Well Known Land Baron Manipulating Auctions!!

Names named, proof given... see

http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/Topic5628-18-1.aspx

I looked at your evidence, Jamie, and it doesn't seem too solid to me.

By a fluke, I examined, and posted about, the "completed auctions" situation one day before you did.

Here is my posting:
/120/7c/53724/6.html#post571736

You will see that something looked really strange with regard to another sim, won by Philo for the same price, $1800, with Anshe Chung second bidder far, far below him.

Is it possible they have a bug in their auction software, after trying to introduce the new "waiting to trigger" sim auctions, which have failed to materialise?

I am no fan of XXXXX in some respects, but I seriously doubt he/she would do what you say, and your evidence of something disappearing from the list doesn't seem to prove it at all.

What puzzles me is this. Why are any of these people bidding the price up above $1000 trigger price, when they know that an unlimited supply has been promised, and should be along any moment? So they could have one each at $1000. Do they know something we don't ?

None of this makes sense to me.

_______________
Edit: With regard to the "far, far below him" thing, I'm an idiot. Sorry. I forgot how "bid history" works. See posting below.

You should be, like, writing for the SL Herald or something.

Good grief, Cristat stands at US$2000 as I speak, with 16m to go.
What on EARTH are they up to?

And lots of little bits, which they said they would stop.

Piff !

That's crazy - someone needs their head read. Not only is there supposedly going to be limitless sims available (as Ellie pointed out), there is shed loads of land on the market at ridiculously low prices.

US$2000 must be about 7.5L per m2? That's not even accounting for any protected land. Is this a hub sim by any chance?

Well Cristat has a telehub, if you look at the map.

The random bits I presume are re-possessed - but they implied they were to be first land I think.

Wow, realised the 'area' of the sim. Assuming an exhange rate of US$3.90/L$1k, that's L$11.4m-2!

Yes.

I think some people have lost their sense.

If I was investing I'd buy up loads of the really cheap stuff - not pay over the odds for more.

Ah thought so, am not in world to see

Or buy the land, max out the world, have a truck load at the end. This would force many to switch over to his/her sims and therefore pay the price. Granted that is alot of waiting considering how much free space apears on the map. It would have to be a great conspiracy by the "tinies liberation army" for that to happen.

Yes - gone for $2000.

with regard to my difficulty understanding the bid history gaps - I'm an idiot.
I see how it works - only bids which actually become top bid (even temporarly) are shown. It was the rounded winning figures, and the gaps below them, which threw me. Never ocurred to me that people would be bidding just below the thousand, ie 1799. That's what makes the winning (auto) bid 1800.

Silly me.

I still ask - why pay this much ?

Details:
http://secondlife.com/auctions/detail.php?id=0026197280

My calculation:
US$0.0444/m
Current GOM rate is US$3.91/L$1000

Thats L$11.36/m

Have they gone mad ? Or are existing barons risking a loss to kill off a new entrant ?

Even with a telehub - 11.36 ??????

Well it certainly makes sense if you have a lot invested. It's worth pointing out that the winning bidder is not unfamiliar with bidding higher than the average Joe.

Hmmm - I hadn't really thought the telehub aspect through.
The claim to soon be offering unlimited mainland sims seems even more nonsensical. If they are unlimited, then the telehub ones would be unlimited. If they were, none without would ever sell. Every sim sold would have a telehub, and would go for $1000. Each buyer would simply pick one of his own from the "unlimited" list.

So they can't be unlimited. So people will compete for them. Telehub ones will go for more, and will be made available only in the correct proportion, a batch at a time. No more telehubs till the others which go with it have been triggered and sold.

So if no-one thinks the non-telehub ones worth $1000 its tough luck. No more telehubs till they are gone.

Hmmm - brain hurts - its sort of unlimited, but only for non-telehub. With everyone fighting over each telehub as it arrives, but maybe not really wanting the non-telehubs they have to buy too.

But will we buy even telehub land from the dealers at 11.4 plus markup on average, ie close in, best positions, maybe $16/m ??? Will people pay that? Quickly enough, before the tier paid while waiting for a buyer cuts into the profit too far ?

