Strange problem - Landmark abuse? (kinda long)

I have a weird thing going on with my land, starting yesterday, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to sell it and start fresh. I hope you good folks here can tell me I'm wrong.

I'll spare you the details, but it looks like someone is passing out an adult-labeled landmark to my unfinished non-adult shop in a PG rated sim. The people who TP to my shop are obviously thinking it's a place to go for sex!

This is not just the random sex-crazed newbie dropping by. It's a couple dozen AVs so far, within a span of a few hours (when I was there, probably more when I wasn't), and they are making comments that make it obvious that they expect adult activity to be going on, and they expect to be able to immediately join in.

They are TPing into a closed box, over 100m above ground, with no teleporters in existence on the land, with build and object entry restricted to my group. Even resetting my landing point to the ground doesn't stop it, though it DOES stop my group members from using the landmarks to the elevated box. (The land is only set to group, not deeded. My tier is maxed out, preventing deeding)

I can only surmise that someone has decided to harass me by passing out landmarks to my land with some adult activity described.

I'm not against sex in SL, I just want a shop that has no adult restrictions, since my items are all PG. I also don't want my customers being approached constantly by AVs expecting immediate sex! That wouldn't be too good for business, IMO.

I now have group access banlines up (I did NOT want to do this), just to keep from being inundated with people looking for sex. Of course I can't open my shop until I take those down.

Is there any way at all to "undo" a landmark? If I move my shop higher (which is a PITA, I just moved a couple days ago), will they still be able to use that landmark to get there? Am I going to get banned or lose my land if people get these landmarks and AR me, because of new "adult verification" restrictions?

It would almost be funny if it weren't for it affecting my future business, and the risk of adult advertising for a business on a PG sim. Almost funny, but not quite. I won't be offended if you think it's hilarious.

Can anyone help?

Have you tried asking any of your unwanted visitors just where and who they got these landmarks from? I'm sure one of them would willingly furnish what info they can and very often these automatic notecard givers etc can simply go wrong without the owner knowing.

Just why they have your landmark is a puzzle. Have you bought the land recently?

I think it would be good also to ask the people coming into your business where they got the landmark, and then to AR the source. If a number of people are coming, surely at least some of them would want to help you set things straight when you explain to them that there's been a mistake. Or, if someone made a typo somehow, they would certainly want to fix it when made aware of it.

You could move your box up and down unpredictably, and change your classified ad to reflect new coordinates each time, and make announcements of new locations to your group, until it all blows over, but that would be awkward and a fair amount of trouble.

Until you can figure out why this is happening and hopefully get it stopped, you might consider moving your shop up out of sight and, if you can afford the prims, leaving a platform at the current location with a sign explaining the landmark issue. Maybe something like, "There has been an issue with (shop's name) landmarks being passed out under false pretenses. If you are looking for (whatever the shop sells), please click the sign for a new landmark. If you are looking for anything else, you've come to the wrong place."

Thanks for your replies (you folks are quick!)

That was part of the "details" I omitted (it could have been a much longer book) - I tried. I chatted "can anyone tell me how you got here?", or a polite version of the same line, several times. Not a single one would answer me. They all wandered for a bit, most TPed away quickly. After a while, I had to ask a couple to leave (didn't want to eject, seemed rude), which they did, with ONE saying "I'm sorry" before doing so. It made me think that the description must have been for something they didn't want to talk about.

I did buy the land relatively recently, but it can't be a "leftover" landmark, because it was a brand new sim, I bought my land just a few hours after it was bought at auction (it was still purple on the map!). I was the first person to buy land in the sim.

That's another puzzling thing. I have NO ads for my place. I had one (basically saying "under construction", for about two weeks, but took it down when I realized it was going to take some time to finish the shop. The only way someone can get a TP point from search would be by searcing my name, and using my picks. (I am going to take that out as soon as I'm done typing).

I just had a thought: when you create an SURL, do you have to create it inworld, or can you just type in the coordinates? Is this possibly someone who, through a typo, inadertently created one to my place?

I just thought of another possibility. I have a few "extra" pieces of land, on the same sim, "joined" to my main one but not adjacent, that I bought just for the prims. Right next to two of them is a 512 plot with teleport pads, advertising a paying sex club. The land is set to group only, so you have to join their group to use the teleport pads. The land title advertises "sex for newbies" or something like that. (No porn showing, don't know if that's against TOS in my PG sim). Could they somehow have the wrong coordinates on their tele pads, which sends their "customers" to my land?

Hmmm. I might use my alt to test that. If that's what happened, their "customers" are going to get pretty upset when they pay and get teleported elsewhere because of my banlines. Actually, if they paid for the teleport, the ones that already showed up could have been pretty upset about it. Maybe that's why no one would answer me.

Really a mytsery here. I'm gonna go do some more tests. Thanks for getting my brain working on this.

Slow typist, I'm way too wordy (just like in RL, lol).

Since I haven't opened for business yet, there's really no need to redirect people. Thanks for the suggestion on that, Ann, but for now I think my best bet is to do more research and leave the banlines up until I get it solved. This would be much more complicated if it had happened, say, two weeks later.

It really made me feel a bit violated, building in my nice, closed box, thinking I was going to have no visitors, and having all the people popping in. Off to do more research. Thanks again, posters!

Can you get one of them to give you a copy of the LM?

I'd think that you'd be able to right-click/Properties on it in your inventory and see who the creator is..

Yep.

The fact that it's a brand new sim is very odd.

Frankly I wouldn't mind it, if only for the minor traffic boost.

Another way people end up popping in on the wrong location is when they follow outdated Picks in folks' profiles- but again that means someone had to be standing on your land and set their Pick for others to see it and teleport there.

One final note: For as long as I've owned land in Second Life, I've had people teleport there looking for sex. This is even before I ran any publicly advertised areas. I used to ask folks all the time how they found my place. Most never answered, some just said "I don't know," and the rest just said they were randomly clicking places on the world map. Once I started adding my homes to my Picks, most people tended to find the land that way.

you should take advantage of it, and make some money from them.


put up a TP that costs like 25L where they land and send them off to a random place

I suspect that what probably happened is someone was standing on your land, next to that sex site teleporter, when they hit create landmark.

I'm wondering if you put a fixed teleport site on your land, and then merged your other parcels to it. This used to be called a telehub, but now the same thing is accomplished in your land options. I've done something similar on my own land. It keeps people who map in or tp by LM from appearing anywhere but where i want them to.

If you merged your parcels, then whenever someone tp'd using the LM to the sex site, the sim would re-route them to your fixed tp site. You described your business as a skybox, so a fixed tp site seems probable to get the customers you want up to your skybox.


added:
But i love Poopmaster's suggestion!

Yes it is. You should talk to the property owner, or AR them as you see fit. It's also likely the source of the errant TPs to your land.

Max

Right now, my banlines are down, because I MAY have figured out the problem. I don't think it was a landmark at all.

Wildfire, what you say is true, people do randomly go around asking for sex. I wouldn't have thought anything odd about it either, if it hadn't been more than twenty in a couple hours when I had ZERO for the few weeks I've owned the land. Also, some said things like "where are the women/men", making it sound to me like they really expected potential partners to be waiting.

Anyhoo, what I think happened: The sex club plot I mentioned in a previous post has group access ban lines up. I checked the group - only 4 members, the owner, his partner, and two others. I thought this was strange, since they have paying teleport pads there. How are they getting business on those pads, if they are the only ones allowed on the land?

Then it occured to me - they must have put up an ad for those pads, and forgot they had the banlines up. Therefore, anyone clicking on the teleport button in that ad would encounter the banlines, and be teleported just outside the plot. Guess what's on 2 sides of that plot - MY LAND!

So where are 1/2 the people clicking on the ad teleport button going to be sent - MY LANDING POINT! I checked it, and found that it was still set inside my skybox/shop. Evidently, when I tried to change it to the ground point, it didn't take! All of my land in the sim had a single landing point, in my shop where all the people were showing up.

Jeez, that's complicated. Does it make sense to anyone but me?

Anyway, I had joined all my plots together (I bought a 6144 and 4 separate 512s, with the smaller plots not adjacent to the big one), since I erroneously thought that I had to do that to share the prims.

I just now subdivided that smaller area (with the 2 sides against the sex club lot) away from my main one, and the prims are still listed together. I made absolutely certain that the landing points for my two plots are different now. I dropped the banlines, and I haven't had any more "visitors" for about 1/2 hour. We'll see if it solved my problem.

Now my only question - should I IM the owner of the sex club and tell him he's losing business? I don't know if I want to, from his profile he doesn't sound like a very nice person. Would you send that IM?

Anyway, thanks to all who tried to help. Maybe someone else can get something useful out of my silly panic attack.

Edit: Maximillian, it looks like you posted while I was composing this post. Yes, I think you are right. Honestly, I have to think about the AR thing. I'm pretty much into leaving people alone anymore. But thanks anyway.

I'd start by moving the shop 20M higher, so they appear below the shop and freefall to the ground...

You might have a friend or an alt try the TP for that sex site near you. It may be a scammer set it up to rip people off and dump them on your land. If those teleport pads go to your shop, AR the owner.

Yes. Tell him his ban lines are up, and he may not realize it.

coco

Ceera, I honestly thought the same thing at first. I am trying reeeealy hard to believe it's all a mistake. Right now, I don't care if the people get sent to my smaller plot, since I have nothing there but a few linden trees for pretty.

Could they be scamming newbies? Could they be charging them from the ad, or do they have to click the tp pads?

The way it was, I doubt they were seeing the tp pads at all, just getting confused at going to my store when they expected a sex club. Now, the landing point they will end up at is a few meters lower than the plot with the tp pads - all they'll see is a grass wall in front of them. If they try to go to the pads (they'll have to fly to see them), they'll see the banlines. I wonder how many would click the tp pads anyway?

How would you AR that?

What a mess!

First step is to get one of them to pass you a copy of the LM and check who created it, I think.

You're in a PG-rated sim, you said? Your neighbors shouldn't be running ANY kind of sex club there. Report them, and they'll get booted, and your problem will be solved.

Two words:

Avatar Cannon.



grin

Tell the owner his ban lines are up and that advertisement of sex at ALL in any PG sim in against the TOS. If he's a complete ass, report him on several avatars at the same time and it will be dealt with within the hour.