A moan

I have an incurable, remitting/recurring disease. My immune system is suppressed. In SL I can do all the things I used to do, ski, skate, run, jump, dance, sing, bicycle...all of it. I can join and talk to groups of people without the fear of catching every passing bug and possibly winding up in the hospital.
About a year ago my friend and I put together all our money and purchased a lovely spot on a private island. It was a large parcel, 66144sq. meters, with open ocean on two sides. We made a home, paid our tier fees on time or ahead of the due date and did not cause any trouble. It was a refuge and a place where we could lie in bed and talk about the
day. I learned to build, we furnished the house and planted gardens. We had a koi pond.
Before Christmas the owner of the sim told my friend that she wanted us to move to another sim that she owns. I looked at the lot and did not like it. I told her we did not want to move.
After I met her on the parcel and we discussed the issue, I was ready to move given the
reasons she was requesting that we do so, but I also felt that we needed to have some compensation for the move to a smaller and less desirable spot. I would have accepted
either a flat payment or a reduction in the monthly tier. To make a long story short, the sim owner accused us of planting 'illegal objects' or 'sim laggers' on the sim, neither of which were true. We were evicted without recourse or given time to rectify any problems.
I feel that the situation was engineered so we could be evicted without a refund because the owner wanted the land for something else. We would have been entirely cooperative if even a token effort at fee reduction had been made. Not only did we lose a large amount of very desirable land, we lost our home. If sim owners can evict people without due reason there is certainly no reason for anyone to invest in land on private sims. There is also currently no means for someone buying property on a private sim to investigate the owner's history of past evictions. I think it would be a great help if we had a sort of Second Life Better Business Bureau.
Or perhaps I should listen to those who say that SL is only a game. I have certainly lost the joy I had in it.

Thats awful Anne, I know the person who owns the sim I'm on personally for over a year so I feel safe with her but it is risky. I'm not sure there are recourses for people defrauded by estate owners other than this forum?

Why the heck would you risk such a large investment by griefing your own home?

My initial reaction that this story (if true) is another case of a covenant owner abusing the system.

Very sorry to hear that happened. This subject is being discussed in detail on this thread:

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I would never encourage anyone to "buy" land on a privately owned estate. Pay rent for it, absolutely, but don't fork over a bunch of money up front just for the privilege of renting something that can never be yours.

While I'm always sorry to hear of anyone's negative experiences, AnneMarie, including yours, the cold truth is that you can consider this to be an important lesson learned the hard way. SL is a land-based dictatorship. Every estate is a private kingdom with its own king. He who owns the land rules, and that's that.

For whatever it's worth, you can take some small comfort in that eventually Darwinism will always prevail. All other things being equal, the ability to survive for long in any business, including SL realestate, is survival of the fittest, with "fitness" being defined as aptitude for customer service. Those who routinely abuse their customers will find themselves sooner or later without any customers to abuse. Those who treat their customers fairly will thrive, and will be in it for the long haul.

Chosen I have to concur that people that do others wrong, it comes back to them. I re-visited a sim recently from someone who had done me wrong and was shocked to see their business had completely collapsed. Not that I revel in the downfal of others but..

It's interesting that the owner gave you a bogus excuse for evicting you when no excuse was needed. But not a clever enough bogus excuse to make you feel ok.

I am so sorry Annemarie for what you went through.
I am in a similar situation with my real life health so I truly
understand how SL has and can provide place to go to when our first lives are incredibly difficult.
When I first came back after long break and created this account I literally went bit nuts and spent sometimes every spare cent I had on mainland space for myself and friends.
I made a lot of very bad and expensive decisions but luckily I found friends who adopted and gave me private place to live and create at...but it was very difficult, expensive and sometimes stressful journey to that spot.
I hope you can find better virtual home soon.

Actually, I'm guessing it was actually 6144m, as 66144 is impossibly large, and 6144m is quite a common parcel size.

That's an awful story, compounded by your particular situation. hopefullyb this will get the attention of a linden in some way and maybe you will get some recourse.

There are reasons to invest in land on estate land. They include having an additional and often more responsive party (your estate manager) other than Linden Lab to address problems regarding your land or your neighbors and land covenants to prevent inconsistent or ugly builds by neighbors. There are other reasons as well. These have to be weighed of course against the problem of less stability of "ownership" of the land (which extends way beyond just unscrupulous estate owners running land scams) which is why many people will not pay anything substantial for the ownership rights.

There is no means to check eviction history, but there are other things you can investigate to assess the risk of your investment. You can (and should) talk to other residents on the estate to see if any can act as good references for the estate owner. Check the age of the account of the estate owner and how long he or she has owned the islands.

It is Ok to rent in these Kingdoms or is this going to be stolen?

Just as a matter of curiousity - how is this different from all the other cases recently posted on the forum where private estate owners have given no, or very little excuses for terminating someone's tenure on their estate, and have reclaimed it, with the person being kicked out feeling like they "owned" the land and had rights?

It seems like the advice being given here (contact the Lindens) is very different from what is being given in other threads (Private estate owners can do what they like - Caveat Emptor, and all that).

Am I missing something key?

No, it's always sad (and infuriating, atleast to me) to hear about these cases. People are probably responding in a more 'gentle' way because the OP shared a little about her (RL) self. We tend to sympathize more with someone when we know more about them. They become less of a stranger.

Still makes me mad whenever I hear about these stories and how there is no recourse, whatever the situation the person is in.

Maybe the thread title isn't attracting the same sorts of readers/respondents.

I think a lot of people are going to expect a question about buying a moan device ala Xcite.

Gosh what a loss of all that work you and your friend did fixing up your place. Sorry to hear about that. And to think I was readying myself to rent a place. *runs screaming out of sarah nerd's office*

Or what she said.
More plausible than my yada yada...

Especially because in the OP's case, just like some of our other regulars here, and who knows how many others, SL is a big part of them having some joy in their lives. me, I'm so jaded to begin with, I always have one foot out the door. For me it is just entertainment, I don't have anything invested in it, financially, or otherwise that I am not willing to lose. But so many out there really believe in the whole concept, and they are the ones LL will need for SL to survive, and they seem more often than not to thumb their noses at them.

You can get all those things by renting on an estate without a "buy in" too. I really can't think of a non-emotional reason to ever purchase the right to rent. You either "buy" it form LL directly, or you rent it from a resident for teir + their markup.

OUCH!!! Typos 'R' Us. Thanks for pointing that out and you are quite correct.

AM

LOL! Titled that in the British sense of a complaint, but, hey, if it gets readers!

AM

I think renting from an outfit like Sarah Nerd is okay. The big landowners have too much to lose if they start jerking their clients around. We do need a way to let others, especially new residents, know that they are risking money if they go with a private, small sim owner. Not all of those are risky, of course, but records should be available. As it was there were no residents around when I bought the land, and it was my first purchase so I did not know all the ins and outs.

We have filed reports with Linden Lab of the problem, but have not heard one word back. A person associated with them, though, suggested we file at least one abuse report a day. I can imagine it is a pretty gray area legally.

Thanks for all the great feedback. Residents like you guys are the reason I do manage to keep coming back to SL!

AM

Raymond it is good to see you around the forums, when it comes to these type
of things you as always are a knight worthy of shining armour !!

what makes all of these cases worse is that LL do not want to know, nor do they care, it is not mainland SL why should they bother to look into such unscrupulous peoples fraud

Yes if you are going to be moving people about, you either: a) warn them before day one, or b) take care of them somehow, or both.

I do something called 'coastal rights' - if people lose their coastline because I dropped a region there, I allow them to move into the new region, or stay. With a little bit of compensation thrown in if they stay (loss of waterfront, remember). Most decent land barons do something similar.

So far I've expanded to 33 regions (34 any moment now) and have always been able to work something out - residents have been quite reasonable in literally dozens upon dozens of cases. Evicting a decent resident is not a wise thing, in any case.

Sorry that happened to you, AnneMarie. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with what you've said here. I think it's inaccurate, and unfair to smaller business owners. Size really has little to do with this problem.

Better advice would be not to outlay any more money than you can afford to lose. Simply don't outlay a cash payment upfront, if you consider that a risk. There are plenty of places, estate or mainland, where you can rent week to week without any worry of losing any substantial investment.