Yet another freebie seller

(I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, but it didn't seem to fit in the classifieds.)

It's come to my attention that there's yet another individual selling (former) freebies. Among these items for sale is a chopped-up version of my old "teleport chamber", which I used to distrubute for free, with full permissions.

It *was* a free teleport chamber. Now it's a L$29 flat cylinder (formerly the teleporter's floor) that has the Copy and Mod permissions removed. Not only is it no longer copyable, not only has it lost the actual teleport buttons, but it's also quite useless -- without "Modify", you can't edit the script to put in your teleport destination. This scammer has rendered it completely unusable, makes a profit from my work, and leaves my name all over it -- "cubey's teleporter" is the name of the now-uneditable script inside.

I only found out about this because one of my customers bought 4 copies from this scammer, thinking they were getting something made by me, and then of course couldn't make it work. I only wonder in what way the scammer has crippled the other freebies they're reselling.

To the scammer who is doing this: Thanks for damaging my reputation and profiting from it at the same time. You're a shining example of ethical business practices. It's a shame that I can't post your name because I'm sure your business would benefit from the attention.

To anyone looking for a teleporter that actually works: go to www.SLExchange.com and www.SecondServer.net and search for "teleporter". There are several teleporters and scripts to choose from, made by various SLers.

But for me, no one could ever blemish your name and reputation and I am sure many others feel the same way.

Unfortunately, until there's an effective and functional BBB, I just don't see this trend stopping. Attempting to get the Lindens to intercede on your behalf is this massive, laborious process, and frequently results in "sorry, we can't do anything."

That sucks, man. You make the coolest stuff ever and it stinks that someone can take your things and mess them up then hurt you further by selling them with your name all over them.

Yes. Stealing somebody's work and free contribution to then sell it for profit is bad enough. But rendering it inferior and useless in the attempt just adds unnecessary insult to injury.

coco

Unacceptable. That's only the second person I've neg-rated, but it was worth it.

That is so sad. Thank you for the warning Cubey.

Jess

I've added my opinion in the form of a negative rating for behavior.

I believe negging for Building might be justified, as well. The shop is painfully ugly and, had the individual in question any building skill of his own, he wouldn't need to sell others' products.

How cool...how did you do that!

I used the URL tag and the "secondlife://" link, like this:

Abbotts Aerodrome

How incredibly distasteful. I also noticed a sign with Eric Linden listed as creator, on sale for L$10. I abuse reported it... we'll see if anything comes of it.

On the plus side, the person left several photoboards up on the walls, so I figured you wouldn't mind if I put your sign on every single one of them.

Very nice work.

Haha, brilliant!

*bump* Just to annoy the ripoff merchant Nothing like being in the spotlight....especially when you do dumb things.

Although I hope something does - I doubt it will. We encountered this over and over and over when we opened the store in Davenport.. And report as we may - nothing became of it from the powers that be.

Malls however, were another issue - they tended to be much more sympathetic and would have the items removed.

This was one of the primary reasons that I no longer make free stuff - a fundemental lack of respect.

Siggy.

Yes, it ranges from lack of respect to streams of threats and verbal abuse. Definitely makes me want to rethink my policy on resellable freebies.

Agree wholeheartedly.

Typically anything free I dabble up for someone is notransfer. period. if they want to resell it, they can buy it

Well it looks like the shopowner has removed all of the formerly free items by other people but left the non-functional copies of my teleporter for sale. I wonder why.

This is why I don't give free stuff to anyone.

That's odd... are the photoboards still up? Perhaps a new sign advising customers of the limited utility of the teleporters is in order....

I was just there a few hours ago, and saw all the signs and the teleprters. I then neg rated the guy, and then he started yelling in all caps about how I was a loser. Yeah... Anyone notice that he sells normal old prims for 4L? And it's not the prims that vendor makers put in there to show you how it works. He actully said that he was selling prims.

Also, when I "talked" to him, he said he bought the teleporter for 150L.

That's funny. In between streams of threats and verbal abuse, he claimed to me that he bought it from me for L$200. Maybe if we wait until tomorrow it will be under L$100.

If he did buy it from someone, he didn't buy it from me. As everyone knows, I have given away this teleporter for free in the Flight Shop at the Aerodrome since day one. Obviously, it's easily possible that someone picked up a free copy from me, and started reselling it for a hundred or so lindens, then this guy in turn removes mod permissions and resells it himself.

I don't have anything against reselling. If you bought something with transfer/no-copy permissions, you should be able to resell it, yard sale style, if you don't want it anymore. But picking up copyable freebies and reselling them as no-copy, no-mod, non-functioning items is completely scummy.

I'm with you on that Cubey - If possible I like to make things transfer - so that people can give as gifts, get rid of if they no longer want it.

A huge reason I stopped making free instructional stuff was because of folks changing perms to the point where things don't work anymore (thats right people - the water in the hot tub NEEDS to be copy or it only rezzes once!) - and then send their disgruntled customers to me to fix it , or for the 500 linden refund on an item I've never sold for money..

In the end (for me) the solution was to simply STOP making things for free... yeah it sucks - because I always enjoyed watching folks take the baby steps then go on to bigger and better things - but until there is a better permissions system in place, people will be people and do things simply because they can.

It's always a minority of idiots that ruin things for the majority.

Siggy.