The real danger of the L$50 Stipend

What I've yet to hear an explanation of from promulgators of this (edit: the lists of card numbers) theory is why somebody with loads of stolen CC numbers would waste their time trying to get stipends on SL (before the cards are cancelled) rather than more traditional and profitable forms of credit card fraud. I find it verrrrry hard to believe that this goes on.

Because in the case of most western nations, there is something called 'grand theft'.

It is a felony, and prison time is served. I'm not sure about United States law, but in general, credit card fraud valuing over 400 USD or so lands you in prison.

Usually what such perpetrators do is charge only 10 or 15 USD per card to avoid this when they actually commit such crimes, knowing that it would take 30 or 40 people to band together and prosecute at the same time.

Most credit card companies simply accept the random consumer chargeback of 10 or 15 USD as a cost of doing business. I know mine does. They won't go after a fraud case, especially one in a foreign country, unless the dollar amount gets fairly high.

Also, such criminals have a tendency to go after credit cards held by businesses, which are often poorly managed, and can 'milk' an account for years.

How do I know all this? Personal experience. And no, I'm not a criminal, nor have I ever committed such heinous acts. Beyond that, I'm not going into details.

Further information: http://www.ripoffreport.com/

Edit: just so you know, that link is to a private group that chases class action lawsuits - I am not affiliated in any way with them, but if you find a funny charge on your credit card and 'google' the scammer, good chance you will find him already reported there by someone else.

IMHO, I don't think there are any farmers with 2000 accounts out there. I suspect the problem is more with hundreds or thousands of people who found every single credit card in the house and signed up free accounts with them. It could easily be 10 accounts per person and it's basically free money.

10 free accounts plus 1 paid account gives you L$1000/week, which when multiplied by many users will add up quickly. Fortunatly, a lot of those users probably don't cash out their L$ right away, they spend their extra stipend on in-game stuff and may only cash out to pay tier. It's a small abuse, but when multiplied by many people it could aggregate into a large effect.

I suspect LL doesn't actually verify the address information you put in with the CC company until you upgrade to the premium account to avoid the credit card fees on free accounts.

That's a really, really good point.

Does anyone here *cough* "know a friend" *cough* that does this?

I don't, but then it's just plain too much bother as far as I'm concerned. But then I have a business in-world that makes $L.

come week 2

Current plan: LL has given the newbie $300L $250 start + $50 stipend

My idea: LL has given the newbie $1000L $1000L start + nothing

come week 16

Current plan: LL has given the newbie $1000L $250L start + $750L in stipends

My idea: LL has given the newbie $1000L $1000L start + nothing

come week 17

Current plan: LL has given the newbie $1050L $250L start + $800L in stipends

My idea: LL has given the newbie $1000L $1000L start + nothing

aww the poor newbie now how will he buy stuff? Poor newbie? this person has been around for over 4 months and is still just living on $50L a wk? Come on lol

They won't go to auction for L$ because LL doesn't make money out of L$.

Ok. Now you're scaring me.

Anyhow, maybe 1 stolen credit card is no problem to get. What about 100? Please share your experience with us on this.

Hmmm. Asian = Scam artists.

hmm...

It makes all the sense.

Why should there be any worry or safeguarding over this *multiple farming accounts* if it has a demonstrated ineffectiveness?

So now we're gonna kill the basic accounts 50L's a week just because someone is comepletely assuming that thousands of accounts are doing such wild things as stealing credit card numbers to collect 50Ls a week per account.

hmmmm...

The early days? It still happens on LiveJournal in 2006, seven years into its existance. I just started LJ at the beginning of 2003 (for that year's New Year's Resolution) so I can speak to the first four plus years of the server, but people still blame the "glut" of free users for the server problems. The only thing that has assauged the complaint since late 2005 is that paid users now jump to the front of the server queue.

But the whole LiveJournal parellel is interesting because they seemingly have no better luck with converting free users to paid users even though that system has a much bigger disparity in what is afforded free users versus what is afforded paid users. I myself have had a paid account the entire time mostly for the ability to post polls. And, yet, most people don't even bother paying LJ's nominal yearly fee to upgrade and do that. I can only imagine that if the fees were like here to become a paid user on LiveJournal, very few people would bother.

If the whole point of SL's business strategy is to turn free users in premium members, they have to address the priviledges and not just the stipends. Not that I want to see that happen, but it's just a thought.



