"Linden Dollar assessment"?

[Patch Linden]

Hi everyone!   I wanted to give you an update on what we’re working on.  

The assessment process is not one that is typically handled by the Governance or Support teams for Second Life, however, we are here to help with it.   As we continue to review the processes and policies that are currently in place with the team handling it, we have come up with an interim solution of putting a direct review process in place for anyone that has an assessment made to an account within our teams.  

If you’ve had an assessment levied against your account and would like to have our team further review it, please file a support ticket using Issue Type: Marketplace > General Marketplace Issues.

Rest assured that we are working on a way to make this process as painless, efficient and non-penalizing as possible going forward.  We appreciate your patience as we work towards that together with all of you.
 

[Tanja Byron]

Thank you so much Kristin Linden and Patch Linden, just some minutes ago my ticket was processed and the L $ was credited back to my account :-)))))))

@ StephanieBell:   Also a big hug for you 🙂

Edited February 4, 2020 by Tanja Byron

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

2 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

Hi everyone!   I wanted to give you an update on what we’re working on.  

The assessment process is not one that is typically handled by the Governance or Support teams for Second Life, however, we are here to help with it.   As we continue to review the processes and policies that are currently in place with the team handling it, we have come up with an interim solution of putting a direct review process in place for anyone that has an assessment made to an account within our teams.  

If you’ve had an assessment levied against your account and would like to have our team further review it, please file a support ticket using Issue Type: Marketplace > General Marketplace Issues.

Rest assured that we are working on a way to make this process as painless, efficient and non-penalizing as possible going forward.  We appreciate your patience as we work towards that together with all of you.
 

does “Non-penalizing as possible going forward” mean you will NOT impose reverse charges on us due to fraud??

If so, we can start re-listing ..

If not, de-listing is the only remedy for now.

[LuluFrue]

This too happened to me. I recently sold a gatcha full rare set for L3600. Lindens took the commission from marketplace and paid the lindens; I log off and return to negative linden balance.
I have raised a ticket about this, I received no explanation and it is hard for me to top it back up with the exchange rate as I live in NZ. They said I should have received an email but I never did and I haven't heard anything about my ticket either

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

15 minutes ago, LuluFrue said:

This too happened to me. I recently sold a gatcha full rare set for L3600. Lindens took the commission from marketplace and paid the lindens; I log off and return to negative linden balance.
I have raised a ticket about this, I received no explanation and it is hard for me to top it back up with the exchange rate as I live in NZ. They said I should have received an email but I never did and I haven't heard anything about my ticket either

submit another ticket using the info from the above post! please repost when you get a response!

[Tanja Byron]

@ LuluFrue   Your Account, Help, Support history, there you can see your tickets and how the Status is

[So Whimsy]

What a mess! I am surprised my alt that I use to resell Gacha items hasn't been hit with anything yet. Keeping my fingers crossed that it'll stay that way and that all of you guys get this cleared up in your favor.

[Dessi Tyran]

I had have mine returned to me as well;

Your case has been escalated to me for further review. I am sorry to hear about issues you’ve encountered regarding some recent Linden Dollar assessments from your account.

After conducting a secondary review, we have reversed the assessments totaling L$????? from your account between the dates of 12/21/2019 - 2/2/2020. This should now be reflected in your Linden Dollar balance.

We apologize for any frustration and inconvenience this may have caused, and are working on improving this process to reduce the negative impact on our Residents.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or need further assistance.

Sincerely,
Kristin Linden

Thank you to all the Lindens involved in this reversal. I am deeply appreciative. Even though, we have raised our voices this time. This still remains a consistent; serious flawed policy. I will be more diligent in paying attention to this forum and what is happening within not only the gacha community but its entirety. We all take time away from our families for either fun, business or otherwise and everyone deserves to be treated fairly; especially when it comes to compensation against fraudulent MP purchases. I am thrilled to see others receiving reversed assessments. 

