Real Estate scammers

[Tina Landau]

Hi 

I rented with "X" Estate I paid almost 2 months in advance for 1/4 only to log in today and find that my stuff was gone and somebody else is living there. Everything was okay yesterday.

I spoke with a former employee and friend who then tells me that what happened was the owner of  "X" Estate  is pretending not to pay her tiers to "Y" Estates who then reclaim your land because she didn't pay and they then tell you that the only way you can keep your land is to pay for it again and then try and get the owner of "X" Estate  to refund you. Trouble is that according to a former employee with "X" Estate   "Y" Estates and  "X" Estates are the same people so it's all a scam and either way I lost 2 months tier as the owner of "X" Estates does not respond to me or anybody.

My question is is there anything I can do about it it's not just happening to me she had like 80 sims.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2019 by Tina Landau

[Lindal Kidd]

@EnCore Mayne,

Rolig's right.  Most private estate parcels rent by the week (some by the month).  You shouldn't pay more than one period at a time, to avoid problems like this.  Also, you should do some research into the estate owner before you rent any land on a private estate.  Start with the information you can find about the parcel, in the World menu of your viewer, "Parcel Details".  Who is the estate owner shown in the Covenant tab of that window?  IS IT THE SAME AS THE CURRENT LAND OWNER?  It should be.  If the parcel owner and the estate owner are different people, you may be sub-leasing from a middleman...which appears to be the case here.  You never want to do that, both because of the problems you've encountered, and also simply because you can get the best price by renting directly from the actual estate owner.  Next, check around with Google Search and talking to some other renters...how long has the estate owner been in business?  How long has she had her regions?  Estate owners who have been in business for several years are reliable and very unlikely to be running some kind of scam.

@Katya Dirval,

I cannot manage to wade through your Wall O' Text and Drama there.  The one thing that seems clear is that you're renting (what you're calling "selling") large numbers of regions to third parties so they can, in turn, sublet land to others.  This is a very poor business model, if you ask me...for reasons you are finding out for yourself.  These third parties are hurting you in your reputation and in your pocketbook.  This is one reason why many estates' Covenants have provisions against subleasing.  Divide your regions and rent parcels directly to the people who will live there.  Your life will be less complicated.

[EnCore Mayne]

unfortunately, the forums can't be used to name and shame another resident [wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Community_Participation_Guidelines >Interpersonal Disputes]. unless you remove the individual and business names i wouldn't be surprised when the Lindens remove any chance of you getting a hearing here. if i were you i'd be fit to be tied. have you filed an Abuse Report on the land holder?

[Tina Landau]

Hi Encore i was thinking that also i will replace with xxx. I wll file abuse report now  🙂

[Katya Dirval]

Hi there. Am i allowed to say who the resellers were and not get into trouble since i am the Estate who Rented the 80 sims to them? Well, I am XXX  and i am the company that rented 80 regions to a XXX who owned XXX , who dumped them on me with 2 months arrears and then brought XXXX to me saying he "sold his company to her. I let her take over all the regions on a clean slate with lower tier "14500 per region" so all those renters would not lose land or money. On the 8th of this month, i had some people come and show me how XXX was closing 25 sims or something with another reseller without letting them get their items. Those who knew i resell to that company contacted me and were worried they were doing the same with my sims. At first XXX was willing to work with me and honor all tiers and move the renters to me directly but, once i started moving people over and took EO back on all my sims, she vanished. She shut down the rental system and everything. My team and i have been since the 8th trying to help people keep their lands even through all teh abuse we are getting from the majority of the renters from XXX. I still have 22 more sims to sort through and shes already 2 days arrears on all those sims and i lose a ton of money as well in this, twice. I do apologize to all who were effected and we have tried our best to relocate people or let them take over they sims. I could not keep all parceled but, i did try to help the most i could. I am sorry you were one effected by this. XXX and XXX are very well involved in this together and have been scamming people for longer than i could of thought or known. Please stay away from them and any of they fake companies. They also have XXX and then started a new one called XXX or something. I hope LL will do something about people like this really. Kind regards, Katya

Edited May 21, 2019 by Dakota Linden
Moderator Edit: Removed identifying information.