It is possible to live on 50L a week when SL doesn't require you to have a home or get food. It's just not as much fun. But that's beside the point. I do concede that your system seems to work. That being said, the $250L does encourage the newbie to be more frugal. Can you imagine a $2000L starting budget? You wouldn't still see me around because I would have blown it all and then said, "crap. Well I'm broke and I have nothing but the clothes on my back and some really kicking dance moves."

It's not that the $50L is some magical thing to live on, it's more guaranteed income. For example before my last stipend came in, I went on a spree to find a hoodie (the one I bought was crap but that's beyond the point) knowing that the next day half of the Lindens I spent would be replenished. Had I not known that the next day was pay day, I wouldn't have done it. If you've ever been unemployed in FL, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Knowing you have a guaranteed income encourages spending more than if you don't have one regardless of the size.

And they do crosscheck. I registered a new account with a different credit card and the same address and email, and it charged me US$10. No, I wasn't trying to subvert the system, and I wasn't concerned at the charge, that just happened to be the card at hand.

Oh, and my "free" account has paid well over US$100 in LindeX - the US$0.20 a week will pay off in, what 10 years? Plus the US$33/month to Alliez and Tony that go into the rent for LostFurest dAlliez... I think Linden Labs has more than made back the total stipend I'm likely to get during my time in SL.

But if they took hat stipend away, I'd still be pissed, simply because it'd be such a chintzy move. Personally, I think they need to give people a legitimate way of increasing the stipend. bringing back the reputation bonus, suitably nerfed so any combination of reputation exchanges would lose money, would do the trick AND it'd still act as a linden sink.

If someone was going to get involved in credit card fraud in the first place, one would imagine they could find an arrangement that would earn them more than 20 cents a week per transaction in exchange for their risk.

You mean not just getting rid of the zero cost accounts, but also getting rid of the "rent-free" paid basic accounts? That would be disasterous.

I wouldn't have joined in the first place. I paid my $10.00 to start because I wasn't committing more than that $10.00, and I've put over US$100 into LindeX (maybe US$200 by now) because I know that if I get tired of the game for a while and spend a few months just checking in once a week to keep my account alive I won't lose all that stuff. Even if you're currently Premium, you know that if you want to sell your land and tier down to Basic for a while, you aren't on the hook to LL to keep your inventory alive.

And that's psychologically important.

Getting rid of the "rent-free" accounts would do more to clobber the Linden than any amount of gold-farming.

Correction $0USD a year. Or put another way its $472,727 USD worth of goods given away each year.

I agree 2k is excessive but I think $250L is insufficient. I tried to pick a price that at would be as near minimal as possible to let someone look human.(assuming a greeter helped them tweak their shape and pointed them to good deals.) $250L leaves you still looking like a newbie and with no idea how to get more. I got lucky I got a job my first day that paid me $500L an hr + tips. It didn't last long for obvious reasons, but it gave me the money needed to get the basics.



You might have a compelling argument in favor of the stipend there. If over most users the $50 encourages spending beyond the $50L then it's profitable for everyone. Including the guy who spend extra money since he got his enjoyment out of it. It's not something I would think of I have more of a saver mindset $50L more doesn't mean $50L more to spend. You can ask any of my friends about my "spending" habit's. lol



Currently am and unless I round up an RL job soon my paycheck poofs soon. Fortunately I have cash reserves that will carry me as long as I should practically need. However see above it doesn't affect my spending habits. So spending more because you have more isn't a mindset that is immediately obvious to me. My logic was based on $50L a wk is not significant to getting what you need in game. Either it won't cut it or your making enough you don't need it. So front load the money so people get more when they DO need it. Save the cost of front loading by cutting out the referal bonus for free acct's and the continued stipends(profit point at 4mo).

ps. Note the above logic ignores farming stipends.

IF I had a list of 10,000 credit card numbers, and IF it took me 10 minutes to create an account, and IF I spent 40 hours a week creating accounts, it would take me 41 weeks to create those 10,000 accounts. Nah... I don't THINK so....

And it's stupid to steal a six pack from a drug store, you'll get caught and have a criminal record, but by the time I've typed this a small pool of beer has probably been stolen.

Much of it has to do with the criminal mind.

Regardless of profit/risk, regardless of long term effectiveness, there are feelings of superiority, low self esteem, &c at work.

And even a normal person can understand a relatively free 2000 USD per week. In an automated system, the 'per transaction' you are discussing goes on day and night, awake or asleep.


I remember when the l2walker.exe bots were active in Lineage2 - a server would come up, then you could watch hundreds of bot characters log in just as you did, then start doing their thing.

Suddenly a town would fill up with bot sellers hawking wares, bot dwarves crafting wares, and a bot mage 'powering up' the dwarf so it could craft day in and day out, never moving.

For the record, where do your numbers come from? I am specifically asking about the 90% and the past 90 days. I've read the past 30 days from Flipper and the past 6 weeks from Enabran. Where is this infromation clarified? The 90% is a completely new one.

Yadni's Junkyard.

My human alt started there, then found a good deal on nice clothes (not pimp clothes... nothing screams newby like pimp clothes and bling) for L$200 for a complete outfit. No skin, yet, but nobody's complained about his skin not having body hair or genitals... another advantage of not dressing for a disco.

Actually, humans get it easy. They're really in trouble if they're NOT human. If they don't, they really quote-need-unquote to start with at least L$350 so they can afford a Tiny. If they're into mecha, oh, maybe L$1000. For a vampyre-with-a-y, though, a good goth skin is more pricey than that. So complaints that L$250 isn't enough because you can't "look human" give me a laugh, they do.

A supplement to the stipend, one that actually brings value to SL, that's more important. But it's gotta really make SL better for paying customers.

Yep, and I'm sure there's some people dumb enough to thing 20c/card is a good return. But how many? There's clearly not enough petty theft going on to put a drugstore out of business, and they concentrate on keeping people from swiping the electronics instead. If LL has the same kind of problem with stupid theives, they're better off subscribing to a credit card "kill list" than dumping the free accounts. Heck, they can sell new bad numbers back to the credit bureaux by watching for other registrations from the same IP around the same time as the bad card.

No, the "per transaction" comes when they feed the credit card # in to SL the first time... and find out if it's still good. They still need to come up with thousands of CC#s that will pass... and they can make a lot more by using the CC# to buy merchandise on Amazon for shipment to a drop box.

This is even a dumber way to use stolen CC#s than selling them to griefers.

I did factor in a skin I think it makes a noticable difference and atleast 1 hair if your female.

ps. never worn pimp clothes and the only "bling" I've ever worn is a wedding ring which doesn't have a sparkle. But I think you gave more arguments for a higher starting stipend than against in that post. Not everyone is human.

The twenty cents authorisation fee is 'eaten' by the Company, presuming it checks for a functional credit card.

The end user would never see a charge. If they did a very detailed check for activity on their card (possible online with some banks) they may notice a $10 authorisation (or whatever amount the Company checks for).

The slight decrease in credit line will just go away in a week or two and never hit the statement, if the authorisation is not followed by a sale.

That's not the scam. Should someone scam Amazon with an incorrect credit card, charge against it and actually ship to a drop box, that is theft, potentially grand theft. In addition it is arguably wire fraud - a *very* high consequence crime for anyone in a western country.

Causing a company to verify a credit card that is not yours, but never actually charging to it, is more along the lines of identity theft. Far, far lesser charges (though that may be changing soon).


Another thing most people don't realise, is that credit cards do NOT need anything more than the number and date to process, depending upon how the end user configures their credit card billing terminal.

Yes, that's right, not even the name.

A lot of businesses intentionally disable address verification. Just about every point-of-sale terminal ignores it. Ever give your address using a credit card at a restaurant? It's an easy thing to shut off on an internet-based terminal as well. I would hope the Company has all the restrictions on, but who knows?

I musta read Jeska's mind lol

Consider point 3 implemented

"Effective today, we will be eliminating the $L1000 bonus for Basic Referrals."

I think you are completely wrong. It is not $0USD a year. If this was the case, then why are people like Asche Corp making six figure incomes in real USD's. Why are people making things to sell, it pays their tiers. If it is $0 USD why is there the capability of cashing in your lindens for cold hard cash. If I had a shop to sell the things I make and say make 20,000 lindens a month, I can convert that into real dollars and cash them in. If that money (linden dollars) out there for people to spend and pay for my things then there would be no money for me to cash in. I can take this money to pay my tier to Linden Inc which means they get their money back or at least a lot of it.

Because stipend money isn't new USD in the system it's just more Lindens competing to be sold for the same amount of dollars. When someone buys content with the $50L stipend NO USD is spent. So that's goods given away. Lets say stipend day 1000 free accounts that buy Lindens get stipends they go out and spend. thats 50000L those players spend without buying USD. Content provides just recieved 50k lindens without the matching about $175USD being spent to buy lindens. That's why it's zero USD.