For now, we are being appeased with reversals please do not give up on policy reviews / changes. As previously stated in submitting my state driver's license and social card to Linden Labs for verification. I would also support 2FA for additional protection against thief.

I also feel we need to have a new flag that alerts Lindens to copybotted content. As it is now, there is no real good choice for reporting what we find in terms of copybotting. Fraudulent MP purchases are hurtful to all of us but so is copybotting. Anytime we have a BIG gacha event I see them more than I do fraudulent MP purchases. As someone else said, it ruins the market. The market is our bread and butter and without the market Linden Labs takes a huge pay cut.

 

 

[Albus Rothmoor]

1 hour ago, Dessi Tyran said:

I had have mine returned to me as well;

Your case has been escalated to me for further review. I am sorry to hear about issues you’ve encountered regarding some recent Linden Dollar assessments from your account.

After conducting a secondary review, we have reversed the assessments totaling L$????? from your account between the dates of 12/21/2019 - 2/2/2020. This should now be reflected in your Linden Dollar balance.

We apologize for any frustration and inconvenience this may have caused, and are working on improving this process to reduce the negative impact on our Residents.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or need further assistance.

Sincerely,
Kristin Linden

Thank you to all the Lindens involved in this reversal. I am deeply appreciative. Even though, we have raised our voices this time. This still remains a consistent; serious flawed policy. I will be more diligent in paying attention to this forum and what is happening within not only the gacha community but its entirety. We all take time away from our families for either fun, business or otherwise and everyone deserves to be treated fairly; especially when it comes to compensation against fraudulent MP purchases. I am thrilled to see others receiving reversed assessments. 

For now, we are being appeased with reversals please do not give up on policy reviews / changes. As previously stated in submitting my state driver's license and social card to Linden Labs for verification. I would also support 2FA for additional protection against thief.

I also feel we need to have a new flag that alerts Lindens to copybotted content. As it is now, there is no real good choice for reporting what we find in terms of copybotting. Fraudulent MP purchases are hurtful to all of us but so is copybotting. Anytime we have a BIG gacha event I see them more than I do fraudulent MP purchases. As someone else said, it ruins the market. The market is our bread and butter and without the market Linden Labs takes a huge pay cut.

 

 

@Dessi Tyran I am a tad ignorant what exactly is the modern copybot scam ie are people copy botting gacha and selling them at very low prices on the MP? How easy is it for them to create a flawless copy these days? (I assume if people kept finding defects and contacted the person they thought was the original designer the scammer would be exposed quite quickly and presumably this is a long term gig).

Edited February 4, 2020 by GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor

[sashaspooky]

I must admit, I am confused.  I see people are saying their tickets have been looked at and the accounts reassessed and money returned.  Are the people getting their money back owners of hacked accounts used to buy things on MP or owners of the stores that have had item bought? 

[Albus Rothmoor]

1 minute ago, sashaspooky said:

I must admit, I am confused.  I see people are saying their tickets have been looked at and the accounts reassessed and money returned.  Are the people getting their money back owners of hacked accounts used to buy things on MP or owners of the stores that have had item bought? 

The people who had their accounts hacked were getting their money back in the initial adjustment the problem was that the resellers lost the money and were never returned their gacha. Now LL has decided to refund the sellers too.

[Alma Draegonne]

 

Hello Alma Draegonne,

 

Thank you for contacting the Account Security team. We understand your concern regarding your recent Linden Dollar assessment.

 

I do understand your frustration. However since the items were purchased with Lindens that  were obtained through unauthorized and fraudulent activity within Second Life. Pursuant to Section 3.1(ii) of the Second Life Terms of Service, the Linden Dollars received by your account are now void and must be removed. Accordingly, we have assessed the Linden Dollars against your account, and you should see this reflected in your Linden Dollar balance.

 

We understand the fraudulent Linden Dollars were used to purchase item(s) from your store. As stated in our Privacy Policy, we are unable to discuss another person’s account. While we cannot return the items to you, we can assure you every measure has been taken to secure the accounts and reduce the impact of this fraudulent transaction.