[Gabriele Graves]

11 minutes ago, Katya Dirval said:

Hi there. Am i allowed to say who the resellers were and not get into trouble

No you cannot name and shame here.  Please read the forum rules here: Community Participation Guidelines
You should remove references to the names of people and companies involved from your post.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Gabriele Graves

[Alyona Su]

On 5/12/2019 at 2:14 AM, Tina Landau said:

Hi 

I rented with "X" Estate I paid almost 2 months in advance for 1/4 only to log in today and find that my stuff was gone and somebody else is living there. Everything was okay yesterday.

I spoke with a former employee and friend who then tells me that what happened was the owner of  "X" Estate  is pretending not to pay her tiers to "Y" Estates who then reclaim your land because she didn't pay and they then tell you that the only way you can keep your land is to pay for it again and then try and get the owner of "X" Estate  to refund you. Trouble is that according to a former employee with "X" Estate   "Y" Estates and  "X" Estates are the same people so it's all a scam and either way I lost 2 months tier as the owner of "X" Estates does not respond to me or anybody.

My question is is there anything I can do about it it's not just happening to me she had like 80 sims.

 

 

I'll just be blunt (and speaking generally, not directed at OP specifically): Paying for more than a week on an intial rental makes you the fool. Unless you've rented for a longer period before and know the owners and the neighbors and the way the place is run, why would you throw that much money and lock yourself in for that period of time into an unknown?

Live and learn; never pay more than a week's rent. If more than a week's rent is a requirement then it s bright crimson flag; don't walk, run away as fast as you can.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Katya Dirval]

When you see a rental company doing a raffle on who can pay the most tier or whoever pays 4 weeks or something like that it was? Then 25 sims with a random company go offline that they were renting, this should raise some red flags. Once in awhile i do raffles but i never require anyone to pay more tier etc to join it. I just do to show my renters i appreciate them.

As for subbletting in reply to Lindal, Most top estates subrent. There are actuallty 5 of us that are the major top real estates in second life who actually own their regions with LL. If you are a true owner you pay LL monthly, they do not take weekly payments for tier nor lindens, unless they just made this new and i was not told. Saying subrenting to a company who supplies over 700 regions to people in second life is poor business is just crazy sorry to say. All of us do it. To not would be silly. That would be like not to wholesale a product to a major company for resale.

In regards to the covenant, do not be fooled,  I can have anyone set as EO on my full sims. So, looking at teh covenat never tell someone who the actual owner of a region is.

[Lindal Kidd]

Katya, with all respect (and anyone who owns hundreds of regions will get respect from me!), I must disagree.

Anyone who rents whole regions to sublet to others isn't doing her math.  She can buy regions directly from LL and pay less for them than she can by renting them from an estate owner.  (Unless I'm missing something and LL gives people who buy large numbers of regions an unpublished discount).

Thank you for the correction on the Estate Owner information.  Sadly, this makes it more difficult to see who you are dealing with, and what middlemen stand between you and LL.  The fewer, the better.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Lindal Kidd

[Katya Dirval]

Well i do both. I have my own i rent to the public, i have my parcel sims, and i have some i rent to resellers Also, that is not always the case owning directly. There is a list of countries who pay major VAT/Taxes and can not afford it. Not to mention estates like us get deals when you own as many as some of us do. As for estate Owner, i agree i have told LL for years now, maybe find a way to show the actual owner and the Current Estate owner. If they can make a difference in the name of the region vs teh name of the estate, i am unsure why they couldnt just make it so it says Region Owner: Katya Dirval /Current Estate Owner: Jane Doe. Then people would know and would not be tricked so easily. I have seen this happen so much in second life and it makes me sick to see and know people can sleep at night knowing what they have done to others. I know personally. i would not even be able to look at myself in the mirror afterwards. Best Regards and i really hope everyone recoveres from this and was not too badly hurt in the process. I know the trust part is the most part effected with most

[Katya Dirval]

As and added note, i am now after this happening, limiting the number of regions resellers can have at once with me so the situation will not be out of hand as it was this past week with so many people getting hurt in the process. At least if i limit resellers to 20 or less, it will limit the number of people they can effect.

[Alyona Su]

3 hours ago, Katya Dirval said:

At least if i limit resellers to 20 or less, it will limit the number of people they can effect.

If even ONE person is affected, then you've failed.

[animats]

It's too bad that the Second Life Bar Association never got a usable dispute resolution service going in SL. Until last year they had their own little legal village in-world, but they gave it up. There's no reason that parties in SL couldn't contractually agree to enforceable arbitration. Can't be anonymous for this, but in some jurisdictions, including California and the European Union, operating a business anonymously while accepting online payments is illegal.

