Customer griefed by store owner

And so I found myself yesterday at this popular hangout place/store in Beowulf where they have lots of lucky chairs. I spent some time there with friends shopping and getting freebies from the chairs. After they all had gone I stayed by myself while sorting my inventory. Suddenly a lady appeared whose name I recognized from the merchandise at the store. As soon as she spotted me, flames started coming off her. I found myself flying up into the sky, falling 50 mts from where I was before. Needless to say, I was furious about being griefed, and especially by the store owner, so I ran back to the place. She was still there so I told her "that had not been necessary." She says "There's more of that where it came from." I called her "rude lady" and she calls me "a whiner". So finally, I understood that the conversation wasn't going to lead anywhere. I gave her a piece of my mind and quickly left before she had the chance to continue attacking me.
Now, is this behaviour to be expected from a store owner towards a customer? Could it be that this "lady" is really a teenage boy? She behaved as such. I double checked the land settings, she's listed as group member. I thought of ARing her but chose not to waste my time in a futile attempt to get any response from LL.
Is there a Business Bureau where these kinds of things can be posted to warn potential customers?

If this happened, then AR her.

Myself, I've got this bone in my body that starts twitching when I hear someone say 'this established and respected business person orbitted me for no reason whatsoever'. Right now it's twitching something fierce.

But it ain't anyone here's place to judge what did or did not happen. Linden has access to all the computer logs. Just file your AR and cite your evidence to Linden. Be detailed: who, what, when, where, how. They'll investigate it. They will look at their logs and see if something was or was not said or done immediately prior to the alleged attack to instigate it, or if it was truely an egregious unwarranted attack on an innocent person.

I have a similar reaction most times, but it's usually contingent on the business-person actually being established and respected, which is unfortunately not always the case.

New business owners can be just as trigger-happy as other new citizens at times, especially if they see an av just sitting in their store apparently doing nothing (as sorting inventory would seem to be). They may think it's a copybot or something, I know I've been curious about that on occasion. It's just that the more established and experienced and less trigger-happy business owners don't shoot first ask later

Definitely worthy of an AR if true, let TPTB sort it out.

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if you were on her land, doesnt she have the right to do what she wants to you?

no

Seems to me there must be more to this.......

its not griefing if it her land or her shop.

I would bring it up with the actual land owner or group founder before I waste LL time with an AR.

Perhaps you where mistaken for another greifer or the shopkeeper may have just had a bad day.

either way this is a personal dispute.

why not

Quick, someone check with Elex Dusk! We need a TOS clarification.

sounds like whining to me, just MHO.

Well let's make a couple of basic assumptions here in line with the OP: that the OP had taken no action whatsoever to arouse the owner's ire; the owner's actions were entirely self-originating. Effectively one av griefs another for no reason.

Griefing is griefing.. and therefore against the TOS and subject to AR. The location of the griefing is immaterial. So, no, there is no "right" to attack another av for no reason just because you happen to be on your own land.

Inc

The parcel owner has the right to do whatever they wish with their own land and eject or ban whomever they wish, however, they cannot attack a person.

A person should not call themselves a customer unless they've actually conducted custom (money changed hands) with the merchant or seller of the services.

i feel like we might be missing vital pieces of information about all that went on but thats just mho

If this happened the way the OP said, it is unfair. If the shop owner suspected something wasn't right with the visitor, said shop owner could have been more diplomatic. Usually, in RL, the shop owner might approach the visitor and say something harmless like "May I help you?". Orbiting someone for no apparent reason is just poor business. On the other hand, there are two sides to every story. We haven't heard the other side. It could be enlightening.

so by your logic,inc, if one is 'ejceted and banned' from a place they want to be by the owner of the land, that person who was 'ejected and banned' was 'griefed' and the land owner can be punished....?

Welcome Elex. Please read the OP where the poster states that she was shopping and using lucky chairs provided by the store owner. Makes them a customer in my book.

I agree with you completely.

In this case, the OP said


This kind of indicates that the business is well established since new businesses tend to not be very popular.

As for respected? Well your guess is as good as mine. There are a few well-established popular businesses whose owners are not very well respected. Doesn't matter. This is still a matter between the OP, the shop owner, and LL. None of us are qualified to judge.


To some of the other posters:
Yes, it's still griefing, even if it's your land -UNLESS- your land is a designated combat area. By virtue of it being a store, that makes it open to the general public. The public are entitled to certain protections under the law (think TOS). If I go to Jessie to shop at one of the weapon merchants there and get attacked, it's no TOS because the sim is a designated combat sim. If I go to SLURGIS to take a peek at HD's new choppers and I get attacked... then yes, it's a TOS violation (not a combat area).

The TOS doesn't say that you have the right to attack someone on your land, and it doesn't say that you have the right to attack someone who attacked you first. Linden HAS established the policy that in a designated combat area (and yes, if the store owner had switched her land to damage then attacked... that would have counted), it's no violation to attack another AV.

I wish there'd be any reason whatsoever. I was just standing there, looking at her merchandise. This attack was totally unprovoked. She could have asked me to leave if she didn't want me there.
I have been a business owner myself, and it wouldn't cross my mind to treat a "potential" customer like that. I didn't get to buy anything from her, BECAUSE that's what I was doing before the attack!
When I say "popular" I meant that a lot of people go there because of the lucky chairs. Her land traffic says 29000+ This vendor THRIVES on lucky chairs.
In any case, I will never go back to her store and will keep her name in my "Do not buy from this person" list.

well we're starting to conflate terms here..the TOS don't refer to "griefing" for example (er...I think), and what you understand by that term will almost certainly be subtly different to mine. How and ever... I had a male naked av on my island the other day... standing there in public (no peen lol) and trying to edit into my tenant's houses. So that's two counts of rudeness. I sent him an IM, asking him to cease and desist and get dressed (rules of conduct are dropped on visitors on entry to the sim). He ignored me, carried on, so got ejected back home (naked hehe) and banned.

I laid out the standards of behaviour I expect, gave a warning, then when ignored, ejected & banned. I don't consider that I griefed him (he may think different lol). Had he just been standing around, admiring the scenery and I ejected/banned him without warning, or verbally abused him, fired push objects etc etc etc because "hey well I can, so why not - your turn buddy" .... that, to me, would be a griefing.

Yours in peace and harmony
Inc

could it have been a case of mistaken identity on her part
maybe someone did something and when she got there only saw you and presumed wrong?

have someone IM her and mediate for you maybe if you want

Aura, thanks for the suggestion, but there's nothing to mediate. I don't anything from this person. I only want to warn other potential customers that they could be suddenly and rudely attacked at this store location.

The OP's statement is: "I spent some time there with friends shopping and getting freebies from the chairs."

The OP doesn't make it clear that they spent any money. I won't presume they did. However, nothing prevents them from telling us how much they spent.

A later thread indicates that the OP did not make a purchase but intended to, but as the shop owner provided the lucky chairs for public use, I still believe that this allows the OP to claim customer status.

Of course all of this is based on the assumption that the OP is conveying truthful and accurate info. Since we can't know that, this is evolving into the usual discussion of hypothetical situations.

The reason why businesses place lucky chairs at stores is to attract potential customers and to raise traffic. We were doing EXACTLY that. Regardless of how much and IF we spent any money there at all, a griefing attack is totally unwarranted.

Eject/Ban - Legal

Orbiting/Using scripted 'weapons' - Only legal if land is Damage Enabled (being a store, I doubt it was.)

"Legal" in this sense, means in compliance with the ToS/CS.

A landowner has the right to Eject/Ban anyone off their property. They do not have the right to subject a person's avatar to scripts that may corrupt their account. (Orbiting). Security devices that use Push are a grey area on land that is set to "Safe".

If the above happened as the OP states, and the land was set to "Safe", then I'd say an AR is in order. Call it "excessive force" or "poor judgement" on the owner. I wouldn't call it "griefing" but I would say it was a violation of the ToS/CS.

~Jessy

Hhmm, trying to imagine what I would do if I were the Linden drawing this case...I think I would conclude that either the shopowner is an idiot doing himself in, or the complainer is dissembling. Either way, I would decide justice will be done by letting nature takes its course, and move on...

It's not like there's a shortage of AR's to investigate, some of them with a lot higher stakes for LL than this one.