 

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding in this matter.

 

Best Regards,

 

 

Account Security

Linden Lab

Sincerely,
Second Life Support Team

This is the answer I just received, and they don't give me anything back ...

Edited February 5, 2020 by Alma Draegonne

[sashaspooky]

13 minutes ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

The people who had their accounts hacked were getting their money back in the initial adjustment the problem was that the resellers lost the money and were never returned their gacha. Now LL has decided to refund the sellers too.

Thank you for replying.  I have been hit hard over the past few days, do I now have to submit tickets for the past two items or resubmit for all 4.  I did not bother with the last two since all I got was the "TOS" standard reply for the first ones

 

[Dessi Tyran]

4 minutes ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

@Dessi Tyran I am a tad ignorant what exactly is the modern copybot scam ie are people copy botting gacha and selling them at very low prices on the MP? How easy is it for them to create a flawless copy these days? (I assume if people kept finding defects and contacted the person they thought was the original designer the scammer would be exposed quite quickly and presumably this is a long term gig).

I will give you an example. For the December round of Arcade, a popular hair designer (left out for discretion) had a gacha. A well known copybotter copied the rare(s). I purchased one myself to check its authenticity. Myself and others knew for a fact this person had to be doing it. I played that gacha "a lot" and I never got as many as ten rares to be listed all at once. A few of us kept an eye on this person and those particular listings. As soon as it got low enough the quantity went back up to ten. I, personally contacted the creator of the gacha. He and I went through the rare gacha I bought from said person. He had no record of them playing his gacha. And yet, this person had a multitude of his Arcade gacha.

From what I have been told, you cannot copy scripts, its impossible. The creator and I checked the rare I bought from this person from top to bottom and his name was the creator on all of it. How is that possible when the creator had no record of their playing? Yes, gachas are transferable. It sure is shady and appears unrealistic that they received the hair legitimately.

Lately, when you see MP stores popping up with nothing but cheap rares and that is ALL they have. It has been my experience so far, they are copied and an illegal sale. I have checked on this store periodically and as of yesterday it was still active; today its gone. It took Linden Labs months to finally remove this store from the MP.

Copybotting is a virtual epidemic, period. I wanted it bring some attention to it as much as we have with fraudulent MP purchases. It is getting ridiculously worse as the years go by. I feel we need a quicker system in place to not only report them but also taking them down and legally penalizing these thieves. They are obviously smart enough to get around IP bans and start anew.

I am grateful Linden Labs has finally removed the fraudulent MP store but it took months to do it. I think about all the sales; we as legitimate reseller have lost due to these copybotting thieves. I hoped this helped, if not; please feel free to contact me and we can discuss it further.

[Tristan Careless]

@GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor - Yes, that is pretty much spot on how copybotting works. They get it, they use a program  to copy it exactly as it is, then they have an endless supply and can sell very low. It's an age-old scam. This is simply round Three for those of us who have been around for YEARS. That said, @Dessi Tyran - Copy Botting is not something you can FLAG for. You have no proof. You only have a suspicion. Raising this suspicion to LL through submission of a ticket is one possibility, to have them look into that individual; but who's to stop people from false accusations just to 'get rid' of competition? 

I, too, have received my monies back:

------------------------- Hello Tristan Careless,

Thank you for contacting us. Your case has been escalated to me for further review. I am sorry to hear about issues you’ve encountered regarding some recent Linden Dollar assessments from your account.

After conducting a secondary review, we have reversed the assessments totaling L$34698 from your account between the dates of 1/29/2020 - 2/3/2020. This should now be reflected in your Linden Dollar balance.

We apologize for any frustration and inconvenience this may have caused, and are working on improving this process to reduce the negative impact on our Residents.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or need further assistance.

