Purchased property at error price ownership

[personality76]

hello,

  This is my first posting, so forgive me if this is a duplicate or ettiquette issue or on the wrong place. :matte-motes-confused:

Never bought property before.  I came across and purchased this homestead that was listed at 40$L and 0$L/ week.  I looked all over for any weekly cost because it is amazing deal I thought.   I even sent a message to the owner who was not online at the time, nor his employees.  So I bought it and agreed to their terms.

Several hours later, one of the employees says that I need to pay the 7000+/ week tier.  I knew nothing about this because it was not listed anywhere for the property and says "0$L".   She checked with management and they acknowledged it was an error.  Since I think 7000+ per week is too steep for me, I will not agree to it like I agreed to the 0$L, they took back the land and returned all items  abruptly (not yet the 40$L).:manmad:

My question for you. They acknowledge it was an error and, even though it is an electronic only transaction, I bought the homestead of the private grandfathered land. Since I agreed to it and paid it, should it still be in my name or they can rightfully claim it back?  If in RL, a store sells you something marked erronously, it is yours.  What is the deal with SL?

Thanks

[GreggStar]

this unfortunatly does happen by certain estates in a bid to coax people in to the land, they false advertise and dont put information like the "weekly" tier anywhere, this does need to stop, its false advertising and misleading to the tenant / customer.

But alas like so many other things wrong they wont as they coax so many people into the 40L$ that they wont do a thing about it.

 

[personality76]

Yes, I truly agree.  It does need to stop.  I am not familar with the options, but how do we make them accountable for their actions.  Is there a higher governing body that enforces things?  In RL, they would get sued for false advertising.... even if it was a mistake. It was clearly written 0L$.

Where do I go to file a complaint against them so it does not happen to someone else?

[Perrie Juran]

While you may be ethically and possibly even legally correct in saying "tough on them," I doubt you'd get any response from LL on it.  Basically LL's position is "consumer beware." In other words they would say it's a resident dispute and they don't get involved in those.

[GreggStar]

only thing you can do really is file a AR report on the estate owner ( dont mention names on the forums hevens forbid you upset someone)

that is really the only option open to you, expain what happened ect

[Heart Brimmer]

---

GreggStar wrote:

only thing you can do really is file a AR report on the estate owner ( dont mention names on the forums

hevens forbid you upset someone)

that is really the only option open to you, expain what happened ect

---

 Emphasis mine: It's not that someone will get upset, it's simply against the forum guidelines to name names.

Edited because it didn't show up

[Pussycat Catnap]

You're not buying a product here. The store analogy is wrong.

You're renting time-based access to someone else's property in weekly installments subject to mutual agreement at terminable by either paarty at will without cause.

They can argue they had not agreed yet. But more correctly this does matter - as they have a right to terminate that agreement at annypoint, with or without refund, and even without providing the access to begin with.

There is no rule requiring a person give you access to their land if you pay them, even if you agree to do so. And that is something to keep in mind when renting in SL. All suc agreements are only enforced by reputation.

The unusual price should have and in this case did alert you that something was wrong. You went ahead anyway - and that is not their fault in this dynamic.

 

[personality76]

Thanks for a well thought out reply.   Made some very strong points there.... though to my sadness,  not in my favor.  

Agreements are enforced by reputation.  That just solidifies what was said earlier that nobody oversees or cares to enforce  consumer rights. But not everywhere you go has consumer rights. Bummer.

The price was suspicious.  But there is also a lot of freebies and giveaways you find, most small, but some significant.  SL is filled with people who give things away, just because they can and if you are at the right place at the right time, boom, you get it.  I never purchased land/ homestead/ property/tiers, I may still be a little unclear to exactly what is what.  However I do know there is a price for the land an weekly or monthly.  I am not sure if there are parcels that are exempt from the monthly dues, especially if you get 512m as a premier.... free land right there (with membership dues). I saw in the property description, you could pull up, that it is grandfathered.  To me, that could be a sign it was exempt from paying  because over the years I can imagine things evolved.  On top of that, it is a private land, so Linden Labs does not touch them and the monthly "rent" goes straight to private owner.  As you can see, I have been trying to make a rational decision based on what I had.  Since there is only one homestead (that I know of) I had to jump on it before someone else did.

In this case, the way I read it, I get all the rights to the land for 40$L and 0/ week, so by agreeing to it, it becomes mine. I saw in the property 

Reading through the termonology and what is advertised with this case and most others, lawyers would have a field day since termination rights and agreements do the sellers (and buyers no justice).   

[iCade]

For real now. A homestead costs the estate owner $120 per month in tier. That is USD, not Linden Dollars. Any rational thinking person will realise that stating the weekly tier being 0 Linden must have been a mistake. Why would someone rent out a 120 US Dollar homestead to a complete stranger for free?

Also, was this by chance listed in a landbook? A hippo tech box? They crap out at times, seen it plenty times that lots show up at 0 Linden, and contacting the estate owner/managers gets that error fixed fast. It's a hiccup in the system, it's not a ploy to draw costumers in. Why on earth would it be!? Logical fault again. Using bait and switch when landlords rely on reputation is the dumbest move they could make, so any landlord with half a brain cell wouldn't do it.

I am not affiliated with whatever landlord is in question here, it's either a glitch in their rental system they use (glitches happen) or it was a manually made error, and if that is the case I have to say "Congratulations on whoever made that error, you have proven to be human like the rest of us!"

This self righteous attitude is quite frankly, disgusting. You took advantage of what you thought was a killer deal irregardless of the fact that 0L tier on a $120 sim even rang your alarm bells, yet act indignant when the landlord actually logged in and became aware of the mistake.

Talking law, you have no foot to stand on citing law here. The tier was mistakenly put at 0 Linden due to a system error or simple mistake. In that case no contract was actually made.
Best example. A man wanted to auction his car on ebay and accidently set the starting bid at $4. Someone bid on it, and he withdrew the car from auction. The bidder wanted to sue but guess what? The car owner could keep his car and the auction was voided because it was obviously an error.

[BrianIndy]

Well for 1 thing he does not state that someone spent time trying to explain things to him and 2 it was priced right and 3 he was refunded his money and 4 he was given time to get his things before they was returned which was 2 hrs none of that was mentioned by this person..alot of nieve people on here i see..you need to know all the facts before making any kind of replies to things of this nature..i know the one this person is talking about but not saying any names but i know all the facts to this one and he is not telling the whole story

[RainbowAshez]

I work for the company that you are accusing of 'scamming you,' and all I can say is read the descriptions, or look on our website. Look into stuff before you buy. And our owner is a SHE. 

[BrianIndy]

repost as i read more from this person as saying they have never purchased land before and this quote from this person.. "I saw in the property description, you could pull up, that it is grandfathered.  To me, that could be a sign it was exempt from paying  because over the years I can imagine things evolvedI saw in the property description".. now this tells me that this person has to know about land purchasing to know what grandfathered is so makes you think what kind of person this is 

[jwenting]

seems more like OP is the wannabe scammer...