Lucky Chair Owners - A Warning

I have a lucky chair in my prefab store. I put it there when a friend asked me to - she and her group love going around and finding them and I thought that people winning some of my products might be a good promotion for the stores.

Well, trying to be a nice person, I put the items in the chair as transfer/no copy - on the theory that if someone won something that was of no use to them, they could pass it on to a friend. Prizes range from $50 to $500 retail value.

A couple of weeks ago I observered someone using a large number (26 I presume) of alts to 'milk' the lucky chair. Each alt logged on for just a few minutes, long enough to sit in the chair and get the prize, then logged out - LOGGED OUT, not just left. Each person had a 'birthdate' within a week or two of each other, was unverified and had no other information on their profile at all - except that they were all members of the same single group.

Now, I know their are lots of legitimate lucky chair groups - but what are the odds of this being such a group? This is one person, I am sure of it. When I (politely) spoke to them and asked them if they were a group of alts, they said no, I asked them to tell me any other member of their group currently online then, they logged out.

I removed the chair at this point, it was on the letter M - as this letter had come up a few minutes earlier too, I knew which alt to expect. Looking in search revealed that they were not online - then BINGO, they logged on and arrived in my store. Fancy that, heh.

Anyway, this person now has a batch of my products, totally free, which they can resell. Luckily I caught them fairly early on (happened to check my email and spot it). I feel stupid that I had transfer items in there.

Until I fill it with COPYABLE only items, my chair will remain in my inventory. If you have such a chair, you might want to ensure that your items are likewise.

So much for trying to offer a little bit of fun for folks

(Yes, I know this is not a question, but I felt it was something that affects a lot of people and there is not a forum for that, so please don't leap on me for trying to be helpful)

I had this happen to me whilst running a lucky chair giving out cash, on 3 seperate occasions, i did of course report it to abuse as it was clearly alt abuse, but unfortunately the ease of creating an account here in SL without needing the simplest thing like a valid e.mail address or valid details, im sure it will continue to be yet another problem for the players of SL

Couple that with the latest way to grief using fraudulent Credit cards etc. to buy your L$s and get peoples accounts shut whilst LLs investigate, its a Time Bomb just waiting to go off imho.

Peace

What a nightmare. I don't (currently) have a lucky chair, but I appreciate the heads-up.

It's interesting to me that people spend the time and effort to make 26 alts to take advantage, and won't take the time and effort to come up with something of interest or value themselves.

Seems a waste of time, to me, but then again... I don't know that their actual mental resources go beyond knowing all the letters of the alphabet.

Dea

I know this is sort of derailing, but just out of interest, how easy do you really think it is to "come up with something of interest or value"?

I find those chairs kinda annoying, any time I see them they are never on my letter. Never been annoyed enough to make an army of alts; Life is too short, not to mention I probably don't want whats being given away (can you say 'sour grapes'?).

Sorry to hear this has happened, how you fill it up with No-Trans stuff soon ^^

My partner and I hunt lucky chairs. We not only hunt them, but she also created the LMHud that many Lucky chair hunters use (an easy way to store Lucky chair LM's and cycle thru them.... blatant plug).

I can tell you that if you are putting in transferrable items in your chairs, you are in the minority. Not counting those who put freebies from Yadni's in their chairs, the overwhelming majority (over 90%), only put no transfer items in their chairs for the very reason you described.

The chairs are a marketing tool. They tend to generate an increase in sales. If one goes to Jane's Dress shop and likes the outfit they see in a chair, they'll tend to look around at the others... that are for sale... and maybe buy some. I have, my partner has. Most people we go hunting with has. Careful product placement on the merchant's part is helpful here (for a good example, go look at "Awesome Designs". Some of us aren't patient enough to wait. If for example i tp in and i really like what is in the chair. I'll go ahead an buy it, right then (has to be really good). I'm not the only one, because i see many merchants adding the chair item to a vendor right next to the chair (just like in RL, floorspace in a store is a valuable resource, not to be wasted. That vendor means there is a demand large enough to warrant using some floorspace).

So, to conclude: do not give up your chair just because you saw a freebie reseller (your items will be turning up at someone's yardsale probably). Instead, change your permissions to Next Owner No Transfer. Perhaps rename the folder or object that it gives, so that you can track the item separately from your other inventory transactions (example: some vendors add NT after the name to differentiate it from the purchased and transferrable version). Perhaps do the same with your by-the-chair vendor, if you'ld like to monitor your sales from chair related purchases. But above all, please do not judge the majority of the chair hunters by the actions of this 1 person and their 25 alts.

Strife, i've made a list of male only chairs if it would help you (my appologies if you are not male... i'm not in world to check your profile, so i'm guessing). Some merchants (very few, but some) have come to realize that men are an untapped market. And while the chair groups have lots of lists for the chairs, only a half dozen or so, offer a chair for men.

oh, and yes, "S" is one of the more rare letters that come up. But it's not the win that matters, it's the fun of the hunt. And even though the chairs don't come up with "S" for me, i can help out my friends by letting them know they have a chair waiting for them

no offence but...duh!
your giving items away free....hello? is that not good enough reason to make them no trans and who cares if they don't like it? it's a free item they are recieving that YOU are giving away for free. so i don't sympathize with you at all. you brought it on yourself and no warning should be given to those who have these chairs. anything that anyone is going to give away free always....always make no trans. doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

It's also sad that people will talk to you like you're a fool because you don't have larceny in your heart.

Hi Elgyfu - sorry to hear you got caught out by this scam. If it's any consolation, it must mean that you must have some *really* attractive products in your store; I've only heard about the alphabet goons attacking money-loaded chairs in the past!

I can only echo the advice given above, that all Lucky Chair owners should set their prize items to "no transfer" (this is even mentioned in the Lucky Chair owner documentation). Doing so makes the prizes unattractive to scammers, and can actually have the beneficial side-effect of making your Lucky Chair even *more* addictive to compulsive chair-hoppers! (I've found that people attach a lot more value to prizes that are a little harder to obtain!).

Thanks for raising awareness on this issue Elgyfu, and I hope you have more success with your chair in the future

Shep K
(Lucky Chair Inventor)

The item I have in my chair is an exclusive, only available from the chair. Your comment has made me wonder if that was really the right track to take.

thoughts?

I would also reevaluate this Friendship. Not knowing the length of time you have Known her, my First Impulse would be she is In on the Scam expecially if she advised you on How to place Items within the Chair.

Next time You decide to be Generous, YOU choose the item to Give away, Let people know before hand what they will get, and make it No Copy, No Mod, No Transfer. I created a Game that gave away Little tokens, small simple gifts, and everything in it had permissions set up as i described. If they don't want it, they can throw it away, it's ONLY pixels after all.

Angel.

Well, I'm a homebrewer.. I'm BUILDING a lucky chair.. am I too cheap to pay $400 for the ability to give things away for free? Okay yes I guess I am. But I've learned a lot about string handling in the process.. and it's been fun.

But as a business owner as well.. I see the value of a lucky chair. Both as a way to generate TRAFFIC.. and as a way to generate "buzz". I had a plan for my lucky chair. Making a set of X items.. a series. Then have the chair give out one each. Then sell the full set of them.

So yes, someone with far too much time on their hands could in fact create enough alts to collect the whole set.. but in the process of all that logging on and off, I'd get the traffic of all those alts spending huge percentages of their online time in my shop.

Because traffic is weird like that.

But that aside.. the main question at the moment is copy or trans. I've seen it go down both ways. The lucky chair groups thrive on teamwork. You want item X, but it's on Letter Z, you call in Zelda who sits on the chair and kicks you the item. Next time Zelda needs a Y, she calls you up. No transfer items can get really annoying in that situation. I can't tell you how many sets of "Orange Silks" I have deleted. BUt half the point of the groups is to bump the chairs to the next letter.. in hopes of getting the letter you want.

Personally I like the concept of the chairs.. it really gives people in SL something to do. I've scored some cool things via LC's.. but the best ones were things I didn't want.. but the person who called me wanted.. because I was just able to say "here.. it's totally not my style"

But someone said it earlier.. you're giving something away for free. So you need to decide for yourself if it's something that people should be able to trade with each other (creating the potential for alt-abuse)... or something that only they can have (and thus creating many more deleted copies). It's a risk either way.. On one hand, your hospitality can be abused.. on the other hand.. your store may get a bad rep from your chair.

I know that lucky chairs full of freebies (called "unlucky chairs".. will not only get your chairs never visited, but may get your store actively boycotted by people. Just like a camping chair.. as a store owner, you aren't going to get something for nothing.
One of the best gimmicks I have seen with the lucky chairs, is having a "second chance" vendor next to the chair.. selling the same item. Thus giving people the opportunity to "just buy it".

MOst items in lucky chairs are "clearance items" or "loss leaders" things that bring in the customers. The worst gimmick I have seen in a lucky chair (other than the freebies) is putting the most horrid colour of an item in the chair. They come for the fantastic outfit from the famous clothing designer, and it turns out to be in blinding day-glow cyan.

Personally.. I think that you have to balance all of these things.. make the prizes something that people will actually want. Give them another way to get it. Don't make it the super expensive items... the more desireable your product, the safer you are making it no transfer. But if it will only suit 10% of the population.. give everyone a break and let them trade it.

What's going in our lucky chair? We haven't decided yet. We've talked about driving gloves, goggles, harnesses, helmets.. and some fun plushies. Nothing really definite yet. But nothing that would retail over say L$25. Permissions? Probably transfer. If someone wants to corner the market selling our plushies.. after logging in and out of our shop 3000 times a day... Sheesh.. who cares?

Sorry to hear it, Misses Wishbringer. My sis an I went by your shop after I read this a couple days ago, an picked up a couple of things in support. Keep up the good work, 'kay?

Mari

If you think about it long enough, how sad is it that someone would go to all that trouble to make 26 alts, keep loggin in and out of game to gain items to sell on to the general public... maybe we should introduce dumpsters in SL, then they would have something 'normal' to do?

Hee. I don't have a lucky chair but I do have a freebie that's nocopy/transfer. Slightly concerned when one person bought 80 of them! Apparently they were going to make a mall out of them lol. I had visions of these little box homes stacked up like shipping containers. I laughed at that. I maybe wouldn't laugh if they were doing it to resell gift versions of "valuable" stock- not unless their army of alts was hanging round long enough to score some traffic (doubtful with a one minute switcharound).

Of course they're well branded and spam my store name just about every time you do anything with them, so it's all gravy. And I can take the box away if I think too many have got out. 470 of the buggers so far

Oh and Winter I know the pain of the fugly colours. I dig purple but a lot of people seem to think that "day-glo violet" ticks the box. bleh!

Don't those chairs RANDOMIZE the letters?

If the letters go in alphabetical order, that just invites this sort of behavior.

A lucky chair does drive me to visit a store and I do like to browse around and look at the other products afterwards. It's a great way to find new stores.

Should you make an exclusive item only available on a lucky chair? I'd say you should make it available for purchase as well. Having to wait for the chair to get to a specific letter might frustrate your customers.

I'd suggest for lucky chair owners to put a landmark into their prize and to always put their store in their profile picks.

If lucky chairs weren't responsible for most of the random tp requests I get, I wouldn't really care about them one way or the other, but since they end up causing an however minor inconvenience I'd rather avoid stores that have them, rather than encourage it.

Making one, or several, items available only to a "VIP" group at a discounted rate, or even free, personally makes me feel much more appreciated as a customer than an item that's out for just anyone.

Sorry to hear about what happend to you. Just keep an eye on those freaks!


Good luck in the near future

My experience is that the overwhelming majority of random tp requests are actually from really pathetic clubs trying to get people to come to them. Nothing to do with Lucky Chairs