This Is Not Fair!

From my observation, LL isn't out to get anyone. Quite recently while I was exploring and decided to walk down a road (normally set as Protected Land i.e.LL) I found Huge For Sale blocks smak in the middle of my path.

Now I could have ignored it and jsut gone around but upon closer insection of the road sections, they were owned by a resident (not an LL employee) and set to sale for about 3,000L$.

I contacted Char about the situation and they agreed it was a mistake of land mamagment (and somebody obviously took advantage of the situation, big surpirse there NOT).

The owner was'nt available atm and I even offered to purchase the land myself and hand it over to Char to be able to remedy the situation, but ofcourse she stated no thankyou but thanks for the offer.

Eventually the borders and proper owners were rectified. and everyone was happy ( i think). anyways LL set the Grid ( on a wide scale mind you) and obviously they can't be at every given leak in the dyke and some are just going to try to get thier cup full every now and then, aren't they.

So as always I'd have to say it users fault even in this case (yes even i make blunders myself) but not on that scale anyways yet

I mostly agree with Kazanture and Dana here. This was clearly one bug exploit. The auctions did not appear on the auction page yesterday when I checked and was place my bids. So it is the Lindens duty now to reverse whatever can be reversed. If Jon or others tiered up for this, some tier reimburse would also be fair though.

Personally I had the situations in the past when people tried exploit bugs to get cheap land and then offered it to me for cheap and I rejected. It is called "business ethics".

My views from other related thread.

Maybe I can help here.

Scenario (1) is that the people at Linden made an error of some kind with the auction process. This can also happen in my real life business (i.e the Stock Market and Financial Advice)

Lets say a market maker sold a number of shares at above or below the volume weighted moving average. Lots of people have the ability to profit from it, and do by either selling short or long.

That’s tough for the market maker, it is called "a fat finger mistake" and I am afraid they have to live with it including any financial loss. To attempt to un-stitch it becomes progressively more unfair the further up the supply chain you move

Scenario (2) is called a hack or fraud. That is when someone finds a way to influence the price of a traded share by non-legal means. I will not go into how it can be done for obvious reasons.

In that situation you take legal action against the initiator BUT allow or honour second and ongoing transactions resulting from that fraud providing you are satisfied the individuals acted in good faith and were not related to the initiator.
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So in this case the legal precedents are clear, both in the UK or US. Linden Labs will have to establish if the error was theirs or not. If it was they have to honour it or risk legal action OR if they can prove fraud they take what ever action they deem appropriate against the initiator, but allow/honour related transaction if it is a true "third party" transaction with no connection.

Trust this hurried post makes the situation clear in my own opinion

This is Marc Woebegone. I've done nothing but buy by the regular auction method. I contacted Linden about this before bidding on one, and there was no objection. In my biding I went up to $300., and entered $450. I may have even paid more.

It's not a "hack" to use their URLs. They provide the auction id number, and the methodology for bidding. And, they see it happening as it happens, as they post to the closed auction page, and during bidding, they're aware of what auctions are live. In fact, some purple squares were not allowed to be biid on at all; hence, someone at Linden made a decision to make some these sims accessible to bid, and some not.

In any event, a contract is a contract. I paid the 300, upped tier, and they accepted it. And again, I asked about it before I got involved. And the number of people invovled was increasing quickly; hence, normal market conditions were taking over; as they should. Their language tells me i'm bound when I do that, bid on their contract.

So, if my account is not opened today, I'm suing them. Simple. And I'm contacting the credit card company to charge backthe previous billings; I have about $5,000US in my account from selling land and other things, land I paid $1,000 for, or less on smalller parcels, etc., and still holding about 4 sims (bought in the original auction process for those of you that don't think Linden created this system for the alternate auctions). They're refusing to let me withdraw those funds. I belive that's not only a fraud, breach of contract, but it's also theft by deception. Offering the sims for sale to an auction, not objecting to the process when informed abot it, watching it, and then keeping the money they received. Oh, and I did get an email from Jack Linden saying I'd get my money. But it hasn't happened.... yet.

I told them I'd waiit to 8 a.m. EST for them to resolve this, and then I'm defending my rights. See, SL or not, there is a real law out there to protect consumers, and I intend to exercise it. After all, not only did I not receive the courtesy of ao phone call or email about the account being deleted, but when I tried to contact them and their attorney, they refused to speak to me. So they can tell their story to a judge.

MARC WOEBEGONE

How does "Maximum Bid" work?
When you enter a bid significantly higher than the current high bid, then the system will automatically bid for you up to the point of your maximum bid. This makes it less necessary to be online at the time the auction ends. The amount of the bid will be the minimum needed to outbid competing bidders. For example, if the current high bid is US$50, and you bid US$100, then a bid of $51will be automatically placed for you. If someone else bids US$75, then a bid of $US76 will be placed for you - and so on. If someone bids $101, then an email will be generated to you that you have been outbid.

