"Linden Dollar assessment"?

[Albus Rothmoor]

48 minutes ago, chasiopeya said:

I was contacted this morning @StephanieBell about what was going on in the gacha seller comunity. I had no idea so far. But I start to think, after reading thru the whole discussion, that maybe someone is just buying expensive items and then screems fraud. We should expose them and talk names, so we all can protect ourselves from further damages and ban everybody questionable. Since LL is not doing anything.

There have been at least 3 different old avatars that have been hacked and 3 different newbies that have been gifted so though I am sure it is probably only one or two people doing the hacking and owning all of these alts it won't help us to block the initial victims. I would love to know how he is getting their passwords though we should be spreading the word about that so we can minimize those who get hacked.

[OptimoMaximo]

54 minutes ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

though we should be spreading the word about that so we can minimize those who get hacked.

You can PM among yourselves in here to share the avatar names and block them from the viewer. Blocking inworld keeps them from buying on your MP stores

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, chasiopeya said:

We should expose them and talk names, so we all can protect ourselves from further damages and ban everybody questionable.

Ah yes, a witch hunt. Very classy and guaranteed to work. 

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

We are almost at 3000 views...spread the word to all your fellow gacha resellers...I’ve been posting in the gacha group chats about this situation. You should do the same or maybe NC’s to others. Lets see how wide spread these reverse charges really are. 

[OxfordLennox]

16 hours ago, MarquisdeSadeJustine said:

Alwin Alcott...I was just recently a victim with 23k reversed within four days..didnt realize the severity of this problem and how long its been going on. But if the problem isn’t fixed..Ill be here but NOT on MP. 

Don't mind him.

[Alma Draegonne]

Hello, I did not know about this forum, and I have arrived here out of desperation, there have always been thefts of accounts and fraud of this type, but in less than a week almost 200K have been taken from my shop in complete gacha collections and no copy items. LL  takes my money but does not return the items. The answer "due to the privacy policy, they cannot access other accounts to check the objects".

I mean they steal from me in a totally protected way.

LL should protect us, it is thanks to trade that the economy of SL is sustained.

I do not know what to do, I do not dare to continue selling items in my store...

Sorry my English.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Alma Draegonne

[Pamela Galli]

If you have not already done so, start a thread for names on VVO.

[Albus Rothmoor]

47 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

If you have not already done so, start a thread for names on VVO.

Nope because until we have any reason to suspect otherwise those people whose avatars are hijacked are just as much victims as us they are merely a host for a day and by the time we block them the damage has already been done. The hijacker is doing a quick shopping spree because they do not know when their victim will try to log in again. What I would like to do is reach out to some of these victims and ask them how they got hacked because the how is what we should be spreading so that there can be less victims (if anyone knows how they are hacking these people please say so).

And as others have said in protest and to protect ourselves we must delist whatever we cannot afford to loose from the MP until LL comes back to us with a pragmatic solution and if they cannot then we must all reasses the best way to proceed. I do not own an inworld store and never wanted one but if that is the route I must go so be it. As a decorator I am not going to stop buying gacha, working with resellers and needing to sell off stuff I am no longer using and I am sure many resellers have no desire to stop selling in SL entirely. LL's stands to loose the most here because they get a big 10% commission from this and there will unlikely be a need for much more Land even if most of us only sell in world. The resellers are the only way LL gets a cut on gachas as it it is because the creators sell everything on their MP's except those. Also many SL designers have better prices and discounts inworld then on their MP stores so more and more business is moving Inworld or to events (just as LL was trying to clean up the MP and increased their commission so that they could start to diversify their income model away from Land). 

Please LInden Labs it is Monday we want to be your partner and work with you; find a way to sort this out.

Edited February 3, 2020 by GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

37 minutes ago, Alma Draegonne said:

Hello, I did not know about this forum, and I have arrived here out of desperation, there have always been thefts of accounts and fraud of this type, but in less than a week almost 200K have been taken from my shop in complete gacha collections and no copy items. LL  He takes my money but does not return the items. The answer "due to the privacy policy, they cannot access other accounts to check the objects".

I mean they steal from me in a totally protected way.

LL should protect us, it is thanks to trade that the economy of SL is sustained.

I do not know what to do, I do not dare to continue selling items in my store...

Sorry my English.

You mean your MP store..yes?? If so DE-LIST until we can move forward with Linden Labs. 