Sincerely,  ------------------------

Thank you LL for this. Truly. HOWEVER, is this a one-time thing? Dare I relist the millions of $Ls I unlisted and put myself at risk again? Are you implementing some of the tools suggested here? It's a shame it had to come to the measures taken to have it escalated and looked at. It's a shame that it took affecting YOUR [The Lab] bottom line to get the attention needed for ours. This does not restore my faith. The 'sorry for your luck' initial responses we all received do NOT restore faith. That said, it IS a step in the right direction and greatly appreciated. My hope is to see more safeguards in place. I am still a believer in the toggling of 'gift' eligibility. I understand it does not fix the problem, but it most definitely would help it. I cannot make the meeting today;  but please, if someone can will you please post what you learn here? I am holding off relisting until then. Thank you!

Edited February 4, 2020 by Tristan Careless

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

6 minutes ago, Tristan Careless said:

@GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor - Yes, that is pretty much spot on how copybotting works. They get it, they use a program  to copy it exactly as it is, then they have an endless supply and can sell very low. It's an age-old scam. This is simply round Three for those of us who have been around for YEARS. That said, @Dessi Tyran - Copy Botting is not something you can FLAG for. You have no proof. You only have a suspicion. Raising this suspicion to LL through submission of a ticket is one possibility, to have them look into that individual; but who's to stop people from false accusations just to 'get rid' of competition? 

I, too, have received my monies back:

------------------------- Hello Tristan Careless,

Thank you for contacting us. Your case has been escalated to me for further review. I am sorry to hear about issues you’ve encountered regarding some recent Linden Dollar assessments from your account.

After conducting a secondary review, we have reversed the assessments totaling L$34698 from your account between the dates of 1/29/2020 - 2/3/2020. This should now be reflected in your Linden Dollar balance.

We apologize for any frustration and inconvenience this may have caused, and are working on improving this process to reduce the negative impact on our Residents.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or need further assistance.

Sincerely,  ------------------------

Thank you LL for this. Truly. HOWEVER, is this a one-time thing? Dare I relist the millions of $Ls I unlisted and put myself at risk again? Are you implementing some of the tools suggested here? It's a shame it had to come to the measures taken to have it escalated and looked at. It's a shame that it took affecting YOUR [The Lab] bottom line to get the attention needed for ours. This does not restore my faith. The 'sorry for your luck' initial responses we all received do NOT restore faith. That said, it IS a step in the right direction and greatly appreciated. My hope is to see more safeguards in place. I am still a believer in the toggling of 'gift' eligibility. I understand it does not fix the problem, but it most definitely would help it. I cannot make the meeting today;  but please, if someone can will you please post what you learn here? I am holding off relisting until then. Thank you!

I knew you would be refunded!!! Who else is left now? 

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

35 minutes ago, Alma Draegonne said:

BradleyH Scout –

Hello Alma Draegonne,

 

Thank you for contacting the Account Security team. We understand your concern regarding your recent Linden Dollar assessment.

 

I do understand your frustration. However since the items were purchased with Lindens that  were obtained through unauthorized and fraudulent activity within Second Life. Pursuant to Section 3.1(ii) of the Second Life Terms of Service, the Linden Dollars received by your account are now void and must be removed. Accordingly, we have assessed the Linden Dollars against your account, and you should see this reflected in your Linden Dollar balance.

 

We understand the fraudulent Linden Dollars were used to purchase item(s) from your store. As stated in our Privacy Policy, we are unable to discuss another person’s account. While we cannot return the items to you, we can assure you every measure has been taken to secure the accounts and reduce the impact of this fraudulent transaction.

 

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding in this matter.

 

Best Regards,

 

BradleyH Scout

Account Security

Linden Lab

Sincerely,
Second Life Support Team

This is the answer I just received, and they don't give me anything back ...

file another ticket! read patch lindens post in this forum

[Alma Draegonne]

5 minutes ago, MarquisdeSadeJustine said:

file another ticket! read patch lindens post in this forum

I have already done it, I have 3 tickets in 2 days... I keep insisting

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

14 minutes ago, Alma Draegonne said:

I have already done it, I have 3 tickets in 2 days... I keep insisting

are you putting the correct words in? see patch lindens post he tells you how to address the ticket

[Alice Aurelia]

I created a new ticket yesterday and today I was returned Linden Dollars, I'm happy for everyone who also received a refund, it's good that this topic was raised and LL realized that the theft has already acquired a large scale, and the problems were received a lot of resellers. I hope that a solution will be found to protect us from theft in the future.

