Brutal Land Grab

I just witnessed a really sad event. Apparently, someone had a 8192 parcel and put up rental houses. There were 10 houses and all of them were rented. The parcel popped up on the land for sale screen at a relatively low price so I pooped over there. I saw that it was a rental community and checked to see that the minimum rental period was 2 weeks for like 250 a week. I started to im the owner about the fact that he was going to stiff all these people when he sold the land and all of a sudden, everything was returned........... one of our less scrupulous land barons had swooped in and bought it and returned everything.

Now I guess I don't blame the buyer since someone else would have bought it if he hadn't, but the owner.......... man, he swindled all of those people out of their rent money. I wish I had gotten the full name of the owner before the sale so I could report this to LL (not that it would do any good....)

Renters beware, don't rent if you have to pay for more than 1 week at a time unless the owner is an established rental owner that has a good reputation.

How do we know about someone's reputation? Or that they're established? Is there some list?

pay rent only for what your willing to lose.
whats 2 weeks for like 250 a week? 2$US maybe
-LW

Bree,

Ask around or at least look at their profile. If they have been around in the business for awhile, they are probably OK. There are several rental groups that are huge and well established like Ravenglass. You may get a better deal with someone who just is renting his one piece of land, but there will be more risk.

I probably should put this in the "Features Suggestion" section but LL should put big red, flashing text box in the center of the UI saying "Beware of anything you do in Second Life. You can lose your money playing by the rules and there's nothing that can be done about it. Be prepared to lose what you buy, rent, or create.........all issues that cannot be fixed."

Geeze what a mess this game has become.

Having a disclaimer is a good idea... but I would add to it "It is the same as real life. If you feel you have been scammed out of your money, take it to a real life attorney and take legal action."

But it isn't real life and there are no laws to protect one as in real life. Oh yeah, you could take it to the real world..............if, there was a way to identify the alledged criminal. Good luck finding a way to sue someone in the United States if you happen to live in Brazil. It's virtual goods being stolen........but those virtual goods are paid for with some sort of real currency (no matter how small an amount). How does a court of law handle that? "You paid $2 USD for what?" Hahahahah.........SL needs to police itself since they are the ones who created this game.

And the argument about Linden Labs not being a government is a little shakey when all that Linden Land is owned by............."Governor Linden".

I'm careful. I'm causious. I'm subspicious of everyone. But it would be so much more fun if i didn't have to be that way. LL has created a dog eat dog world instead of the utopia they promised.

That was the point I was actually getting at. People get scammed in real life all the time. Usually it's not for enough to take someone to court. SL to me seems the same. I don't consider it real life, it is a game... no matter how much people say it isn't a game. You go there to play and create and socialize. Don't gamble with your money and you will never lose it. Anyway, I understand the complaints and would be pissed if it happened to me, but the official rules list "caveat emptor / buyer beware" as rule #1. You should know that when you sign up for this game.

Are you sure the owner sold the land?

If they are new to SL they may have had the role settings set wrong for the renters.

If they had the "can sell land" option checked for the renters role then a malicious renter could set the land for sale.

A lot of new players set up groups and never check the various ROLE options that can be set and open themselves up to all kinds of problems.