How to recover my money.

Not sure if this qualifies for this thread, but I have to ask anyways because so far I have no help from online help.

I rented a place for 225$ perweek, max lease was 6 weeks. So i thought i may as well get it for 6 weeks and practise putting a place together( in other words i wanted to spend my Poker winnings). I was there for 2 days and managed to fill the place up with all sorts of goodies i bought around SL. I was sitting in the casino playing poker and I saw that my new HDTV was returned to my inventory's lost and found. So I immediately teleported to my landmark at my rental. I was waiting for my house to appear and realized that it was gone. The land owner was there, and he said that since I rented off the guy he subletted too, that he wasnt responsible for my rent. I should contact the guy i rented from. So I did, he said oh I dont got time right now, I'll do it tomorrow. If he doesnt, what re-course do i have, Im suspecting that the land owner and the rental person might be alts playing a scam. Please help if you have any advice Thanks Doyle Swain.

Welcome to Sl

chances of You recoupin Your money? 50/50 depending on the guy.
i too had this happen to me in my early days(the property owner was a gem though and gave us the first month free & the guy's in world gf, reimbursed i and the housemate the amount we were charged.)

next time, hun go to the top of Your screen and click on the land info there and read the "covenant" i think or general info.that shoudl tell you who is authorised to do what on the parcel. and then contact the person listed as owner.

this is one of the oldest scams in SL though, so if i were you, wouldnt hold my breath for a reimbursment, chalk it up to lesson learned.

This is one reason to find a landlord who has a track record of dealing fairly with their tenants. Ask people who have rented from them before and what their experience has been. IM me in game and I'll be happy to recommend someone.

Report it to www.IC3.gov. This is real money we are talking of here. This is an internet crime. If we all start reporting it, the government will see a trend and maybe we can get something done about this.

Since these contracts are outside real of SL's TOS, you need to take action outside of SL.

I have a similar post on this already, just search on my name.

The ic3 site says it wants "the name, address, telephone number, and Web address, if available, of the individual or organization you believe defrauded you."

This may be bit of a problem.

and because of that very ToS, that he is screwed:

"1.2 Linden Lab is a service provider, which means, among other things, that Linden Lab does not control various aspects of the Service.

You acknowledge that Linden Lab is a service provider that may allow people to interact online regarding topics and content chosen by users of the service, and that users can alter the service environment on a real-time basis. Linden Lab generally does not regulate the content of communications between users or users' interactions with the Service. As a result, Linden Lab has very limited control, if any, over the quality, safety, morality, legality, truthfulness or accuracy of various aspects of the Service."

unfortunatly, he was had. and unless the landlord either a) reimburses Doyle,(which he has said is not gonna happen) or b).harass the guy until he ar's him for harassment(a more likely outcome) or c) chalk it up as a lesson learned and in the furture, make sure he is dealing with the actual owner of the land. as i posted earlier, i lucked out, and was reimbursed, not all who are out here have a concious.

My business partner and i were out examining several of these buy (really rental) islands last nite, we have a thriving condo rental business on the mainland. My partner brought up a very valid point, i hadnt even thought about, what if after you buy on an island, a parcel, pay your tier to their paypal account, what keeps these guys from disappearing or the very worst repo-ing your parcel for some minor rule infringement and reselling to the next sucker??

I think id have to consider very carefully before plugging a lot of money into one of those deals..

In Aussie land a cup of coffee and a bit of cake costs about $A6, about $US8, or about $L2000. I would have at least one in a week just to get away from my work desk!

You can do a lot for that sort of money in sl. I pay something like $L265 x 5 ($1325/week)for a 2 1/2 K sq m block in Explorers Rangeland private island (I think that is typical, at least I hope so) and I have a lot of fun making, improving a couple of houses, developing some terraforming stuff, and living 300 M up in my own private lag free area.

I pay my rent weekly, and usually a coupld of weeks ahead. If Orlie or Steve throw me out, I really have not lost anything. My most valuable assets are my scripts and those are well backed up.

I am a yearly paid prem and with my stipend and sales I am fairly self sufficient. Occasionally I throw in $A10 and I am ok for another couple of months.

Whenever I make forays onto the main land I am reminded of the lag I have left behind.

I did have a K of land in Euttum (mainland) but sold all that wjem the prices went up.

I'll be very surprised if I renew my yearly prem. Basic would suit me very well.

Ed

Smallest Parcel EVAR!

ty SuezanneC !

Buddy went good on the lease as he said he would. All my belongings , which i intially assumed went south as well, were in fact stashed inside a visitors list in my lost and found. I decided no to re-rent and have since purchased my own land. Now that all my creative juices have been spilled into Second Crack all is fine. Thanks and I will defiantely chalk it up to experience. Still love SL though, got a great job already and soon will be in the rental business my self. See you at Scores Poker and Casino!

Advice..If you have that kind of money to blow..Buy you OWN land ON THE MAINLAND and build on it.. then no one can kick you off.. Only fools 'rent' land IMHO

Cheers

This is one of the main reasons why I disallow subleasing in my sims.


I rent land.

And I'll be the first to say, there is little or no recourse against a land renter who kicks you out, mutes and bans you. It's an instant he-said/she-said situation. And once there is that sort of history, would you even want to stay?

That said, it's pretty rare thing for any established land baron to kick someone out. It makes very little sense to spend over 1000 USD for a sim, only to ruin your rep for say, a few hundred USD.

Anyone with even the tiniest grain of sense will seek to avoid that situation if at all possible - it's the last resort. I've never even come close to a situation like that in ten months, 14 sims and about 200 tenants.




Subleasing can be quite evil. The first layer of risk - the landowner of record - is enough risk to rent from right there. You presume that fellow is fiscally stable, not about to be banned for something stupid, and won't sell the land out from under you.

Add to that a *second* layer - another person renting from one player in order to rent to you, and you've got an incredible house of cards going. Any land baron with any sense is going to get reasonable margins for his land in the first place, so the subleasing tenant is going to be squeezing *more* out of you.

The point is - if available. Court orders can be gotten for an internet based company to reveal the user. This is much easier in the case where they are collecting rents via PayPal as either or both companies may have that information.

If they start to see a pattern of abuse originating from common point, this will drive them to investigate. That common point may be an individual person or an internet based company.

Obviously I have to be careful what I say here due to the TOS, but I have made my self clearer on other SL based websites.

Do not let internet crimes go unreported.

I assume the OP is talking about L$, not US$ (please correct me if I am wrong her... but renting a place for 225 US$?).

In that assumption: 6 x 225 L$ = 1350 L$... that is 30 or 40 US$???

I can only speak for myself... but for that amount of money I can only smack myself for the head of being so stupid for not doing all I needed to make sure all was okay.... and assuring myself I learned a lesson here.

Not worth for me to really bring it serious on... mostly this small things bring more problems when taken up then the original problem was.

Edit: I am pointing here at taking such a matter to court! Of course in game ways should be tried.

Morwen

Wow my first post is correcting something... Morwen.. L$1,350L is like $5.00 USD...
(my avg rates in world are between 250 and 450 per week) so im thinking thats in L$

watch the L$ Exchange I use L$270 as an avererage rate $1.00 US = 270.00 L$

Also, as in real life i keep a very open friendly relationship with my tenants...

Its important for me to make sure that they are feeling happy about being there, and that Im happy with them paying the amount of rent on time and consistently (heh im just shooting to take a dent out of my monthly tier cost).

In my opinion prim limits are based on "common sense"... ie "make yourself comfortable..." this is going to be home! Its why I would never deal with covenant land all my property is on the mainland.. yes there are always lag issues but you know what... i would HOPE that my tenants are happy with what they have... Being really hardline with limits, CC&R's and such makes for an abrasive relationship... i would always rather have someone asking if they can stay longer.. than always looking for someplace else to go...

just my 2L$ (which = about .0075 US Cents so i guess it should be 5.4L$)

Interesting discussion, shows some of the pitfalls and is worth keeping in mind. I've thought about renting space in a nice tower just because it has a nice view that I could obviously not afford, but I have my own little shack.

I don't think you'd get any help from a government entity for a dispute of a few dollars though. It's doubtful they're logging virtual land owners into a database at the BBB or DOJ. It would probably come down to legislation (or acting on existing legislation) and place a legal burden on LL directly to control this, audit activity, and report their anti-fraud efforts. Which probably actually already happens. How well they can detect such fraud is unknown, but as a programmer/analyst myself who has worked with both enterprise accounting and enterprise human capital databases I would know exactly how I'd go about it.

Thank you for correcting me.... And it even proves more my point. 5US$ for going to court and what ever is suggested?
No... take a deep breath and go on....

Morwen.