Bank Ban Needs To Be Amended To Include All Financial Operations.

You my friend got your definitions prety well mixed up


Ok, let me say it again...

Internet Service Provider

As most people would guess... I'ts a Provider that offers a Service through Internet. (that is not limited to Ebay,AOL,Godaddy,Youtube,Myspace or wichever thing that is considered a "service on the internet"


Let's not complicate what isn't necesary to complicate.

Immoral activities ? God, how far are you willing to go ?

Is the primhair you purchased Kosher accourding to Jewish law, if not then it's immoral, and lindens should ban it right ?

I dunno i changed the radiostation and that worked for me, i guess thats the price of freedom, nobody is forcing me to do something. But i guess not all people like that.

Ok, i'll agree, youknow ithink LL should ask Kim Il yong from North-Korea about how to best Rule something. Because people are incapable of critical thinking.

All of this can be described in one word - Greed.

Those that deposited their money looking to make a quick buck were greedy.
Those that ran off with the money were greedy.

And this whole "save me from my greedy self because someone was smarter and greedier than me and ran off with my money" mentality is deplorable.

Everything in SL is a risk. From purchasing at a vendor that may turn out to be a empty box to sitting on a pose ball that will cyphen L from your account so don't sit there and act like the financial sector is the all powerful Satan with its customers and companies being little fire imps.

If some of you people want to be saved from yourself, my suggestion would be for you to press CTRL + Q, then click Start, Turn Off, Shut Down, get up from your computer and go have a real life where an actual government protects you from yourself.

Definition of ISP:

"Short for Internet Service Provider, a company that provides access to the Internet. For a monthly fee, the service provider gives you a software package, username, password and access phone number. Equipped with a modem, you can then log on to the Internet and browse the World Wide Web and USENET, and send and receive e-mail."
-WEBOPEDIA

"Stands for "Internet Service Provider." In order to connect to the Internet, you need an ISP. It is the company that you (or your parents) pay a monthly fee to in order to use the Internet. If you use a dial-up modem to connect to your ISP, a point-to-point protocol (PPP) connection is established with another modem on the ISP's end. That modem connects to one of the ISP's routers, which routes you to the Internet "backbone." From there, you can access information from anywhere around the world. DSL and cable modems work the same way, except after you connect the first time, you are always connected."
TECHTERMS.COM

"An Internet service provider (abbr. ISP, also called Internet access provider or IAP) is a company or business that provides access to the Internet"
-Wikipedia

LL is NOT an ISP.

I think the majority of the financial industry in SL can be summed up with another word: ILLEGAL.

But greed works also...

Really - listen to yourself. You sound like children that can not take care of themself. If you were 3 years old, yes then I would personally take care of you, and hope that LL would also, but you are not. You are a grown up. Don't come near a stockexchange when you hate them so much. Don't ever invest a Linden in everything, when you think everyone is a scammer. Stay out. Let us who still beleive in the financial sector of SL do the investing. You are the ones that could really destroy the financial sector in SL with all you whining.

I have been investing in SL since march 07 and I did loose a lot of Lindens, that came from my RL, but I am not whining about it. I knew I took a chance, and many of the banks was not all about scamming. Some actually died because of being attackt by hackers, and as Lindsay stated, some got in big troube because of the banking ban. Banks that would proberly not have gotten in any trouble paying there customers back if the banking ban had not been there.

Name three of these "remaining financial operators". Or even one. Do they publish RL contact information? Do they have the requisite RL banking charter documentation? If not, they are not only dishonorable, they are, by merely existing, breaking the Terms of Service. That makes them, in SL terms, criminals. Honorable? I think not.

Do any of these "financial operators" offer "interest or any direct return on an investment" Lindal? If not, they are not in violation of the LL blog post concerning "banks". And, just to set you straight, the "banking ban" is NOT a part of the TOS (http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php), but merely an add on regulation posted in the official LL blog.

ServMe Nakamura.
Investing into a virtual world and well aware of the risks involved.

The wordings you just mentioned and how you analyzed it are exactly how these new "fund managers" are skirting the banking ban. Every week now I see new "funds" opening which operate exactly like the old banks did, but with different wording: "balances" are now "shares" "interest" is now "dividends", etc. but again you have astronomically high promises of return (often 20 - 150% per year), little to no transparency and some have already shut down operation and/or ran with invested L$.

As stated before, the banking ban needs to be amended to include such funds and the stock exchanges (which also are popping up each day and often cheating their clients or simply running with invested funds) BEFORE things get worse rather than after.

The situation is further compounded by the fact that there is no regulatory commission of any sort within Second Life that has any actual power to regulate. Often, the same people who run the so-called "investment" scams are the same ones who own the exchange commissions they purportedly answer to. This is, at best, insulting to the intelligence of the average citizen, and presents the potential for all manner of investment fraud. These finance schemes never open their books to the public, and for good reason. If the public knew what was actually being done with the money, there would be a pretty strong negative reaction, and these guys would be out of business virtually overnight. Most of them, if not all of them, depend on a continual influx of new investment capital in order to remain profitable. This is one of the primary identifying features of a Ponsi scheme, and should not be allowed in SL, just as it is not allowed in RL.

Since there is no practical possibility of any real regulation within SL of these schemes, I agree that they should be completely banned. Regular businesses have a place in Second Life, but businesses who make money on the speculation on the net worth of the companies within SL, in my opinion, do not. I do not believe that a significant portion of the Second Life economy requires or participates on any level with these so-called investment plans. Given this, I believe that there would be little, if any, affect on the economy as a whole - except possibly to help stabilize it.

