping tier up in the future and owned a center plot in land owned by her partner. To make things easier the switch was going to take place where she would sell her partner the center plot and take ownership of a same sized plot on the outskirts of the overall land mass.

They made a huge mistake by forgetting to set the land so only the partner can buy and within seconds someone came and bought the land on them. This unscrupulous action, not being illegal by Lindens, I have learned is exactly what these people do.

These people prey on the unknowing who unwittingly set their land to L$0 or L$1 with the purpose of selling it to a specific person. People who don't know these kind of scum exist in SL.

[edit: Also be VERY careful you don't accidentally set your land forsale in the About Land area of your property. Accidentally clicking the forsale button will bring these people there to try and grab your land too, if the price is extremely low.]

These land grabbers (thieves from my point of view) use scripts or 3rd party programs to be warned when land ANYWHERE in Second Life is set to L$0 or L$1. They get automatically TP'd to the land and they buy it before the initial transaction can take place. THEN to mask their dirty deed they set the land for sale to someone in game they hate to cause them grief. This leaves the previous land owners who were robbed unwittingly leaving IMs to this person not involved pleading with them to give the land back.

Pretty ingenious scam, huh?

BEWARE and NEVER set your land for sale without setting the land to be purchased by the one intended!!!!!!

Not Illegal?
No, unfortunately, this practice is not illegal, as these people come in instantly and buy land that is openly set for sale so there is no recourse but to pay these people for the land again (which is how they make their profits). They wipe the land clean so any build you have on it is gone and they taunt you and laugh about doing it to you too.

I can't stress this enough.. NEVER EVER set your land for open sale if you are doing a transfer to someone you know. Make SURE you set it so ONLY YOUR FRIEND can purchase the land. because these people have programs and scripts that tell them it's for sale and will be there in a flash to take it from you!!!!

It's sad there are people like this in Second Life, but when real money is involved you'll find thieves doing their best to screw you out of some or all of yours.

I got round this problem by setting my land for sale at a ridiculously high price, so that should i accidently click on the 'sell' button or something go astray when rearranging parcels, at least it wouldn't be a L$1 bargain for some land swooping thief.

I saw a nice plot of land this morning which I was tempted at buying... then I saw that it was owned by someone who has been exposed several times recently as an unethical land stealer, and decided not to buy it simply because I did not want to pay money to someone with no morals.

Lewis

When 1.12 comes around and land on islands can be sold just like mainland land, I think island owners will keep their ability to reclaim any land on their sim and revert it their ownership. I hope that they will use this power to reverse various injustices, such as land swooping and rogue group officers selling the land to themselves (though, this too should be limited by group roles and the 'can set land for sale' permission).
The effect of this is that while land swooping is terrible, at least land on islands can be protected from this by the sim owner. Land on the mainland is pretty much doomed to being vulnurable to this as there is no way to reverse land sales when you make a mistake. Maybe people should be warned when buying mainland land : "this land is now YOURS, but if you lose it, you CANNOT get it back!".... and warned when buying island land : "the island owner has given you this land to use so long as you follow their rules".

Well I think people that read the forums even semi regularly know about land swoopers and such but the problem is so many people don't.

I think Linsen Lab should make up a Message Of The Day (MOTD) that explains this to residents. A message outlining that they should always set land to the specific buyer when they are selling to someone specific in order to prevent it form being grabbed by people out to try and take it by these means.

Linden Lab, will you please make an MOTD on this subject? I feel it is a valuable thing for residents to know who may not understand and have bought land for a first time or have no experience in this area, and who do not visit the forums with regularity.

OH, that is terribly sad
Was the person nice enough to return the land?

LL put in a safeguard some months back. If you set the land to sell for $0, then it requires you to set the person you want to sell it to. You cannot sell land for $0 without setting a specific person to sell to.

So, $0 is safe. Always use $0 when you want to make a no cash transfer.

Never, Never, ever use $1. Even if you have set the "sell to" field. Use $0 as a matter of habit and you will always be safe.

No Volatile, the person's purpose for buying it was to take it form them. It's what these people do. Then force them to pay top dollar for it if they wanted it back. It's how they make their money, off the misfortune of others.

The land was "sold" back to them eventually.

hmmm.. what was the persons name?