Where else can I see the parcels about to be auctioned?
When you are in Second Life, you can click on the "Find" button, select "Land Sales", check the "Auction" box and select "Search". You can also see land for auction by clicking on the "Map" button and selecting "Land for Sale". The land set up for auction appears as light blue. The map includes land that is planned for auction as well as those parcels currently on the block.

What else should I know?
Before submitting a bid, please remember that you automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if you win the auction.

What if no one bids on a parcel?
The land will be released as public land and residents may purchase as much as they like at L$1 per meter.

How will I know when I can take possession of the land?
Unless there is a problem with billing, winners of auctions may take possession of their land immediately.

What happens if the winner doesn't pay for the parcel?
The second highest bidder has the option of buying it for their highest bid. If the second bidder refuses the option, then the parcel will be auctioned again.

It was NOT a mistake. LL did it deliberately. You catch it when it's there or you lose. That's how it works.

Who the heck are master & mistress?

THIS WAS WRITTEN BY LINDEN LABS AND REMINDED HERE BY MARC WOEBEGONE

What else should I know?
Before submitting a bid, please remember that you automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if you win the auction.

WHAT IF NO ONE BIDS ON THE PARCEL?
The land will be released as public land and residents may purchase as much as they like at L$1 per meter.

THAT SOUNDS LIKE A LEGAL CONTRACT TO ME, THE PART WHERE IT SAYS "YOU WILL AUTOMATICALLY ENTER INTO A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT"

SO IM CONFUSED.....HOW IS IT THAT WHAT MARC, MEZ, AND THE OTHERS DID WRONG?
IF
1)THE AUCTION NUMBER WAS MADE BY LINDEN LABS,
2)THE LAND IS OWNED BY LINDEN,
3)THE WEBSITE IS RUN BY LINDEN,
4)THE URL WITH THE PROPERTY'S AUCTION ID IS ON SL.COM RUN BY LINDEN,
5)AUCTION NOT LISTED ON SL.COM SO ITS HIDDEN TO OTHERS UNLESS THEY GO TO PARCEL?
NOT MARC AND MEZ'S BOO BOO THEY DIDNT HACK INTO THE SYSTEM...THE INFORMATION WAS THERE FOR ANYONE TO SEE AND ANY OF YOU COULD HAVE BID AND GOTTEN THIS SAME INFORMATION.

THEN WHY IS IT THAT LINDEN'S IS HOLDING THE ACCOUNTS OF THOSE WHO BID?

1)LINDEN,....2)LINDEN.......3)LINDEN....4)LINDEN......5)MEZ, MARC?

THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE AT ALL. HMMMM

If anyone looked at the auction page of these auctions while they were going on, it had the minimum bid listed as US$1000. I was wondering how someone had bid US$0 and figured it was a glitch and that the minimum bidder was actually US$1000. Now since you have to go to the auction page to bid, and it clearly stated the minimum bid was supposed to be US$1000, how do you feel that you are right in this matter?

The Minimum Bid Was 0L$ Because Linden Didnt Add A Minimum Bid To These Particular Auctions. They Stared At 0L$ AND HOW CAN YOU BID LESS THAN A MINIMUM BID OF 1000$ anyway? They bid legally just as the auction is stated on SL.com. They entered a bid, and they won. Thats it. Simple as that. So how is it their fault?

Ok I misspoke, this is what it said



Which meant it was supposed to be set as US$1000. Now if it didn't have that on the page, I would say your probably right. Now others obviously bid again under US$1000 because there was multiple bids on these auctions. I didn't bid since I don't have US$1000, but anyone who looked at the page saw that and knew it was supposed to be more then a buck

Yes, but it says YOU enter into a legally binding contract. It does not say that LINDEN LABS enter into that contract.



No, they have to go to the parcel and use the information from the parcel to forge a URL.

This really is one of the most entertaining threads I have ever read. Please keep posting!

You beat me to it Ingrid. I have no idea what's going on but this is the funniest thread I've read in a long time. Let's see if I've got it straight - LL is either going to jail if they don't reverse the auction or getting sued if they do. Market makers apparently price based on a weighted moving average and in order to be a land baron on SL it's necessary to get Masters and Mistresses involved.

Good stuff...

Let's see if Judge Judy will take this case.

This is nothing new to this crybaby........hows kitty or kittie or whatever its name is nowadays

Stephen, lol.

Cannot comment about other issues you posted on but I was simply making the point that if you buy or sell shares online (UK) the share price is set by the volume weighted moving average price AND once you have clicked that buy or sell button, that’s it. The deal is done and it is a formal contract. Regardless of errors

Here in Second Life if the auction process is to be seen to be credible I think the same must apply. Unless of course the purchaser hacked into the system to gain an unfair advantage. In which case they deserve the pile of trouble that will descend on them.

However I have yet to see any posts about the fate of any second or subsequent purchaser after it (apparently) was sold on at around $L 4 per metre.

I was just looking at it from a simple first life common sense viewpoint

Yumi, it is the very nature of contracts that they place obligations on BOTH parties to the contract. In this instance, the bidder and the vendor (ie the person or group that placed the item up for auction)

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Also, any auctioneer would tell you that it is the sole responsibility of the vendor to place a reserve on an item on auction. If he doesn't, then the highest bid when the hammer falls buys the item, regardless of the amount bid or the value of the item.
Someone at Linden Labs failed to set a reserve, and some people were lucky enough to get a real bargain, nothing more.

If anyone deserves to be punished, it's the person who put the land up for auction without reserve, because it is they that cost Linden Labs money. If this was a software glitch, and I seriously doubt that it was, they had plenty of time to withdraw the land from auction using admin powers... but they didn't.

To those whingers who say "It's not fair!", BOOHOO, my heart bleeds. You're only complaining because someone managed to buy some land at auction for less than you did. You people need to grow up and realize that things aren't always going to go your way, and whinging about it only proves how infantile you are.

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One last thing, before you go on impuning other people's character, you better have concrete evidence, because otherwise you are committing libel, and opening yourself up to some serious litigation.

Only once both sides have signed it. That button is saying that by clicking it, you're signing the contract, but LL haven't yet. (I'm not sure what the official position is on online contracts but it'd be a bit silly if it worked any other way.)

Even if you claim that LL have to enter the contract, they could still write the contract to say "You is legally bound to buy the sim if LL decide to sell it to you; but LL are not actually required to sell it to you, they are only bound to give you back your money if they decide not to." I'm sure it says something like this, too. Have you read the TOS? It basically says that you aren't ever legally guaranteed anything.



Most auctioneers would not sell something unless they were clear that it was supposed to be sold. In this case, the automated auctioneer sold something that wasn't ready for sale yet.

There's certainly precedent for online vendors to say "no" when it's obvious that something has been set to the wrong price, and just because it's an auction, that won't change the basic matter.

Usually they don't chase down products, as the cost of tracking down all the things (plus negative publicity) that have been sent out is not worth their while compared to the amount saved. In this case, though, it's easy for LL to do that. And if there's been an exploit involved, well, I'd stay well away from that courtroom, folks.

In most cases I would agree with you. However this time it is a bit a different than the aution scenario you state.From what I have read here and in the orhter thread this is more akin to entering into the private rooms of the auction house and ensuring that there can be no minimum bid.

These people, through a trick, acessed web pages that are not yet linked in to the regular auction start pages ( therefor still private pages not public). They then started an auction for entire sims with no minimum bid despite the fact that LL has stated that all mainland sims will start aution at 1000$. THe auction system once started is an automatic process. Until it completes and the results are automatically displayed on the closed aution pages, I suspect the fact that an auction has been started prematurely was undetectible to LL unless someone happened to return to work on the incomplete private pages. Given recent attacks and Grid instability it's likely that everyone had been placed on duties dealing with that rather than putting more land for auction.

This sort of backdoor entrance to private web pages is in most cases considered a hack and is therefore illegal. In the eyes of the law it doesn't matter that LL had flaws in their system that let someone do this.

Which makes it all the more funny that they've stolen from LL and then threaten to press charges when they're made to give back the stolen goods. This is why I read the forums. You never know what those crazy kids will do next.

I don't know what concrete evidence you have access to, but I have a detailed description of exactly what they did, given to me a couple of days before any of this was an issue. A description that I have no reason to doubt.
It wasn't a trick at all, but the practice of due diligence.

And how many of you have considered what LL might have to gain by saying they used an exploit, rather than admitting their own liability in this? Continued confidence in a land auction system which brings in not inconsiderable amounts of income... not to mention the pretext to take back land that, by Linden Lab's own auction rules, they had a contractual obligation to hand over to the highest bidder, so they can auction it again, while keeping what the highest bidders had already paid.

Further, these bidders are being publicly reviled by people who know nothing about what happened other than they managed to get a bargain.
Unless you have concrete evidence to back up your claims, then you're being libelous, which if I recall would constitute a violation of section 5.1 of the Terms of Service.

So, my advice would be to stop throwing around accusations at least until the investigation is complete. I, for my part, will be saying nothing more.