As a footnote, those who complain that "it's just a game, and Lindens aren't real money" have a point. It is just an online diversion (call it whatever else you will), and should not subject its paying customers to substantial financial loss in real life. That might classify Second Life as an internet gambling site. This is something Linden LAb is very keen on trying not to be, as evidenced by the complete ban on games of chance late last year and their cooperation in this matter with the FBI.

All this can be summed up in one word - daft.

I can understand the need for a financial institution to safeguard my money in RL, but I can't understand why people thought 'oh wow, that sounds like a risk-free enterprise I'd like to throw a load of real money into and dream of what I can spend the reward on!' in SL. Yes, I know its never that clear-cut in RL either, but I haven't felt the need to withdraw all of my cash from the bank and make sure its tucked safely into my back pocket. The fact that I can carry around several thousand dollars in-world sort of negates the need to have somewhere to lock it up.

If anyone was that desperate for the interest garnered on investments in-world, go find a camp chair or something. Better still, build and sell stuff.

So just tell me something guys....The linden i had Ginko holding for me went to WSE and now i cant get in my account. Is it just gone?? Anything I can do about it? IM pretty pissed cuz EVERYONE told me how safe it was there and better than sitting on my avie cuz it was a huge chunk of linden from a land sale. IS there ANYTHING I can do in tring to get it back?? This just isnt fair and I dont know what to do. No one is helping me at all and Im not sure if calling LL will help. I wasnt looking to MAKE more money on it, I was just told its safer...well that was a crock of crap. Thanks

Goooood question.

Wish I had a good answer to go along with it. Contact WSE.

The lindens you had were converted to shares of a mutual-fund type stock aptly acronymmed WTF: The WSE Traders Fund, which is based on, I believe, the value of assets in WSE's possession of now-defunct stocks such as Ginko and Midas. The short of it is, you have rights to something that at best has been grossly devalued and at worst is completely worthless. Sorry, but you must consider it written off.

This is unbelievable, and I would speak to someone at WSE but apparently my "account is being updated" and i cant access it and have sent 3 emails with no response and to be quite frank, its pissing me off. What the hell is this world coming to?? Shit apparently.

I'm not sure how you can defend any of these "institutions" none of them were anything more than individuals playing banks ahd stock exchanges as are these new funds, they are totally unregulated and while some may be trying to deal honestly ...yeah ok lol there was no way to tell these from scams so the ban was the right way to go and yeah I'd agree needs amending to cover any activities like this. LL might wish to be seen as an ISP to avoid responsibilities but I don't think they fit the criteria.

This is a good example of the problem at hand. Someone opens a fund or exchange, promises one thing and then does something else. With the WSE, the owner, over SIX MONTHS AGO said that he was taking the exchange down for an update. Now, many months later the exchange has not opened back up, few if any answers are given and it has been announced that the many many tens of millions of L$ in your account will now be turned into some other funny money they created for themselves. So, it looks like all the L$ deposited into the exchange and the bank arm of the exchange has been transferred into the owner’s personal real world bank account and you will get some kind of funny money he created in exchange for it. There should be little to no volume or demand for the new medium of trade he created, so you’ll probably never be able to get your money back out, and that is only if the exchange is ever brought back online, which doesn’t seem to be happening after so many months.

Also, another “fund” closed up shop with no warning and left world again this week. Estimate of 10 million L$ gone/stolen. Yet every week we see more and more of these illegal exchanges and funds coming online.

With no regulation and no oversight, this will keep happening over and over again with the exchanges and the funds, which have replaced the banks which were banned. They are doing the same thing as the old banned banks but with slightly different wording in order to skirt the ban. They still offer, insane interest rates, have no oversight and still often lose or run off with invested funds. The bank ban needs to be amended to include such operations.

Good luck on getting your money back. You’ll need it.

Why haven't the Lindens taken action on this? Huge amounts of money are being removed from SL by what are, in essence, simple thieves.

The mandate was clear - why single out only those companies in SL not actually representing chartered banks? Why not also remove other kinds of unchartered financial institutions? Literal millions of Lindens are being lost, with new sudden departures from SL every other month. If this were happening in real life, these people would be in jail.

Why does Linden Lab do nothing to stop this? Where is the action to go with the expression of guiding principle?

Except these "game credits" can easily be transferred into real money, hence the oversight neeed.

I wonder if these modern day shysters could be caught the same way that Al Capone was caught: for tax evasion. Surely their fraudulently obtained gains are income and must be taxed accordingly? And isn't it appropriate for Linden Lab, after considering these situations, to report the possibly fraudulent accounts to the responsible tax authority as possible income tax evaders? In the USA, the Internal Revenue Service provides a bounty to persons who report persons/corporations who are found guilty of income tax evasion. I guess that other nations' tax collecting authorities have similar bounties to the reporter. A small but not negligible income to LL would result and LL would have the satisfaction also of being able to rectify in a small way these situations.

Interesting, but remember, Linden Labs makes a profit from these transactions. They take a part of each Linden transaction as a "fee". I think it behooves them to allow this sort of thing to happen than to turn the fraudulent accounts over to the IRS or other tax authorities. The would be killing their own cash cow. My biggest concern, is when the DOJ attaches this to "terrorist activities", then the whole system comes crashing down.