Edited February 3, 2020 by MarquisdeSadeJustine

[sashaspooky]

I have had my MP store for about a year with no problems until the last few days.  From last Wed (1.29/2020) was the first fraudulent purchase.  The next was Friday (1/31) and the 3rd and 4th were yesterday (2/2).  In total $L15,114 worth of full gacha sets were taken.  I lost not only the sets but also the money that was paid for them.  So while they close down the account used by the hacker, chances are it was an Alt account and the prime account holder would just create a new alt to continue the hacking.  I am happy the people who's accounts were hack did recover the money, but unfortunately I am left with no recourse.  After the first event, I check all the email notices I get from MP sales and as with the previous sales it showed the account holder bought the sets and sent them to another person.  I did a search and discovered that while the account holder had been a member for around 7 years, the one receiving the gift was 1 day old.  I contacted both parties, first to ask the account holder if she did buy the items, and she had no knowledge of it.  I advised her to contact the fraud division at LL and report it.  That is in the works as I type.  Next I contacted the person who got the gift, and he gave me a story of working for someone who asked him to buy these sets and that that person was going to buy them from him.  He gave the the name of the person who he said asked him to buy the sets.  I then contacted that person and he claimed the person I have gotten the story from, had contacted him and offered to supply him with gacha items.  This person said he refused. Not surprisingly that first contact had also offered to supply me with gachas that I would like as well, I too refused. I then gathered the names of the people involved and gave that info to the account holder so she would have it for the fraud report.  

While messaging the account holder, I receive a new message from another MP store owner, who tells me this first person I confronted (hacker) had told her that he was selling the stolen items to me.  At that point I sent her a copy of the message I had with the hacker.   This Mp store owner tells me this hacker had hit her store for around $L8,000 worth of items. She sends me the message the hacker sent her which showed he thought what he was doing was funny and said it did not matter if they closed down his account, he would be back tomorrow.  

From what I understand this hacker is targeting full sets and rares, these items I have taken off my MP listings.  I would suggest anyone who has an MP store do the same, since I have no doubt that this wiseguy is out trolling for his next victim.  I would suggest that if you have email notifications of your mp store sales sent, check them and if it is something sent as a gift, check those names out.  If one shows that it is just a few days old, notify the account holder, the sooner a report is made, the harder it is for the hacker to succeed.  Be careful of you account, the person who was robbed last night told me her RL bank account was drained of $300 and her dashboard showed that money was used to buy Lindens.

My request to Linden Labs is that they make a slight change to the MP listing feature that could disable the gift giving option for transferable items,  By doing that it would stop the hackers ability to send items to themselves from hacked accounts.  It would not be that much of an inconvenience to a true buyer, they could just give it to the person from inside SL and if by chance a hacked item was bought, it would go to the account holders inventory and could then be returned for refund. 

I would also suggest to Linden Labs that instead of just closing down the hackers account, that they investigate the ip address used for that account and ban all accounts from that address from  SL.  This would effectively shut down the hackers prime account and all his alts.  If he tried to sign in from a different location, he would find that everything is gone.

[Albus Rothmoor]

7 minutes ago, sashaspooky said:

I have had my MP store for about a year with no problems until the last few days.  From last Wed (1.29/2020) was the first fraudulent purchase.  The next was Friday (1/31) and the 3rd and 4th were yesterday (2/2).  In total $L15,114 worth of full gacha sets were taken.  I lost not only the sets but also the money that was paid for them.  So while they close down the account used by the hacker, chances are it was an Alt account and the prime account holder would just create a new alt to continue the hacking.  I am happy the people who's accounts were hack did recover the money, but unfortunately I am left with no recourse.  After the first event, I check all the email notices I get from MP sales and as with the previous sales it showed the account holder bought the sets and sent them to another person.  I did a search and discovered that while the account holder had been a member for around 7 years, the one receiving the gift was 1 day old.  I contacted both parties, first to ask the account holder if she did buy the items, and she had no knowledge of it.  I advised her to contact the fraud division at LL and report it.  That is in the works as I type.  Next I contacted the person who got the gift, and he gave me a story of working for someone who asked him to buy these sets and that that person was going to buy them from him.  He gave the the name of the person who he said asked him to buy the sets.  I then contacted that person and he claimed the person I have gotten the story from, had contacted him and offered to supply him with gacha items.  This person said he refused. Not surprisingly that first contact had also offered to supply me with gachas that I would like as well, I too refused. I then gathered the names of the people involved and gave that info to the account holder so she would have it for the fraud report.  

While messaging the account holder, I receive a new message from another MP store owner, who tells me this first person I confronted (hacker) had told her that he was selling the stolen items to me.  At that point I sent her a copy of the message I had with the hacker.   This Mp store owner tells me this hacker had hit her store for around $L8,000 worth of items. She sends me the message the hacker sent her which showed he thought what he was doing was funny and said it did not matter if they closed down his account, he would be back tomorrow.  