As a brand new land owner the first thing I did was set the price to L$50,000 so land swoopers would not bother me and it occured to me that if two people are just transferring land why not just set the price very high and return the money once the transfer is complete.

Would only be dependent on the amount of money they had. :/

Dearly Darlings,

Do Not do that!!! You can get into trouble putting names into the Forum pages. Privately make an inquiry.

Ever Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

ack!!! DON NOT TELL ME
sorry, i am missing up alot in the past two days
i got one, wait can i even say, crap, never mind!
meh...

I had a simular situation happen when I first started SL, but for some reason, the swooper didnt buy the land but gave me a lecture on how stupid I was - I think he saw I was new and the other AV I was selling the land too was new also.

No one ever informed me about these tactics when i first started and i was surprised how fast the swooper showed up.

There should be an option to transfere land ownership with out going thru the sell land for - ell land to - options crap.

when you sell land there is a confirmatin screen so you have to accept the settings you put in place ..i know when i sold my patch of land i was asked if i was sure so i had the chance to check price and who i was selling it to etc. its not like there is no confirmation or one step to selling

I haven't had it happe nto me, but thats cuz i stoped worrying about mainland and worry about sims now hehe. Anyway, there was a time when i set a 512 plot for sale for 1500 a year ago. Within a minute a guy poped in and bought it. I believe it was a fair price and he was kinda fast to jump on it.

I got an idea.

What if upon purchase of firstland a land management tutorial comes up complete with a simple exam at the end?

Better yet, what if this tutorial were given upon first login of a new premium member so that they don't make the mistake of missing out on first land either?

This way newbies are forced to RTFM.

Truth be told the only reason why my land is safe was because I was on the forums before I turned premium, so I knew all the ins and outs before my first land purchase. There is no in-world tutorial for land!

This bit's a bit of a myth I think. You can't scan for land set to a low price. People used to scan for public land, which no longer exists, because public land had no owner, I think it returned a null key. I'm pretty sure that's the only thing you can scan for with LSL, in terms of land for sale.

How they do it is actually really lo-tech. They sit there and hit refresh on the land sales constantly. As soon as you set land for sale, it appears instantly in the land sales. So they just sort by price per metre, and hit refresh until something pops up, then hit teleport.

Yes folks! You too can be a land swooper (unofficial term for buying land).

a) Buy a premium account
b) Get a lot of free tier
c) refresh the land list
d) Buy land

It's that simple! And for a limited time I'll throw in a Land Scanning Brick. It doesn't scan the land, it's an actual brick prim named "Land Scanning Brick!"

Anyways.. If people read the confirmation screen there wouldn't be a problem. Luckily Linden has promised changes to the selling process.

Blah he took his post out for another below me

IT wasn't nice what you did =(

you should be ashamed.

Not true. There is an inworld tutorial explaining how to sell, buy, split, joining, and managing lands. It's in your F1Help! screen. Just hit your F1 key for more details.

Now it looks like you're glaring at me.

Doesn't matter, you knew exactly what you were doing. Sure, it's not illegal.. but you KNOW your hurting people when you do such things and you taunt after you've done it when approached by the people you've done it to.

IT doesn't matter to me whether technically it is legal, you hurt unsuspecting people and should be ashamed of yourself.


=/


I"m sorry Fade.. HIS post WAS there.. but he edited it all out on how he did it and how easy it was, and just put his current post there =(
(I edited out the glaring at you cause I was't glaring at YOU, Fade ~.^)

S'ok...

It's unfortunate they use the excuse, "there's a confirmation box" to their victims. Yes there's a confirmation box, but in their heads people are thinking, "yes I want to sell it, to my friend standing here". They just don't realise that it pops up instantly in land sales, and by the time you say to your friend, "here, buy it now", it can be gone. People may look around the sim, and think no one's there... they just don't realise how instantly it appears in land sales and how many are refreshing constantly.

People really need to know, always set it to sale specifically to the person you want to sell to first, and always sell for $0, because there's a safety mechanism at that price. Don't ever think, 'oh there's no one around, and we'll only be quick'. The F1 help may tell you about buying and selling land, but it doesn't tell you about how many people are prepared to screw you if you slip up, unfortunately.

Your not very nice, I don't like you -.-