I really gotta update that spreadsheet.

Maybe the plan is new mall space for renting, not selling the best bits at all ?

Yes Jamie - you are right - we are all ignoring your stated concerns a bit, aren't we ?

I for one didn't see or make any record of the auction that disappeared, so it doesn't have quite the impact it does for you, who saw it happen.

I agree it seems very strange. Why don't you request an explanation on the hotline forum?

I dont suppose you took a copy of the bid history, did you ? Screenshot or webarchive ?
I'd be interested in you posting that.

Looks like its "the auction that never was". Mysterious. You could always ask the baron what happened by IM. No matter how cross with you he/she feels, I think that particular he/she (isnt this silly) would give you a straight reply. In fact, I'm expecting an appearance right here any moment.

Anybody there, oh mystery baron ?????????

I bid on thousands of auctions during past 14 months and never made mistake. But this time I screwed up. I confused this sim with telehub sim south of it and accidently bid 1999 US$ max bid. This is life. I had to pay some fee and sim is up for grabs again. Sorry.

The auction definately happened. I was the second highest bidder. I declined to take it after the high bidder backed out, for whatever reason. I did so because it would have cost one dollar less than the high bid, rather than the portion of my max bid which beat someone other than the high bidder.

While these are the rules, it just didn't seem right that the high bidder could back out for a $175.00 fee and meanwhile the second highest bidder would get stuck with a price that the open auction would NOT have reached. If one wanted to, one could probably use this tactic in a full sim only auction market to ensure total domination of the auction while remaining within the rules.

I'm not saying that the high bidder did anything dishonest. I don't know if this happened, and my critisism is of the loophole, NOT the high bidder. I did IM the high bidder when LL offered me the sim, and this individual didn't indicate that the reasoning was anything like this. I'll not comment farther on that conversation. I'm sure that the individual will come here and address the issue if they feel it's appropriate.

Like I said above though, it would make an interesting auction tactic to bid them all up to a few grand and then decline to take delivery of any that are won above your real price. Did it happen? Eh.. Who really knows? What I do know is that this loophole should be plugged by NOT allowing a high bidder to back out of future auctions for any reason whatsoever.



-Shaun

Good grief, Shaun. I for one should have taken Jamie more seriously, and I apologise to him. I thought he had merely deduced the withdrawal from the disappearnce, but you now assert it firsthand.

What you relate seems appalling. I find it hard to conceive of any morally valid reason for a person of such resources and experience to back out in this way. A penalty of $175 is too small. Small enough to allow a strategy involving gaming around it to maybe make sense, but only to disadvantage a competitor..

As for the price it is offered to you at - that is ludicrous. You should be put back as far as it can be practically determined into the situation you would have been in if the defaulter had NEVER BID AT ALL.

If there is an honest explanation (and lets wait a little longer before judging - she may appear in a moment) its hard to see what it can be. To be honest, since this was a public auction, and the bid histories are public, I am very tempted to name the name here now. I don't see how that could be wrong. But I don't think it should be necessary. She watches the forums. She always comes if she is being unfairly maligned. Perhaps someone should in fairness alert her to this thread? Though its never seemed necessary before. Entirely her choice of course.

Does anyone else know of recent instances where any land baron of substance has declined to honor an auction bid ?

I think this needs to be taken very seriously unless a convincing innocent explanation is forthcoming from LL or the person who withdrew.

Do YOU have a record of the bid history, Shaun ?

What? You're human? I'm shocked!

BTW, what happens to the value of your telehub land if point-to-point teleport is implemented?

Buster

I thought after I post what happened the conspiracy theory thread would stop. But before you decide go through history of thousands of auctions, let me tell you what you will find:

o >3000 auctions Anshe Chung bid on
o exactly one auction that Anshe Chung defaulted on (today)
o one more auction back in september that was canceled because of credit card limit

Please note that your favorite manipulative land baroness has not even defaulted on any of hundreds of land parcels that she won shortly before serious price drops and still had on unclaimed status after those price drops. At some stage this May it would have been 100% within rules for me to just return back 150000sqm of unclaimed auction land, pay the fee and buy cheaper land in world instead. Still it did not happen. Why? Now this is question for interested reader to solve Maybe one more conspiracy? Must be involving aliens!

*giggles*

Hi Ellie,

There's no maybe about it. If my moral composition allowed me to pay $175 - $250 now and then in order to prevent you from EVER winning an auction, I'd be all over that. In a full sim only marketplace it seems financially sound. Anshe chimed in above and indicated that she'd confused it with a telehub sim. While to me this seems like a very strange and expensive blunder, it isn't beyond the realm of the POSSIBLE. We're all human here afterall.

I suppose time will tell. I'll ressurect this thread if I'm second highest again and one of the larger-scale bidders does this to me again, and I'd encourage all other small-to-medium-scale bidders to do the same.



Agree, and this is where my problem lies. If this tactic were exploited it would allow any user to prevent other users from EVER winning an auction at a sane price again.



I don't mean to malign anyone. Like I said my problem is with the loophole and not Anshe. She's the only person who will ever know if this was a bait-and-switch type routine or she honestly thought a telehub was there. With this in mind I suppose there's no real point in speculating.



No, but I intend to post about it every single time it happens to me in the future, and as above I'd encourage others to do the same.



I think it needs to be taken very seriously anyhow. The loophole IS there regardless of whether it happened in this perticular auction or not.



I do have the record of this auction from before it.. vanished. I guess it shouldn't be a problem to post since everyone knew their name would be on record when they bid. Here it is:

Parcel Information
Location: Daphnis (128,12
Parcel Size: 59984 square meters
Object Limit: 13,729
Simulator Rating: Mature

Bid History

Resident Bid Amount Bid Date
Anshe Chung US$1751.00 Jul-18-05 06:17:54 PDT
Shaun Altman US$1750.00 Jul-18-05 16:24:55 PDT
Anshe Chung US$1701.00 Jul-18-05 06:17:21 PDT
Kurohyu Song US$1700.00 Jul-17-05 13:14:37 PDT
Anshe Chung US$1700.00 Jul-18-05 06:17:09 PDT
Kurohyu Song US$1601.00 Jul-17-05 13:14:37 PDT
Anshe Chung US$1600.00 Jul-18-05 06:16:58 PDT
Kurohyu Song US$1502.00 Jul-17-05 12:03:29 PDT
Buster Peel US$1501.00 Jul-16-05 19:28:29 PDT
Kurohyu Song US$1500.00 Jul-17-05 12:03:07 PDT
Buster Peel US$1201.00 Jul-16-05 19:28:29 PDT
Kurohyu Song US$1200.00 Jul-17-05 12:02:51 PDT
Buster Peel US$1000.00 Jul-16-05 16:13:51 PDT




-Shaun

Wheres that from, Buster ?
OH....
I see !
I went did something else in the middle of posting and things moved on - sorry.

Seems fair enough. It was quite hard to believe.
I guess having your actions scrutinised is one of the penalties of being such a public figure.

Just want to check again on the auction the day before where Anshe pushed Philo to the same $1800, and therefore must have bid $1799. See if it fits the explanation, and there is a reason why she would happily, without misunderstanding, have paid for the first the very $1799 which she felt was at least $175 too much for the second. I doubt she was happy about withdrawing, so the differential would surely have been at least $100 beyond that , to motivate her to do so. Puts Anshes valuation of the mystery Sim at no more than 1800-175-100 = 1550, against Philo's Sim which she valued (bid) at 1799.

I spose I'll have to go see tomorrow why one was worth that much more than the other. Perhaps the telehub is in Philo's.

If so, I guess that all fits.
__________

Edit: Gee, Shaun, I took too long again. Yours arrived while I was away typing. Thanks. I agree with all you say. I'm still gonna check out Philo's sim (It's Lida), see if all sounds right on the relative value there. Anshe bid 1999 on Cristat too, won by Kurohyo for 2000. So thats three sims I will go compare.

Yes, they have.

How would paying too much for land kill off a new entrant? That's a formula for killing themselves off!

Buster