From what I understand this hacker is targeting full sets and rares, these items I have taken off my MP listings.  I would suggest anyone who has an MP store do the same, since I have no doubt that this wiseguy is out trolling for his next victim.  I would suggest that if you have email notifications of your mp store sales sent, check them and if it is something sent as a gift, check those names out.  If one shows that it is just a few days old, notify the account holder, the sooner a report is made, the harder it is for the hacker to succeed.  Be careful of you account, the person who was robbed last night told me her RL bank account was drained of $300 and her dashboard showed that money was used to buy Lindens.

My request to Linden Labs is that they make a slight change to the MP listing feature that could disable the gift giving option for transferable items,  By doing that it would stop the hackers ability to send items to themselves from hacked accounts.  It would not be that much of an inconvenience to a true buyer, they could just give it to the person from inside SL and if by chance a hacked item was bought, it would go to the account holders inventory and could then be returned for refund. 

I would also suggest to Linden Labs that instead of just closing down the hackers account, that they investigate the ip address used for that account and ban all accounts from that address from  SL.  This would effectively shut down the hackers prime account and all his alts.  If he tried to sign in from a different location, he would find that everything is gone.

Thanks for this. As others have pointed out the IP solution will not work unfortunately. 

[Alma Draegonne]

19 minutes ago, sashaspooky said:

 

My request to Linden Labs is that they make a slight change to the MP listing feature that could disable the gift giving option for transferable items,  By doing that it would stop the hackers ability to send items to themselves from hacked accounts.  It would not be that much of an inconvenience to a true buyer, they could just give it to the person from inside SL and if by chance a hacked item was bought, it would go to the account holders inventory and could then be returned for refund. 

 

I believe that removing the gift option does not eliminate the problem, you can buy things and send them to the new account in the world. Items can be tracked because they have an ID, in fact I track one of the purchases, not with that method, but following account transfers, and I found the final recipient, and have sent the notification to LL. The answer is always the same "Due to the privacy policy, they are not allowed to enter the accounts to take the objects"...

Edited February 3, 2020 by Alma Draegonne

[sashaspooky]

7 minutes ago, Alma Draegonne said:

I believe that removing the gift option does not eliminate the problem, you can buy things and send them to the new account in the world. Items can be tracked because they have an ID, in fact I track one of the purchases and have sent the notification to LL. The answer is always the same "Due to the privacy policy, they are not allowed to enter the accounts to take the objects"...

True, it will not solve the problem for vendor boards inworld, but on MP where, of late, gacha stores are being hit, a no gift option would solve that problem.  In my shop Inworld I use texture boards and price boxes, there is no gift option.  You come in hit the box, pay the price and get the item.  If the item is mean as a gift, the buyer can transfer it later.

[Alma Draegonne]

13 minutes ago, sashaspooky said:

True, it will not solve the problem for vendor boards inworld, but on MP where, of late, gacha stores are being hit, a no gift option would solve that problem.  In my shop Inworld I use texture boards and price boxes, there is no gift option.  You come in hit the box, pay the price and get the item.  If the item is mean as a gift, the buyer can transfer it later.

It is the Market stores that I refer to. These hackers, steal accounts, buy things as a gift to new accounts that have just opened and then closed, after having sent the items anywhere.

Now, at least they do it that way. In the same way they can steal an account, buy things and as they are "transfer" send them to the "pirate" account they just opened, and that's it...

[Albus Rothmoor]

Allowing for the gift option to be disabled will not entirely solve the problem of course it just makes the scam harder as they will not only have to hack the account but also be logged into that account Inworld so they can send the items manually to their alts. No doubt the scammer will adapt but the more difficult it becomes for them to do this scam the more likely they are to look for another unlawful gig. That is why in an earlier post I said that allowing the gift option toggle to store owners should be the immediate step to stop the heavy bleeding and that LL will need to look into two tier verification for purchasing Linden such as an email or SMS with a verification code as has become common online. 

[Alma Draegonne]

15 minutes ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

Allowing for the gift option to be disabled will not entirely solve the problem of course it just makes the scam harder as they will not only have to hack the account but also be logged into that account Inworld so they can send the items manually to their alts. No doubt the scammer will adapt but the more difficult it becomes for them to do this scam the more likely they are to look for another unlawful gig. That is why in an earlier post I said that allowing the gift option toggle to store owners should be the immediate step to stop the heavy bleeding and that LL will need to look into two tier verification for purchasing Linden such as an email or SMS with a verification code as has become common online. 

But he can have the "pirate account" offline, send things as he buys them, and then connect to pick up. He doesn't have to be online to receive the items.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Alma Draegonne

[Albus Rothmoor]

7 minutes ago, Alma Draegonne said:

But he can have the "pirate account" offline, send things as he buys them, and then connect to pick up. He doesn't have to be online to receive the items

Correct but the scammer will have to be sure the person isn't logged on then. Plus if they do log on first and find all the stuff they might quickly change their password. The point is it makes it a little more difficult not much more but every bit helps.