Many thanks to Kristin for her attention to the problem and quick help!

[MarquisdeSadeJustine]

53 minutes ago, sashaspooky said:

Thank you for replying.  I have been hit hard over the past few days, do I now have to submit tickets for the past two items or resubmit for all 4.  I did not bother with the last two since all I got was the "TOS" standard reply for the first ones

 

read patch lindens post here , he tells you how to address the ticket.

[Dessi Tyran]

Wed User Meeting is the 1st Wednesday of the month @ 200pm SLT / Location - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Denby/73/78/25 - For anyone wanting to attend. The Web group is held in bot voice and text. Thanks to @InaraPey for the information.

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Dessi Tyran

[Tristan Careless]

Just attended the meeting with Kristin Linden. While she did not have a lot of information regarding future safeguards and/or tools (including 2FA), it was encouraging to hear her expressing her understanding of my frustration and to please reach out again if we find ourselves in the same situation. 2FA and MP toggles and so forth are handled by a different team and not in her wheel house. It does take a while to sort through all the assessments as this was a massive incident. I would be as patient as possible as I am now assured those who were wrongly assessed, will receive their monies back. I know that's easier said than done and coming from someone who has been reimbursed; however, do try. Also, stay in contact with them. As far as relisting? I guess that one is up to the individual and their own risk taking boundaries. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread and getting the attention we deserved. Good luck to those who have yet to refunded. I actually DO have faith you will. Interesting how an actual conversation with someone versus 'autoresponsive' or blanket emails can change one's opinion. Proof yet that robots will not take over the world hahahahahaaa

[Alma Draegonne]

31 minutes ago, MarquisdeSadeJustine said:

are you putting the correct words in? see patch lindens post he tells you how to address the ticket

I hope so, they seemed to understand me lol

Seriously, I sent tickets to several departments, I wasn't sure who to turn to, so I tried several, the first one went to the marketplace but they didn't answer me, then I tried others, now I insist on the: Marketplace > General Marketplace Issues., I'll tell you that they respond

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 hours ago, GrandDukeDylan Rothmoor said:

I am a tad ignorant what exactly is the modern copybot scam ie are people copy botting gacha and selling them at very low prices on the MP? How easy is it for them to create a flawless copy these days? (I assume if people kept finding defects and contacted the person they thought was the original designer the scammer would be exposed quite quickly and presumably this is a long term gig).

Like Dessi explained, scripts cannot be copied. It's simply impossible because the "code" is never communicated to the viewer. They only exist on LL's servers, we can only observe their effect on the world. The same goes for all object contents. An otherwise "flawless" copy is as easy as it has ever been. It's easy because the viewer has all the information about the visual appearance of the object, including rigging data. If the viewer didn't have that, it couldn't display it. You can't copy an object from inside of another object because the viewer has no knowledge of what the object is, other than the fact that it's an object with a name.

Similarly, it's theoretically impossible to create new objects with someone else as the creator, because object creation is handled completely by LL's servers. The only way to get around that would be if LL's servers trusted any of the data it was receiving from a viewer requesting to create a new object, which could "trick" LL's server into thinking the object was actually created by someone else. That's highly unlikely. A simple way to "hide" the fake creator is to get a transferable object from the real creator (such as a prim) and make that the root of the copied linkset. That way they can mask the name if you only select the whole object, but if you select any other link in the linkset or right-click>inspect, you'll see the actual (fake) creator.

Considering the amount of people just in this thread reporting that they've lost rare gachas, I don't think there's any real reason to think there's anything being copied. If the fraud is as wide-spread as it seems from this little thread, it's not hard to imagine there being a large supply of rares just waiting to be sold later.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator