Illegitimate Business Practices

Kitty I think you and I are on the same page. But, my question is still the same.............how the heck is a new resident supposed to know this? They find out after the fact..........and sometimes that's after a substantial amount of USD's have been spent. My friend hasn't lost a great deal...but she has lost. I "own" mainland "bought" from LL but I'm lucky. So many new residents are at the mercy of who ever they "buy" from..........and there is absolutely no clear way of knowing who they are doing business with. That cannot be fixed in these forums.........very few new residents will read and study the forums to find out what to look out for. It's almost always after the fact that they seek help from others............because there is no other way to get help. That is Linden Labs fault..........and, in my opinion, their ultimate down fall.

And I really don't want LL to fail...but they seem to insist on that outcome.

You learn these things by taking the time to READ before buying! Read the knowledgebase, come here to the forums and search, or just ask someone... it is just a little time that will save a lot of heartache. If that is not instinctive, that is THEIR problem and they will ALWAYS have more trouble with the system. We can't force people to read, and quite honestly, I will not fault LL for a person's failure to take advantage of what is out there. I will fault LL for anything that isn't clearly written, and that is all.

Actually that is not true. The "seller" told me and my friend that the tier would be 2000 L a month (just a little over 7 USD at the exchange rate at that time). There was no mention that the 2000 L would fluctuate with the exchange rate....it was stated as 2000 L and that was all until my friend IM'd me to tell me that the tier was 2500 lindens the next month. See where I'm going Warda?

And no, I do not have a problem with anyone making money with their enterprises. But when that person is not completely upfront with the fees and charges I do have a problem.

And why do you refer the sim owner as a landlord? That person is the sim owner........my friend "owns" the land. She does not rent it.

Oops...............catch 22 LOL

I will fault LL. There is no mention that one must do research or investigating before they make a purchase.........not in the knowledge base (if you think that's an effective research tool, that is), and not in the ToS either. All LL does is wash their collective hands of any disputes............ducking the problem entirely.

You must remember, not everyone who comes to this virtual world is coming with all their defenses in full force. They come here to play and have fun..............and then they learn they are in an invironment of you "better watch your back, this is game of chance".

Research? Crap............how much did you research SL before jumping in? I sure didn't.................I never thought it would be necessary. I "trusted" the develpers to have some protections for the players..........just as 99% of the people coming in now do.

Thunder, I think this is too simplistic a view. Renting can be beneficial, but that is depending on what you want. It provides freedom to move at any time, without having to worry about tier or when your membership runs out. With buying, you get a little stipend, but if you want to stick to the free 512 of tier and not pay any more, you will likely be hamstrung when it comes to prim usage.

When you think of it in terms of prims, renting can be very much worth the money, because you'd have to buy more land and a membership just to get the prim usage you want, and the piddly stipend may not be a big enough offset to break even. Every person has to do the math for themselves.

You and I will never see eye to eye on this. I am not going to coddle permanoobs. Like I said, if reading about their purchases is not instinctive, that is THEIR problem and they will always have problems.

I didn't research SL before getting my free membership, but I sure as hell did my research before I got involved in land ownership. Any mistake I make, I make with my eyes wide open, not shut. If it takes learning the hard way for some people to learn, so be it. You can only lead the horse to the water, but you can't make it drink.

So did the landlord actually say "7 usd" or "2000 lindens, varying by exchange rate"? It coudl well be the landlord is at fault here for not being clear exactly which currency the rate is fixed in.



No contradiction. It's leasehold land. Which means the landlord is a real person, to whom you pay rent, and yet you own the land. This isn't me being stupid here - it is a real and common method in which land is owned in the real world (cf Hong Kong pre-1996).

If there is one thing that most sim owners are guilty of though, it is in not being clear that teh land is being sold as leasehold and not freehold.

He said 2000 lindens.......I told my friend that it was about 7 USD? So, I guess I'm complishant in this whole "misunderstanding.

And why do I get the feeling that I'm arguing with land owners or sim owners or private island owners? LOL

If the ToS or rules favor you...................great. But what about the average user? He/she just S.O.L.?

I'm done

It is possible that the rate was prorated. I recently bought some private island land and found out later that my actual rental rate was prorated through the end of the month, as I didn't purchase on the first of the month. Took me a little by surprise as I didn't realize this, but it is not unfair. This is what can happen when people don't use automated rental boxes to rent land.

ok, sounds like that landlord was definitely at fault for not making the payment currency clear.

As full disclosure, I do not presently own a sim, or even rent out land. But I do have plans to buy a sim in the near future.

I am in the middle of drafting a set of guidelines for prospective tenants (and landlords) about the kinds of things they should watch out for in a covenant.

I'd like to point out a 1024 sq. m. plot does not cost US$5/month on the mainland -- it costs $9.95 for the premium account + $5 for the extra 512 tier, for a total of $14.95. Now, you get L$300/week, which averages out to $4.81/month, for a net cost of $10.14.

You do not require a premium account to "own" land on a private island, so the $7/month *is* less than the cost on the mainland.

Now, L$2500/month is about $9.26, still less, but not by as much. However, the Linden has been very stable the past several months, hovering around L$270/US$1. There is *no reason* the price should have changed because of the exchange rates. Island costs are another matter.

An older island (65536 sq m) runs $195/month, or $3.05/1024 plot
A newer island runs $295/month, or $4.61/1024 plot.
Note that if you buy a full sim on the mainland, you also pay the $195/32769-65536 sq m rate.

Finally, to buy an island from LL now runs $1675. Mainland sims are going for around $2500 with some wide variances. So don't forget to factor in that cost, too.

Is it a good deal or not? If you like the place, seems like it is to me. But I believe that these are all the relevant numbers, so judge for yourself.

I'm talking premium resident..........I talked my friend into that. It's just the "tier" we are discussing. So toss that 9.95 out of the equation (which I believe is somewhat lower since I suggested the quarterly rate to her).

But it's not the real dollar amount or the value.........it's the lack of knowing what it all costs in the end. Called being completely upfront with your dealings.

Mince words or terms all you want.......it's not right

Now I am done.......................LOL, I said that before

hehe sorry its funny the way you say it

and yes if your talking about the mainland parcels that are both for sale and rent yeah I know what you mean it made no sense to me as well I landed on a couple scratched my head and left. Obvsiously if you rent it and leave the land up for sale at the same time anyone can come buy an yoink your land out from under you. This i have seen a few times and wondered what in heck they were up to but ignored it.

Islands are an entirely different kettle of fish and usually handled differently , but it looks like this post is refering to the mainland parcells that are up for sale in the land sale search are and at the same time up for rent with a rental box and an add in the classifieds. So yeah hehe as long as your polite about it you can do it

SL is like the wild west and I have become jaded over time in many cases and assume when someone chats me to get something out of me that their first motivation is to try to scam me.. never actually be scammed per say but have come close a couple of times and am pretty sure that in both cases the person was in the process of scamming me but due to my actions had to back down or have the entire thing collapse in on them in a large way.

On the other hand I have never met a scam free game yet and in most cases I have had a lot of close calls and TOS in those games dont allow for harrasement either so is SL any different? No not really

There is a "criminal" element in every online community you enter and they exist for more then one reason. The worste situtation I was in was when I trully was messed up year and years ago enough to cause me to leave a game and the logic the guy had for doing actual criminal activity (he hacked accounts to and sent some kind of "thing" attached to an email to try to keylog me to he could get into mine as well) was simply this..

"at least I limit my activities to virtual reality and dont take them out on people in real life" When I pointed out that hacking was outside of the limits and boundaries of the game he shut up fast but his excuses and rational were that of someone who can rationalize and justify anything in their own minds just to be able to do it .. in other words a true "criminal mind". These minds will exist in SL as well you can't get away from it only protect yourself from it and in all honesty in comparison to what I have seen in true MMORPG's this place is pretty tame which is probably why I stick around cause nothing has truly bothered me here not even that mainly because it was so transparently wrong that it was easy enough to protect myself from.

I prefer this kind of obvious stuff then to things which are more insidious like people pretending to be your friends and sending you emails with attachements hoping you will open them to either fry your computer or load a keylogger onto it

Dont know how many other online things you have done but honestly I can say that this game is very very tame and I Like it that way cause being the geeky type I am in can do my own thing and accepted for who I am pretty much and anyone who has tried to mess with me well again it caused no real harm only minor irritation and annoyance so for this I am thankful

Not to threadjack too much but I've started to hear this more and more often and it kinda makes me sad. I'm pretty sure you're talking about my parcels here. I developed this whole complicated system where I could give people the choice to rent OR buy and I spend a little money advertising that fact by sticking the information in the description of the parcel and throwing it up on search places.

I guess there's simply not enough room in those little boxes to explain that if you buy the land you keep it and if you rent the land you don't buy it nor does it stay up for sale. I wonder if this sort of confusion is negatively affecting land sales although I feel like my rental business is finding many more customers.

It just goes to show that things that sometimes seem blatantly obvious to me are not so clear to other people. I'll have to rethink my strategy but there may simply be no hope of offering a service like this.

I just like looking at the kitty pictures in your ads.

In RL in my state anyway, we have something called property tax and if you don't pay it
then your land will be seized and put up for auction.

Seems a bit similar to tier to me, and they claim it for similar reasons, to pay for peripheral
services provided for the surrounding community.

Ok and many others have already provided definitions for leaseholding, but I also like taking a historical perspective.
The idea of fair property rights is actually very new. Even with the US constitution which
was the first of its kind and a novel idea especially at the time of its introduction.

The simple fact is that fair property rights has Never really existed, and we are all (ideally)
striving to bring the concept closer to reality in practice.

Currently the legal opportunity to acquire and hold land is pretty much fair on paper.
Yet in practice there are a whole hailstorm of dependencies, and if the would be buyer goes
into a situation uninformed and responds to the loudest most oversimplified ads claiming
the easiest and the best bargains, then there is a very high degree of probability that this
person will be scammed either in an illegal fashion or even a perfectly legal one that is
just a very bad deal.

In order to have a very fair completely consistent system lf land distribution and yes
that is what it would have to become, then we would all have far less choices and far less
freedoms.

Just due to the level of administrative overhead that would be required, now That would
be Really expensive for everyone.

It was only a few hundred years ago that land was held and yes usually acquired by force.

And even only maybe 150 years ago in the Wild West many if not most depending on what
town you were in disagreements were settled with guns.

In fact to this day beyond the boundaries of civilized borders land is still held by force
and/or the threat of force on the global level.

Here is an interesting link,
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/property.htm

Doh...sorry I went global in perspective, haha...again, just my two cents, or 5 bucks.

I'll give you a couple of good tips.
1) Do rent. It usually works out cheaper, and you can quit whenever you like.
2) Look for places with a covenant. It's your best defense against someone opening an ugly laggy casino right next door.

Every single business transaction in Second Life involves a degree of trust, regardless of the means of payment, that is either real life currency or Linden Dollars. Both have fungible value

Take it or leave it that is your choice. There is no more free money without some trust between counterparties.

There is only one possible exception to the above and that is free avatar accounts that still qualify for the $L50 stipend per week which is paid without charge providing you log on.

Even in that position you are still dependent on the continued existence of Second Life to ensure those Lindens have some very modest monetary value, which amounts to about $10 US real per annum in my own opinion, if you are dependent on that alone to enjoy and enable being here.

So you advised your friend to go premium and then advised her to buy on a private island. Why? What does she gain by being premium? Sounds like bad advice to me.

I bought my first plot within 7 days of joining. When I bought it I had knowledge of the tier system through researching in the knowledgebase and asking landowners. They even put a nice useful link on the main page to http://secondlife.com/whatis/pricing.php

The whole tier system was confusing to start with, but right after I bought my land I had other newbie friends asking me to walk them through it. There are now 4 of us who have bought up neighbouring land and one of my friends rents subplots to others. Everybody went into it with their eyes open regarding tier.

We also knew about the difference between mainland and private estates, which is why we paid a premium for our nice, uncluttered piece of mainland.

If you treat your money as disposable and don't do the research, there is nobody to blame but yourself when you make a loss.
Would you make a RL purchase without knowing exactly what you were paying for?

I take the term "Own" very lightly in regards to SL. The only people who really own anything ar The Providers. They pull the plug and it's all gone. In my opinion.

What's the problem?

L$ 7000 for a 1024 sq.m. plot sounds reasonable to me. Then oke, the tier would be 5USD rather than 7, but first "buying" on a private island does not require you to be premium, so you save money there, second the island owner is supposed to take care of zoning, something that in the mainland does not exist.

Yes, once you take into account the fact that you aren't paying for premium membership, you find it works out cheaper.

I'd jump at a 1024 for $7K, even if it meant an extra $2 a month.

A friend of mine rents a 4096 sq m plot. She paid nothing to move in. She pays about $20 US per month. If she had bought it, it would have cost her at least L$40000 up front (that would be lucky) and would be paying $25 US per month tier PLUS premium membership on top of that.

If the landowner pulls the plug, she loses nothing, as she paid nothing up front, and her monthly expenses she would have paid anyway, and they would have been higher. But she's been there for several months and says the landowner provides a good service.