Ripped off by a bot

The problem is neither bots nor open source as any non-bot avatar could have taken profit of your friend's mistake.
Bots are just faster.

Most people dont habitually sell land.

Many sellers are first time sellers.

Blaming the seller for a system that was "fixed" but not fixed good enough is not productive.

Basically a lot of people dont know that an avatar not present can buy their land. So they think if they are quick they can transfer it.

If Landbot owners REALLY were not swoopers theyd have a MINIMUM per SQM price built into the bot.

Since the amount of times someone's Intentionally going to sell their land for 1L to the Open Market is near zero.

Swooping has been a problem for a very long time weather done by an AV with a real human behind it or by a bot. I do not disagree that this is a problem.

BUT

I do believe that at some point the seller has some reponsibility here. Weather its reading and understanding the warnings that pop up or simply educating themselves in how to transfer land safely. It isn't rocket science.

My personal favorite method is to set the land to sale to myself only while I set everything else. Once everything is set corrrectly then I reset to anyone or the intended buyer. Haven't had a problem yet.

Another trick I have been known to us is to set a price on my land that is absurdly high when dividing or joining plots. Set it like that on every plot involved. Believe me no one is gonna swoop a 512 for 999999999L

Wait, I think I've got the ultimate solution :
If you want to transfer a land to another avatar, sell it at a very high price, like 10 times its value.
Once sold, refund the buyer (or not if you're not really his friend LOL).
If any avatar or bot avatar buys it before the expected buyer, then you'll just have made a lot of money ! ROTF.

So if you do that but forget to designate the buyer, it will still be a good deal


EDIT : Yes just like that (I didn't see the post before answering).

Only works if the people doing the transfering have the money.

For that matter just transfering land at market prices works fine - but only if you have the Lindens.

An ideal system would allow land to be set for sale to a specific user name only in these instances....

...oh wait.. it already does.

Not much sympathy from me either I'm afraid. This is why land sales have a confirmation window pop up first.

Having your land for sale for $1 to anyone is like leaving the deads to your land unsigned laying on the ground for anyone to pick up and sign in rl.

This is basic common sense really. Like someone else said , chalk this one down to a learning experience and maybe the bot owner will be kind enough to accept it was a genuine mistake and return it

Who ever sells their land for $1L to just anyone legitimately?

I mean truly in their mind wants to sell their land to whoever comes along for 1L.

(Rolls eyes) Don't give me this its not the source code crap. Releasing your source code in no means helps things at all! Admit it or not you know it as well as we all do.

Ah yes... The sweet smell of open source code in all its wonder. Opps, better not say that too loud. Alot of Linux users in here who will does before admitting that open source is.... Well..... Umm..... JUST PLAIN SUCKS! Thank god for Microsoft!

People most commonly use 0 L$ or 1 L$ when they intend to transfer land to someone due to psychology.

If Linden labs made it safe for both these numbers it would result in these problems happening much less.

I suggested preventing numbers up to 10 L$ as people may arbritarily choose that as an insignificant number.
Personally I believe it should be protected up to an amount per sqm to avoid accidently selling a parcel larger than you thought you were.

Precisely. What other motive could there be, in finding justification in another's loss - REGARDLESS of fault? Mistakes happen. That shouldn't be an open invitation to exploit an initiate!

And JUST because it happens "IRL" does not excuse it happening here. This is a virtual community, an opportunity for far greater things. If we wanted the plagues of modern immorality - why spend the additional fees??? Ass-kickings - be they literal or figurative - are FREE in the real world, and you don't even have to make a mistake to get one!! ((coughVTechcough))

Like I said, LL can continue to make selling safer. No matter what they put in place though, people will still make mistakes and rant about how landbots ripped them off.

When I bought my land, I spent at least 3 days reading about tier fees until I understood exactly what I was paying, and how often. Then I bought the land. If I sell my land, I'll make sure I know exactly what I'm doing before hand, and not attempt it while drunk or tired. If I happen to sell it at 1L$ to some landbot or baron, nobody would be to blame but me.
The land transfer could have waited a few days until the seller knew exactly what they were doing, but obviously they didn't bother to read anything or they would have seen one of the million other landbot threads in here. They could have asked for advise, but they didn't. It's all on them, nobody elses fault.

Would you sympathise with somebody who didn't know live from neutral who electrocuted themselves wiring a plug? Or would the blame lie with the electricity company for supplying the voltage?


