Reporting possible fraud and or stolen funds

[Tyni Shilling]

Good morning,

 

Last evening I had an person appear on my land and I asked if I could help them. The response I received was that they were on an account of a person who had recently deceased. I asked them how they could be on another person's account and was told they found out how to access it.

 

I informed this person that what I was being told didn't make sense and that using another's account was a violation of the community guidelines and that I would report them as possibly committing a violation. I filed a fraud/stolen account report with Linden Labs. A few minutes later this person sent to me L$800 with no explanation. I promptly returned the funds saying it did not ask for or or want it. This morning, upon logging in, this person had again put funds into my account. I believe these funds might be stolen. I received the funds even though I used the blocked feature after reporting this person to Linden Labs.

What should I do? Do I file another abuse report? I do not want this money, did not earn this money, and I do not want it in my account. If I return the funds again the Second Life system will just unblock them and I'm afraid the cycle will continue.

Thank you for any advice/help you can offer to solve this crazy problem I'm having.

-Tyni

[Alwin Alcott]

send the money to Governor Linden.

AR that person again and add payment details in the report.

[Tyni Shilling]

Thank you for the advice. That is a great idea of sending the funds to LL.

 

Thanks again!

-Tyni

[Callum Meriman]

It's a common way to sanitise funds in other games, it really sounds like they are trying it here too.

The scammers gather all the gold to a central account then pay out moderate amounts to a fairly big number of random people, including alts linked to them. The thought is that the game operator seeing all these people who are likely innocent - as you are - give up the chase in the crowd and contorted path of the gold.

Thing is it's a long running method and many game companies have worked out a defense to it, because the Lab are dealing in game tokens that can be exchanged for cash one images they follow the paper trail right to cashout.

[Prokofy Neva]

Oh, definitely keep filing reports, file a support ticket, and write security@lindenlab.com if nothing is working. You can keep trying to return the money and also block that impersonator so they can't send you things again (not sure if money sends override this).

I had this happen once and I was perplexed. Why would someone I don't know on a day-old account send me $100,000? I definitely don't want ill-gotten gains. But why send them to me? To set me up to look like I'm the thief? I don't get this method. The Lindens can look on their consoles and see where the money originated. It's not like the FBI waiting to pounce on Dred Robert Pirate in the public library.