Buyer Beware

There is a store named #1 Discounter in Shephard SIM that is selling newbie clothing and other items that anyone can pick up for 0 Ls at places like The Shelter . I hate to see newbies taken advantage of by crap like this so yeah, I'm writing this post because I am angry.....not the norm for me.

Eos, thats my store. And if I am selling freebies, I am unaware of it. As you can imagine, as a secondhand store, I am not aware of every single freebie available out there and mistakenly buy and re-sell freebies from time to time unknowingly.

Please IM me IW and let me know which items are actually freebies and I'll pull them from the shelves.

All the Best,
Jamie

I recently went to an event advertised as lots of freebies for new players. (I later saw it advertised again - lots of freebies, and newbie questions answered.) Well, I have just a HUGE amount of freebies in my inventory (being a poor Avi on a basic account, these are really a wonderful thing), so I'm familiar with quite a number of them.

Practically all of the things there - except the porn displays - were originally freebies somewhere, for which he was charging, I forget what, but usually, I think, around $2. I looked at all of them. Most I had seen before, for free, at places like the Bazaar and Yadni's Junkyard. There was, I believe, exactly one item he was actually offering for free. And I don't mind paying $1 for the box FULL of freebies, organized by category, that you get from the junkyard. The stuff at the Bazaar - Stillman Bazaar, I think it's called, are all for $0. But this business of charging $2 per item for someone else's work, intended for free distribution, is really disgusting.

No one else was there but me. I found this really nauseating and wondered how many newbies he actually thought he was fooling. I think most people who choose to enter this game are usually smarter than the average bear to start with, and people tend to think they are more naive than they actually are. The fact that no one was there but me - and I was there a good ten minutes - made me think maybe he wasn't fooling very many.

coco

While at the 'YardSale Event' I did tell the hostess that many of the packaged clothing items were FREEBIES. Prices ranged from $20 to $40 if I'm not mistaken at # 1 Discounters. Items included things like 'many shirts', 'pants', 'dresses', 'jewelry', 'lengerie' .... basically the same stuff you can pick up at any Newbie shop or at The Shelter.

That was all I noticed in the short time I was there Jamie. Hope this list of FREEBIES helps.

Yours truly,

Eos Zander
Founder of Yard Sale Junkies

I am sure not ALL people who try to sell freebies are aware that they are freebies,or may have had them mismarked. I accidently did that last weeked at the CD yard sale. I was boxing up free items & sometimes the free to copy doesn't seem to work right so I sell for $0..well one of the boxes of free animations I accidently left marked to $10L. Anyway, someone, unknowingly bought one. As soon as I realized the mistake I promptly refunded her & corrected it & double checked the freebie booth for further errors. I feel really bad it happend & am glad that I was able to catch it before anyone else bought them at $10.

I have (as well as many long time SL friends of mine) encountered the issue many times over with people purposefully trying to cash in on freebies. I think it's awful when people take advantage of other people this way. Valana & myself found someone selling our own freebie creations that we have given out. We Im'd the people & also before we were able to contact them placed our Free item(s) out where they were selling them & marked for $0.

My thing is..Unless you bought an item & are selling it second hand (selling as ORGINAL), UNLESS you have specific permission from the original creator. You should NOT be selling other people's creations. & NEVER should you knowingly be selling FREEBIE items.

Malana, you are my hero and have been since the day I stumbled in to SL. I understand that items can mistakenly be price at 10 Ls. Having them repackaged and priced at 30 and 40 Ls is likely not an error. I only hope that the 'vendor' selling the freebies refunds anyone who bought them.

BTW, although the items I saw for sale were in Jamie Bergman's shop they were not owned by him. Another avie was holding the yard sale at # 1 Discounter.

Awww Eos you'er too sweet *huggles*

Yeah, I know some people purposefully do sell freebies for profit. I also hope that the vendor will do the RIGHT thing & refund everyone as well (although I hate to say odds are against it)

It's hard When you're running an event such as a yard sale or own a shop to monitor everything in every booth & I know this. I also know that EVERY yard sale we have ever had (starting wey back in Freelon close to a year ago) there's always at least one who tried to get away with selligng FREEBIES. I always retun their items & ban them.

Ok I know this reply isn't about freebies..but it's along the lines of an issue this thread brings up. I was at one of my shops once...setting out new items..and some guy comes in and says how much he likes my stuff. I said thanks and went on my business. This guy then buys an item from me..which I had marked at 35..he then says...wow man this could sell for a lot more than 35L. I said yeah probably but I am not out to rip people off. He then says he is going to go sell it for twice the amount. I of course said nothing..what can I say? Of course I wasn't happy with the idea but it did make me see that this is a problem in SL. Of course things like this happen all the time in rl too, ie. antique hunters and garage sales, flea markets, etc. so I'm not sure there is much that can be done about it other than bring it to the awareness of the consumer. Perhaps a new forum similar to something like the BBB (Better Business Bureu)?

Whats worse is from the past when bugs mucked up the system certain Items from multitudes of creators were made available to "copy" freely and either being given away for free or sold. This is just as detrimental as Content creators don't have the time to run to every bargain basement Yard Sale to find out if any of their old stuff is being set for free or sale.

Anyway I digress

Shadow

Yes, you're right. Anytime I have sold a "second hand" item within SL I have always UNDER priced by 50% or more off the original price (as best as I can remember) When I am unable to remember I generally end up selling for about $10 L.

You're right though. Once someone has bought something it becomes THEIRS & whatever they choose to do even if that means selling it for more money. Is up to them. However, if you are aware of the issue perhaps trying to increase advertisements of your items & prices , also post to the forums WITHOUT saying the person's name. You can let people be aware that your item is being overpriced by someone else so that they will be warned & may deter people from buying it overpriced from the other person or persons.

Also, I think your idea of BBB forum is a good one over all. Although, the posts would have to be rather general. Like your post here was. You wouldn't be able to post the name of the person(s) but you would be able to be specific about the item.

Vote for Prop 90!

My proposition is to allow the creator of an item to set the minimum and maximum values it can ever be resold for. So the creator of a freebie can set the max to $L0, ensuring it will forever be free.

Here's a direct link.

Excellent propostion Lora. I, of course, voted for it. Thanks

Although #1 Discounter Store Owner did say she would get rid of any FREEBIES in her store I returned three days after my original post to find several freebies being sold as COPIES rather than originals by the shop owner herself.

Rave Sticks 19 Ls
Hot Tubs 99 Ls
Flying Witches Broom 19 Ls
Campfire ??? (geez)

The list goes on.

Among the items I found there that shouldn't be for sale are Siggy's hot tub (In wild new colors, but still one of the most over-sold freebies), Shadow's yatch which he has specificly requested not be sold several times, the Zoe Airfield helicopter which is now free, the linden freebie jet and motorcycle, the aformentioned rave sticks, sparklers, etc...

Hi Eos!

This is exactly the reason all my items are No Transfer. I don't want to have to charge high prices to make them unprofitable for resellers. I was tipped off some months ago when the same person bought 20 of the same dress for $100 and turned around a resold them for $250 each. I would rather just have to go through the trouble of hand-selling Gift versions of items than to have people getting ripped off with my name involved. (Especially when those people then expect a refund from me instead of the person they bought from. Umm.. no.)

Hi Walker

Good intentions aside, this could be a very bad move if inflation ever becomes an issue in SL. I think that messing with free trade could probably come back to bite you.

I vote for letting the market dictate the maximum and minimums and if you find out someone was ripped off, let them know and they will angrily tell everyone how they got ripped off by XX Vendor. You could also start an awareness group.

Quite a few hottubs with the teltale 3 button action on them.... A general shout out that you can get them free at the Gnu wave store in davenport.

Caveat Emptor.

Siggy.

Tangential aside: I believe one of the reasons why boxes of freebies and such were set on sale for L$1 is because they could then be trackable through transaction data to see who was getting the freebies. Is this information still correct?

Also, I've gone to a sad number of "yard sale" events that were really NOT all that, "featuring" a small decrepit table during a generic club event. Now, I'm all for good clubbin' and good yardsalin', but I feel both were done poorly and it was kind of deceptive.

Nice to see Mash + Bacc still have their ex-Continental Madness-turned-2nd Hand Store thing going on in Purple. I got a couple of dance cages from there the other day to have fun in.

If I catch someone selling known freebies, I'm going to IM them with a friendly message about it and see how they respond. That unto itself is a show of character.