So you'll be avoiding all the code in the scripting tips forum then? Even all the examples in the wiki are open source. Every programming manual is open source where it contains examples. You can see the code, therefore it is open regardless of licence.
Good luck finding your way round LSL without it.

there is no in way hell to keep people safe of their own mistakes, just look outside the window at the car problem, ppl still get injured/die of their own recless behavior no matter what the car industry comes up with.

if the seller can`t be botherd to check and double check (and read the warning popup while at it), they will repeat the same mistake no matter what sort of "safety net" is inplace.

i have land and will prolly sell at a stage, if i`d make such a mistake i`d just suck it up and try to ask the bot owner if he will return it even if for a small fee, no point in whining about ur own mistakes tbh, same as with the item sale for l$0.

ask the guy if he would return it, if not, move on and take it as an expensive lesson u won`t be repeating anytime soon.

and no, i hate such scripts in general, but this was ur own mistake, bot or human, some 1 would have bought it either way so don`t blame the bot

[Portion of post that points finger of blame at eveyone in the universe other than the aforementioned fiance removed] Take a moment to point your fiance to the following link:

How Do I Use the About Land Menu
http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=144
The key paragraph is:
"Sell For: Checking this box immediately sets your land for sale at the price listed, to the person listed (or anyone if no name is chosen). Don't click this until you're ready to close the deal! Be sure to use the Set... button to choose a specific person to sell to (if applicable), then enter the price you intend to sell for, then click the For Sale button last, when you've verified everything's how you want it."

Key sentence in above paragraph:
"[T]hen click the For Sale button last, when you've verified everything's how you want it."

Key phrase in above sentence:
"[Y]ou've verified"

If a Landbot runner/creator was not interested in land swooping they would prevent the bot from making 1L land purchases.

My point was that, if you make it so only transactions of >10L can be done, everyone will automatically type 10 in that box and click through without thinking, just as they do now, except typing 1 in that box. Ditto if you make it 100L as the minimum value to go in that box. No matter what arbitary value you force people to type in there, they will type it and happily click through the warnings without reading them.

Education about what those boxes are telling you is the only true fix for this.

Then we'd be back to having land barons or other individuals do it instead.
Bot or human, a cockup like that is going to cost you and the only way to stop it is by learning what you are doing with land before you sell it.

Perhaps - but many bot runners claim not to be land swoopers. They obviously are.

Some are just willing to give refunds when cuaght red handed.

No amount of text or check boxes is going to penetrate the glaze over the eyes of those not paying attention to what they are doing. Although I do like the idea of making the warning boxes question a certain price threshold, say, below 5 L/m2, I imagine that many people will still make the same mistake. It's not the bot's fault, it's yours. Own up to it. Try to get it back, if you can, but own up to it.

It would probably be not too difficult for them (LL or the SL servers) to default it to the current average $L/m2 price on the day that it was set for sale. They already have this information available, I think, and even if they don't I am pretty sure they are smart enough to think about ways to generate and cache this data without undue load on the database.

The idea of making the user *intentionally* lower the price is the first one I've heard in all of the "someone stole my land" threads that I really really like.

Not that it would put a stop to all of the threads of course

.

You don't read the box on the screen. You set it for sale. You sold your land.

Don't complain about 'rip off' or LL not doing anything, you made a mistake.

LL is not your mommy

Live with your choices.

Why would they automatically type in 10?
The restriction would be they can only type values < 10 if its not set to sell to an individual.
So when it refuses their value of 1 with a message telling them to set an individual, they will set it to an individual. They wont just increase the amount they type in the box (well I hope not)

I agree with you that education is good, but the system could be much safer as well.
(I program systems RL involving much larger sums of money and wouldnt dream of using such unsafe field validation as the one used in SL's land purchases. People make errors and its the programmers job to help prevent them where possible)

I agree that bot owners aren't exactly saints, but removing bots only allows other characters to take their place.

Me and you might not take advantage of someone elses mistakes like that, but there are those out there who will. People need to read, read and read some more before messing with settings on an investment like land.

Trying to log in and vote but I don't seem to be able to. Is it case sensitive? I'm not seeing an option to vote, so I assume even though I put in my user name and pass that I'm still not logged in.

No amount of check boxes is going to help if the average user doesn't know about landbots. Not everyone reads the forums, I expect a small percentage, and there is no warning from LL of the existance.

I am amazed at how little sympathy and 'serves you right' attitude on this thread. Does it depend on who posts, or the amount lost, whether it's fair or not?

A lot of it depends on whether or not the poster ever took the time to read the documentation for Second Life. In this case the "wronged party" isn't even the original poster, it's their fiance.

It's quite literally the distinction between culpable and inculpable ignorance. When people fail to educate themselves about something they have only themselves to blame (unless they are incapable of learning or comprehending the material, in which case they're inculpable [blameless]).

The OP made claims that they and their fiance were "ripped off" even though at no time did a landbot enter the fiance's RL home and click buttons on the fiance's keyboard or manipulate their mouse.

The entire situation was a result of the fiance not taking the time to DOUBLECHECK what they had entered and clicked on the About Land tab while setting up the parcel for sale.

Note, that based on what was outlined by the OP they were standing right there in SL during the transaction and had an opportunity to encourage their fiance to DOUBLECHECK what had been entered and clicked into the About Land tab. Something like: "And did you make sure to set the land for sale to me, my little honeybunches of Oh Noes?"

Compounding the mistake the OP proceeds to "name names" (a violation of the forum posting guidelines [the thread should be locked and removed and the OP warned]) and then blames the horrible horrible landbots. As icing on the cake the OP adds the caveat that they don't wish to see any responses that aren't sympathetic to the position that they were "ripped off."

As it was the fiance's fault the OP should be taking it up with their fiance and leaving the rest of us out of it.