Logged out By Administrator - L5000 penalty deducted from account destination system

Has anyone any idea what this means and why it happened ?

1 372445209 Date: 2007-06-19 18:26:14
Type: Linden Penalty
Destination: SYSTEM
L$5,000 L$-2,53

Thanks

Dal.

What were you doing just before it happened??

Actually just debugging some scripts in at my place, nothing fancy and very lightweigt codewise.

Ummm...whatever it is, it doesn't sound good.

Sorry, I know that's not helpful, but really; I'm stumped. Was this an in-world system message? Please describe where on the screen it appeared and what the dialogue box looked like.

I know this is gonna sound stupid, but did you happen to buy some L from someplace other than the Lindex or the SLExchange?

No actually not a stupid question at all,
but probably the right idea...

Since I dont have a credit card,
and dislike depositing cash on paypal,
I recently bought some Lindens on ebay,
which is quite convenient since paypal directly
debits my bank account for goods bought there.

It actually were 5.000.
The shock must have clouded my mind,
that I didnt make this connection right away.

Nevertheless I do not understand,
why the acquired cash has been removed form my account ?!

I will try to contact LL somehow..
Even as basic member there must be a way to check about account issues

Thanks for the heads up

If LL determines that the Lindens were acquired fraudulently by the person you purchased them from (ie, they used a stolen credit card), they will confiscate any and all of the ones they can track down.

The L$ you bought from eBay were likely determined to be gained by illegitimate means by LL. Being the recipent of the funds, they took them back.

They can and may still apply a penalty of another 50% of the amount. They could also eliminate your account.

Hard lesson to learn, but if you do not buy from a trusted source, you could lose 150% of the purchase and risk losing your account. One option is to use PayPal to deposit US$ and then buy from SLX.

*sighs* Right.. figured that might be the case. Sorry to be right.

Those L you bought on Ebay, well, they might have been 'illegally' gained, either via a scam or outright 'hacking' by the person you bought them from. If you look up the name of the person you bought from in SL's people search.. I'll bet you won't find them.

What happened was this, Linden Labs traced the L transfers from the offending account.. and each account that received a L transfer has now had that money deducted and may have even been banned. It's how Linden Labs discourages fraud and theft, because for all they know, the account could be an alt of the offending party.

And yes, the only thing you can do at this point is contact Linden Labs. I'm sorry this happened to you and I wish you a lot of luck!

p.s. From now on, try using SLexchange. I think they also take Paypal.

Wow. This is a great cautionary tale to anyone thinking of buying lindens on ebay. I wonder how many people they have employed to enforce this type of thing?

I'd make sure to file a dispute against the person you bought those from with eBay, as they did not actually deliver any goods. I'm sure you can get your money back from eBay at least.

Possibly the op has recieved an email from LL about it but hasn't had chance to check their email yet. If they were suspected to be stolen then they will probably have been placed into some sort of dispute status (much like, for example, a disputed transaction on your credit card bill will be bracketted and "put to one side" so to speak) until their provenence can be ascertained. Quite how LL will do this is beyond me though.

Dal, check your email if you haven't already and let us know if LL have sent you anything regarding a disputed amount of L$. RL banks often do this sort of thing with funds they believe to be involved with money laundering for example.

Actually I checked my email unsucessfully,
right after I saw the debit status on my account,
but for some reasons my over zeleaous spam filter had eaten one from LL.

LL indeed claims the money,
with the explanation that the original seller acquired it illegally.

Unfortunatly the email does not contain any information about his identiy.
Fortunately only one seller can be the culprit,
I will make sure to report an criminal offence,
the amount is to small to risk the costs of a civil process anyway.

Most amusingly they claimed to be a german company and
that their prices included 16% sales tax,
while the transaction history in paypal shows an english Limited,
if this is true than they could get in more trouble then fraud.

The seller is still active on ebay with 10.158 points and 99.4 positive reviews...

Grrr.. silly me..
Thanks again all and on to bed for me

I got hit last weekend for 20k Lindens myself, I purchased them from mygamestock.com on thursday, on friday they where delivered. within 1 hour of delivery I was locked out of my account page, locked out of the SL Viewer, monday I called and talked to LL and explained where I got the L$ and told them to take back the Lindens and gimme back my account!, since I purchased thru paypal, I can dispute the payment so I should get my 66 USD back

LL doesnt discriminate about who they lock out, I pay nearly alot of USD a month, and they still shut me down like I was a noob griefer, Lesson learned, DONT BU L$ from a place that doesnt offer API Risk Protection

I have only ever bought my L$ from their website. I can see why business users might want to get a better L$/US$ but frankly why should anyone but Linden get my money. I'm directly supporting LL by my purchase.

I know nobody wanted to hear that but it makes me feel a little taller

And feeling taller is exactly what a hobbit needs very badly!!!!!



(I agree with you though )

Morwen.

How can illegal money exist at all?

At some point these Lindens must have been bought from LL in a credit card transaction. That can go two ways:
- The card is good and the transaction completes
- The card is bad and the transaction fails.

Or am I missing something?

The L$ could have been gained in-world via some exploit or other blatant fraud-like behaviour. Which makes it "illegal" in the Linden Says So sense of the word, so they go chase it all up.

I don't know how they decide it all. If RiskyFraudGuy Hax has a legitimate L$5000 balance, scams another L$5000 that they decide is illegal, then sells his L$10,000 to two people (5,000 each) on eBay, how do they figure who got the funny money?

Enforcement of penalties by other than government entities seems like a touchy situation.

A business can charge you a returned check fee but must go through a government attorney to enforce collection.

NASCAR and similar organizations probably work it out differently but it's conceivable that LL could bill you for part of a 150% penalty if you don't have enough in your SL account to cover the difference.

Could be a stolen credit card and the card company claimed back the funds from LL after the fact.

Geez, considering how reliable the LindenExchange has been, why would anyone need to look elsewhere for their Lindens........?

This isn't a bad way to institute the new SL Morality. Bork the Lindex so people have to go elsewhere, Tell them their transaction is an illegal purchase. Seize their assets and kick them out. Since they went to a non Linden sanctioned seller, they are not of good moral Character, therefore not the type of people we want in Second Life.

It is amazing how Protective the Providers are of something that we are being told constantly has "No Value".

This is indeed the irony! LL rely on the LindEX for a significant part of their revenue. I think they control the currency very carefully. "Illegal" dealing has the potential for destabilising the money market.

Sorry to tell you folks, if you used paypal to pay for those L$, paypal won't help you.

Part of the paypal TOS states that there is no buyer protection for any digitally delivered item.

If you didn't fund your paypal transaction with a credit card, you are very likely SOL. I don't know if CC companies will cover you or not.

I feel for you! Hard way to learn a lesson.

Observing things in world, and helping many people with payment problem, I've observed a lot.

A.) There was a mass password change a couple weeks back. Don't know why, and not a word on the blog...except for one blurb about keeping your password safe.

B.) A lot of people having to change thier payment methods because thier CC is no longer working.

C.) I've people say to me that thier accounts have been hacked and thier accounts have been charged for linden dollars (some as much as $1,600USD worth of this thing that has "No Value.", and the L$ distributed to various other people. When contacted about the lindens recieved, those other people claim to have bought those lindens.

Conclusion: one or more of the login servers was hacked. LL tried to keep it all hush-hush and alleviate the damage with a mass P/W change on some accounts. Some accounts, though, slipped through the cracks and now we see the results of the half-baked attempt to impliment damage control. To further add insult to injury, those people that recieved L$ through 3rd parties (which most likely was gotten from illegal means) are penalized.

I may be wrong in this...I do know how to add 2 and 2 together and not get 5.