Copybotter has set up a store on the SL Marketplace...how do I report this?

[Vanity Fair]

There's a new store, called BLACK FRIDAY PROMO STORE LIMITED 2H, which has dozens of clearly copybotted items for sale, including Catwa heads, Vista AOs and L'Etre skins. He/she can't even be bothered to use new pictures, the pictures are clearly stolen from the vendors too!

How do I report this store to Linden Lab? I can't flag the items because I am not the intellectual property owner. What do I do when I see stuff like this?

[Klytyna]

6 minutes ago, Vanity Fair said:

There's a new store, called BLACK FRIDAY PROMO STORE LIMITED 2H, which has dozens of clearly copybotted items for sale, including Catwa heads, Vista AOs and L'Etre skins. He/she can't even be bothered to use new pictures, the pictures are clearly stolen from the vendors too!

How do I report this store to Linden Lab? I can't flag the items because I am not the intellectual property owner. What do I do when I see stuff like this?

YOU... Don't...

YOU contact the people who's products YOU think are being stolen and tell THEM, then THEY decide if you are right, and then THEY file DMCA takedowns with LL.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

27 minutes ago, Vanity Fair said:

There's a new store, called [removed name of "store"], which has dozens of clearly copybotted items for sale, including Catwa heads, Vista AOs and L'Etre skins. He/she can't even be bothered to use new pictures, the pictures are clearly stolen from the vendors too!

How do I report this store to Linden Lab? I can't flag the items because I am not the intellectual property owner. What do I do when I see stuff like this?

It isn't copybotting, it's an extremely clumsy bait-and-switch scam. The store owner didn't even bother to change the name of most of the items in the "Contents" tab and they have nothing to do with the pictures used. You can flag most of it as "Not as advertised."

Edited November 25, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Vanity Fair]

Ok thanks Theresa. I will go and flag these then.

[Vanity Fair]

Well, I flagged a few of these items, but there's no good category under Not As Advertised that really fits.  This is clearly a scammer but there's no way to indicate that. The only 3 options are Incorrect Listing Category, Incorrect Listing Image, and Item Permissions Not As Advertised. 

[Skell Dagger]

Thanks for the heads-up, Vanity. I've alerted Catwa about her images that are being used to advertise that full perm stuff.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[Callum Meriman]

Maybe a ticket saying they are scam boxes might be seen.

The holidays are a good time for these people to sneak in and get a few days of sales without Linden oversight.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Marianne Little]

I am willing to bet it's empty boxes. The creators got their pictures stolen and abused in a scam.

It will hurt people who isn't familiar with SL brands. They will buy it.

It's sneaky to do it now, with all the Black Friday sales around.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Marianne Little

[Ethan Paslong]

as it still always is : buyer be aware...
don't buy at stores without inworld stores, don't buy brands you can't check... don't buy .... make a few more rules for yourself
Its a lot harder here to check, but not impossible, check names, settings...
If you visit a store in RL you also don't buy when seeing red flags everywhere.

And... if deals look to be too good to be true .... they are .... don't pay. It;s also for new players not too difficult to imagine that if you see a brand head for 6k the one offered for 50L is fishy.

[Vanity Fair]

The store is still up and he has added even more items that weren't there before, like the Vista Esther AO and Truth hair!

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Vanity Fair

[Marianne Little]

34 minutes ago, Vanity Fair said:

The store is still up and he has added even more items that weren't there before, like the Vista Esther AO and Truth hair!

 

Is the one star reviews there, or did he relist the items so the reviews diasppear?

Edit: I searched now, and the store is gone.

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Marianne Little

[Whirly Fizzle]

The store looks dead now.

[Vanity Fair]

Yes, it got taken down a few minutes after I posted today. I mean, the guy was copying pictures from vendors like TRUTH and Catwa. The nerve of some people!

I wonder how much money he made (if any). I bet some people were taken in by the scam.

And there still needs to be a better way for consumers to report obviously scam stores like this on the SL Marketplace. NONE of the categories when you flag an item are appropriate for reporting a scam artist. 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Vanity Fair

[Lindal Kidd]

27 minutes ago, Vanity Fair said:

Yes, it got taken down a few minutes after I posted today. I mean, the guy was copying pictures from vendors like TRUTH and Catwa. The nerve of some people!

I wonder how much money he made (if any). I bet some people were taken in by the scam.

And there still needs to be a better way for consumers to report obviously scam stores like this on the SL Marketplace. NONE of the categories when you flag an item are appropriate for reporting a scam artist. 

It's non-intuitive, but I'd use the in world Abuse Report for this.  Use $L Fraud as the issue type.

[Skell Dagger]

11 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I am willing to bet it's empty boxes.

Possibly, but when I checked the contents tab on MP of the ones using Catwa ad images they contained things like "Toxic Templates Full Perm Mesh - Kyoko Top".

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, Skell Dagger said:

Possibly, but when I checked the contents tab on MP of the ones using Catwa ad images they contained things like "Toxic Templates Full Perm Mesh - Kyoko Top".

I read some of the reviews, the bed had 1 review claiming the delivery box had no bed, but a bikini. So yeah, at least they sent out something.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

15 hours ago, Ethan Paslong said:

as it still always is : buyer be aware...
don't buy at stores without inworld stores, don't buy brands you can't check... don't buy .... make a few more rules for yourself
Its a lot harder here to check, but not impossible, check names, settings...
If you visit a store in RL you also don't buy when seeing red flags everywhere.

And... if deals look to be too good to be true .... they are .... don't pay. It;s also for new players not too difficult to imagine that if you see a brand head for 6k the one offered for 50L is fishy.

 

Just one little complaint about that,  I make skins for a product, I make layers for another,  I am not selling a physical product, why do I need a store?

[Klytyna]

8 hours ago, Vanity Fair said:

And there still needs to be a better way for consumers to report obviously scam stores like this on the SL Marketplace. NONE of the categories when you flag an item are appropriate for reporting a scam artist.

Part of the reason the system is the way that it is, is that reports are... Dangerous...

Example...

Retarded.Fossilnoob: "Hey everybody, I found a store on the MP run by a FILTHY COPYBOTTER! Their name is Sanity Impair, and they are selling stuff copybotted from Pretentious Overpriced Fashions, for less than 1/4 of the price, why can't I report this directly to the Lab and have Sanity Impair's store deleted and her account banned...

heres the Links to the two versions of the item, the real one and the copybot [link1] [link2]"

Us: "Look, Sanity Impair isn't a filty coppybotter, yeah that dress looks similar, but that's because BOTH stores bought it as FULL PERM TEMPLATE from this store [link3].

In fact it's Pretentious Overpriced Fashions who are the ripoff merchants here, they bought the template later than Sanity, and charge a hell of a lot more for an "'original creation' that isn't..."

...

And that sort of thing is pretty common, Lots of people have heard the term copybotter, and assume that any two stores using the same mesh for their products, the cheaper store MUST be a "Copybotter", because SL-Un-Think says expensive = original and better...

THAT is why you can't file takedowns on other peoples stuff for "suspected copybotting"

The only thing threads like this achieve, realistically is to provide FREE advertising for the scam store, for those people who hadn't stumbled across it themselves.

"Hi I found this evil store here [link] thats selling big brand stuff for pennies! How can I stop them?"

Certainly not by naming them in a damn forum thread.