[Arcadiamyst]

WOuld it be possible for LL to request a 4 digit pin code when buying Lindens or MP items, perhaps the birthday registered to the account. A memorable thing like first pet, anything that would stop these people.

I`ve now delisted all rares as well. Going through mail and trying to find names.

 

Lexi

[Alma Draegonne]

1 minute ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

Correct but the scammer will have to be sure the person isn't logged on then. Plus if they do log on first and find all the stuff they might quickly change their password. The point is it makes it a little more difficult not much more but every bit helps.

But they connect in the world to buy, I have already contacted more than one while they bought me. As they are exaggerated amounts of money, I immediately check them and see that they are sending things to new accounts. More than once they were connected because I spoke to them, one even thanked me for the items ...

[Albus Rothmoor]

14 minutes ago, Alma Draegonne said:

But they connect in the world to buy, I have already contacted more than one while they bought me. As they are exaggerated amounts of money, I immediately check them and see that they are sending things to new accounts. More than once they were connected because I spoke to them, one even thanked me for the items ...

Well if that is the case then the only solution is for some kind of verification code and even if the Lab is willing to do that there is no way they will implement it very quickly so ya MP is dead to me right now (and of course they could go sim hopping to buy gacha but that will make their scamming much more time consuming I would think so that certainly would make it less attractive for them. The MP is a quick and easy candy store that allows them to filter based on price). 

Your move Linden Labs your move...

Edited February 3, 2020 by GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor

[Alma Draegonne]

9 minutes ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

Well if that is the case then the only solution is for some kind of verification code and even if the Lab is willing to do that there is no way they will implement it very quickly so ya MP is dead to me right now. Your move Linden Labs your move.

I am removing all the items that can be goodies for these thieves, it is bad for me because the store will remain empty, but I am not willing to continue feeding them

[Albus Rothmoor]

1 minute ago, Alma Draegonne said:

I am removing all the items that can be goodies for these thieves, it is bad for me because the store will remain empty, but I am not willing to continue feeding them

Yup the more LL sees MP sales drop the more their bottom line is affected and the more incentive they have to act. They have shareholders wait until they have to explain that because they had no fail safes in place a few scammers were able to cause a large number of re-sellers to delist and that is why quarterly profits fell 5% Sansar is already a very big cash gobbler haha

[Alma Draegonne]

6 minutes ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

Yup the more LL sees MP sales drop the more their bottom line is affected and the more incentive they have to act. They have shareholders wait until they have to explain that because they had no fail safes in place a few scammers were able to cause a large number of re-sellers to delist and that is why quarterly profits fell 5% Sansar is already a very big cash gobbler haha

I hope they react, although I don't have much faith.. 

[Tristan Careless]

another 10k last night \o/ Carry on Party Peeps. The confidence in LL is growing by the hour.

Thank you, Jagix, for addressing the issue of someone attempting to find some sort of resolution when clearly LL is not. We should be thankful, at least, that someone from LL is actually interested in reading about our plight. I have been here for 15 years. I have  given a TON of money to the Lab in that time, $27,000 USD for land alone. It might just be time for me to go. I am one person and likely won't be missed on the financial statement; however, multiply me times 100 and we just might. I dunno, but I am for sure unlisting all full sets immediately. Yes, there are other items involved but the full sets are the painful losses. I don't even care about the rescinding of the $Ls spent. For me it's the not getting back my items that hurts. I paid for those myself, so where's my reimbursement? Ah yes, I don't get one. <thumbs up>

Edited February 3, 2020 by Tristan Careless

[Albus Rothmoor]

On a proactive note: There are many Gacha groups in SL however in most the sellers just post links to their MP stores or locations to their shops (and then close down the group chat window). I, like quite a few I know, do not want to run around enormous yard sales or sims with gacha stores to find specific items I want. I am inclined to create a new group where buyers can post for the specifics they are looking for and get IMs from sellers. And sellers can list off a couple of their items for sale and state IM me for a notecard with my complete offerings or the like. 

I am primarily a buyer not a major reseller like many of you however if it wasn't for you guys and your vast inventories on MP I would have to spend so much more time hunting down items i want.

If this idea resonates with you or if you have any suggestions please send me a NC or IM Inworld so we can keep this forum primarily focused on the main topic (kinda hypocritical I know but I want to find a way forward!). Please don't leave SL big resellers! You have made life so much sweeter for decorators like me.
 

Edited February 3, 2020 by GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor