Is it legal what IGE does?

i have never used ige but it sounds like they are bad news

i have a few questions
1 has any one reported them to the lindens for abuse
2 if they ahve been reported and have proven to be ripping off ppl why have they not been baned.
3 i have heard in the past ppl have had problems with ige. why do ppl still continue to use them.

Thank you Strife,

I'll check those sites for sure. I really appreciate the information. I've documented every transaction, including IM conversations during the money transfers with IGE Wheeling. I wasn't aware of the secondlife transaction page you posted. I'll go there now. Thank you again.

Crucial... I've informed the Lindens via IM's.. however, I'm told they do not support IGE, as they are a third party blah blah blah....

I am now in the process of writing a letter to Philip Linden to which I'll forward today.

Considering LL promotes IGE on their website, I think they need to be made aware of their unethical tactics. I hope Philip can take some action.

Prior to my using IGE I had not heard of any unethical practices...if I had I certainly would not have trusted them with my funds.

I hope this thread serves as a red flag warning to all those considering using them... and to those who continue to believe they are trustworthy. I'm here to tell you... they are not to be trusted.

~Sky~

Sky, that's a disturbing story. Balance that against more than one second-hand story I've heard of people who bought 'x' number of $lindens from them and received '10x' Lindens.

That's where your money went -- shoddy bookkeeping control.

This raises a complicated concept for me, and I'm posting in a hurry from work so excuse me if my post lacks finesse First of all, Sky I am horribly sorry. I know many talented designers in world who have built a business and rely upon SL income in their real lives.

What I fail to see, and help me work through the logic here folks...is if Linden are "intangible" then how can they have a real world market value? And if we hold that they do, and a third party site takes our Linden and does not give us our money, how is this not theft?

If these are honest people, they should have no problem with cheerfully at least refuding you your Linden. The lack of response to emails and inworld is appalling. I do agree that Linden Lab needs to take a clear position on these third party sites. It may be that they have and I have not kept up with coverage of all the issues to know so.

Does anyone care to toss in their .02 about their perceptions on whether LL has a responsibility to assist in this sort of dispute resolution? I would think that if Sky paid an AV here there would be some degree of LL involvement. Yes? No?

I guess I'll never use IGE. Thanks for the tips.

I'm shocked, truly shocked... or should I be?

I received an email from IGE moments ago.. here it is.

Dear IGE customer - Sky Everett,

Please contact our MOD of Customer Service Department in order to arrange for returning game currency and they would like to clarify some questions with you.


Sincerely,

Security Department

Internet Gaming Entertainment Ltd.


Groovy.. eh?

I logged into SL to see if IGE Wheeling was online and found that my funds were returned... actually I found they deposited 10 times what they owe me.

I'm not a dishonest person and will return the extra MILLIONS of Lindens they sent... but I'll take my sweet time doing it. *looks at calendar*... hmmm.. perhaps in a couple of weeks I'll send an email advising them of their error... then make them wait a couple of months before I return it.

I will treat them exactly as they have treated me.

~Sky~ *amused*

now Sky, there is no reason to degrade your character is there? let them know they sent to much and if they want it back send it to them.

Maybe is is compensation for the long delay?

Im really glad they returned your money after all this time. As for the 10X value, I would return the balance to avoid being accused of something yourself. Keep a accurate record of the time and place you did this (to cover your ass).

GOM takes up to 2 days, and 3 more days for Paypal to deposit into the bank, but the good folks there have never let me down.

No, more likely it's typical sloppy IGE. They mis-pay quite frequently.

1) Yes
2) LL pretends to be uninvolved, and they have a very "hands off" policy when it comes to financial matters in SL
3) Because as much as we try, the word only spreads so fast. The sad truth is, one person getting ripped off does more to spread the word than 50 people just talking.




This is my view too, except I go a little farther: If LL is going to promote them, they not only need to be made aware of the actions, but they need to hold IGE to a much, much higher standard than your average sl citizen. What does this mean? It means IGE shouldn't be continually given a pass for things like this, even if LL would the average user.

Yes Reitsuki.. I agree. They added an extra zero.. it's an error on their part. I'm certain they weren't trying to compensate by being this generous.

Alright, I will not play the waiting game with them as they did with me...I'll return their error in overpayment and be done with it.

I've started using GOM as of yesterday and let me say this. Tom and his crew are extremely professional. Each question I asked was answered with the upmost courtesy, professionalism and promptness. *thumbs up*

I look forward to a healthy professional relationship with GOM.

Thanks for all your support everyone

(edited to correct spelling of Reitsuki's name)

I'm glad to hear that you were able to get a satisfactory resolution.

Sky,

Hang on to the cash until they screw one of your friends over. Then pay your friend that was screwed over. Robin Hood justice!

-Flip

Don't give the money back until they request it back.

I'm afraid that you'll pay today, and in a few weeks, they'll catch the extra zero and demand their money back -- money you already gave back.

Im amazed at the stories I hear, I have done 100s of IGE transaction, without issue. Maybe lucky I guess, but I do stick to a few simple rules.

1) Never trade more that 50,000.

2) I always confirm the amount with IGE Wheeler. ( 50,000 L$ correct?) I wont send until they respond.

3) I keep there e mail, the website screen and IM open until I see the deposit.

4) I use a paypal account for the transfer, can take a bit. But, nowhere near days or weeks.

I also use GOM. Very professional, well run outfit. Although simular rules still apply.

One question however. Your error refund was for 4,000,000 L$. Error being one extra 0. This leads me to understand the sale was for 400,000 L$. Curious because they only take up to 250,000 L$ per trade per 24 hours. Atleast this is what there website state.

Its interesting how people hate IGE just because they 'don't speak english' and 'employ Chinese workers'. I've used them without a problem. Seems xenophobic. IGE always promptly paid me after any transfer, whereas last time I tried GOM I had to wait a day or more to get my money while competing for the lowest sell price with a bunch of people trying to trade 1c spreads.

I normally read but never post in the cesspool of drama but hey, I suppose I'll write up a post. I'd like to say that I've used both GOM and IGE myself. Some of these tales I've heard are rather unsettling to say the least, but I must personally say that I've never had a problem with either one. Yet, I must admit GOM was much faster at getting me my lindens at much cheaper or at least slightly cheaper prices.

On that xenophobic note, I can honestly say that I could care less if IGE is run by Cambodians, Chinese, Japanese, Vietamese, Loatians, Koreans, Indians, Indonesians or any of the myriad of other peoples of or pertaining to Asia or any one of the other continents of the world for that matter. I just seek lindens... I don't care who provides them but they had best do it in a fair manner.

Blue and all those who posted to state they've never had issue with IGE...I'm very pleased to hear that. I don't think anyone should have to go through the frustration I went through.

Still, I'll never do business with them again...regardless of what part of the world they hail, profossionalism and prompt fair service is what I seek.

As for the initial transactions Blue, I am fully aware that the maximum transaction amount is 250K... I asked and confirmed with IGE Wheeling if multiple 250K transactions would be acceptable... there was no issue. They happily accepted my money.

As stated earlier, after weeks of no or very confusing communication with huge time laps between my emails...they declined to process my transaction and said they would return my funds. Well, they only returned 250K...leaving an outstanding balance.

When finally they did return the balance, they overpaid me.

The day of overpayment I contacted them telling them of their error and offered to return their money. IGE was online at the time..and didn't respond to my multiple attempts to speak with someone personally prior to just depositing the money to them.

My experience has been that their bookeeping is shody and leaves much to be desired. As James correctly stated, my fear was that I will deposit their money and weeks later they will claim I still owe them. I'm not about to play this game with them, so I wanted to speak with someone personally.

The very next day they sent me a rather threatening email saying that I must contact the live chat from their site, or call their toll free number (which doesn't work within Canada where I live.) And that if I do not comply within 24 hours they will get Linden Labs involved. I don't respond well to threats of any sort.

So, after making me wait well over a month for my money.. they expect me to contact them within 24 hours to fix their mistake? yeah ok.. keep dreaming.

I replied, stating that I will continue to hold their funds until they contact me. I've not heard a word since.
*shrugs*

good luck to all those who continue to use IGE.. I hope you fair much better than most of their customers.

~Sky~

I hate IGE because they routinely have problems, don't give a flying f--- about the games they destroy, employ people to activly make it harder for players to play legit games like World of Warcraft without them because of rampant farming, destroy the economies of several game worlds, persist in what they do even though what they do is forbidden by most companies that they operate within, employ bot-tactics to create characters to farm with and to farm, seem to have no end of bookkeeping troubles, give people the royal run-around whenever you try to get a problem resolved, one hand of their company never seems to know what the other is doing, have a history of doing paypal chargebacks first and asking questions later (An act that can flag your account as a "problem" account for a long time and/or royally screw with you in other ways), threaten and bully and make their screwups into your problem for you to fix, and, to top it all off, when your trying to deal with them they can't be bothered to employ people who can speak decent english... which, you know, is the dominant language on the internet, like it or not. It's just possible some of your customers might speak it, ya know.

Kindly do not dismiss my complaints with the "Sounds xenophobic--- you dont like them because they are chinese and don't speak english" line.

Heh heh. That's pretty funny.

Yeah, GOM is run by some very professional guys. Some of the most professional / ethical people I've ever see do business on the net.

Every company, including Linden Labs has their poor customer service moments. Heck, just send an email to support and you might be lucky to hear an actual answer and not just the automated response within two weeks. Also, look at the Hotline to see who many questions have to be reasked by the same people because the Lindens didn't answer or didn't answer the actual question.

Good customer service is a fairly relative thing. What we might see as rude and inconsiderate, others might see as general business practices or as cultural norms. Remember, most of those from Asia (and parts of Western Europe) consider American's to be rude, inconsiderate and rather demanding. Hell, just look at this thread and I would consider the same outlook. In this thread alone, we have people suggesting that IGE be stiffed as payback when the person was definetely overpaid.

As to the threatening email: Guess what? That is standard operating practice of 99% of the Fortune 500 companies. They have to take pre-emptive action and they have to cover their collective butts in case of legal action.

Is IGE blameless in all of this? No. Is the person who is making these claims blameless? From what I have seen, no. Could IGE improve its customer service to meet American standards? Probably, but why should they, other than potential loss of business?

Whether you are using IGE or GOM for your buying and selling of L$, you must keep meticulous records, make sure you have safeguards built in and always proceed with caution, because we all know, the PayPal is a real monster that has no problem siezing your funds for no real reason.

I miss the days when buisnesses at least *pretended* they gave a rats ass about their customers, and *pretended* they were helpful, ethical, and trying to do their best.

I guess trying to do a good job is going out of style.

By the way: I've dealt extensivly with Japanese buisnesses for years, ordering imported things for example, and dealt with korean MMORPG companies quite a bit too. Either of them make IGE look like two kids in their parents basement, and anti-social kids at that, by comparison. The "Maybe for asians this is good customer service" theory isn't flying with me.

I agree that a comment about Asian standards may be out of line. However, can you please elaborate on your other comment? Since we launched in October of 2003, Jamie and I have tried at all times to be professional, treat our customers with respect, and maintain high standards of customer service. I'm very curious -- in your opinion, how have we failed at that?

Gaaaaah. Many many appologies. I switched IGE and GOM somehow in my mind. Or my fingers. Or something. *slaps his errant fingers*

LOL.. GOM Rule All!!!