[Lindal Kidd]

1 hour ago, animats said:

... in some jurisdictions, including California and the European Union, operating a business anonymously while accepting online payments is illegal.

If so, then a whole lot of SL merchants are breaking the law.

[Katya Dirval]

I know i have to show what i make and show all kinds of proof. W Real Estate is RL registered irl in my country 'Nederlands". I do not know how people get away with not claiming it. Especially those who gets benefits on top from they lands.

18 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

If even ONE person is affected, then you've failed.

This is kinda mean to say that i would be the failure. I can not babysit every single person that rents from me. It is utterly impossible. To make sure they are not reselling or make sure they are honoring their renters tiers. I wish i could but that is not possible. All i can do is just tell people to rent directly from me if they do not want to risk losing. If there were no such thing as resellers like the top 5 of estates of us do ( resell to alot of smaller companies) , then there would be hardly any private sims out there and everyone would be stuck with laggy mainland.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Katya Dirval
Broken sentence, sorry

[Alyona Su]

1 hour ago, Katya Dirval said:

This is kinda mean to say that i would be the failure.

I never said you are or would be a failure. If I am a surgeon and 10% of of my patients die, reducing the number of patients I treat fo fewer die doesn't help, does it? That doesn't mean I'm a failure at being a surgeon, it means I've failed at solving any perceived issue. Words have meaning. Failed versus Failure are not the same. As for meanness, you inject emotion where none existed. If you feel it's mean then it's mean, regardless of any intent or lack thereof.

[Katya Dirval]

Oic what you saying there now I might have mistaken how you meant this and i appreciate that you explained. I think i have just been attacked so much over the past week and so very tired that i read into that and for that i apologize to you.

[Alyona Su]

3 hours ago, Katya Dirval said:

Oic what you saying there now I might have mistaken how you meant this and i appreciate that you explained. I think i have just been attacked so much over the past week and so very tired that i read into that and for that i apologize to you.

I can understand that too many people here are very frictional, they say things that can seem hurtful (even if they didn't really mean it that way). It is good that you are willing to compromise on the issue, I was just pointing out that even though it is a compromise some people may still get ripped-off. However, if that happens it's not your fault; it is the fault of the sub-letter.

I would hope, that if you ever discovered who is doing this (when it does happen) that you would stop doing business with them. That would be the right thing to do. But in the end, the only "bad person" would be the one actually cheating others.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Katya Dirval]

Thsi is exactly what i did with Blanxi and why most people got to keep their land. I could not keep all 80 sims parceled but i took EO back asap to prevent them from emptying which was their plan i found out. So at least a ton of people got to keep or relocate homes and not lose  prims etc on top they money already . The whole thing was sad and any one who reads this, i am so sorry this happened to you. I will do my part to make sure this does not happen again on my sims

[Tina Landau]

I am leaving this thread

Edited May 22, 2019 by Tina Landau

[Katya Dirval]

4 minutes ago, Tina Landau said:

I was with Blanxi for many years i felt safe. Sadly they sold to the wrong people 😞

I was on my land went to sleep and when i woke up the next morning i saw somebody elses house on my 1/4 th, 

No warning no nothing my stuff was just returned while i slept and I am amazed how fast they were able to rent the land to somebody else the land that i had payed 2 months in advance very nice !

 

The never sold to anyone they never owned the sims. They are resellers from larger companies. If you read the posts above and all the notices being sent from my company warning all their renters, you would know they dumped 80 sims i had rented to them back on me. First xino did this awhile ago but you renters never knew because i did not reclaim the sims. I let Chikita take them over clean slate with no arrears that xino left me with whcih was 2 months  on each sim. Instead of reclaiming them all then and kicking all of you off your land we spent a week sorting through 80 sims and moving people around. This situation stressed me out so much and some of you were so vile towards me it made me wonder why i was even bothering. I ended up having my daughter 3 weeks early over the stress i was put under from this and luckily she is 100% healthy but if i hear one more time i dont care, i stole, i cheated you all when i went through all this for you guys, it will make me second guess ever helping anyone again like my team and i did. Bottom line, before you make comments, know the facts or just simply ask me as you can claerly see i am the sim owner, and i would explain as i did to all they other renters who asked me or came to me for help. Sorry if this seems ceanky but i am still hearing this weeks later that its my fault and i cheated people when it was XIno and chikita who had this planned all along. They are not trusting people they are liars and cheats and thieves.

[Tina Landau]

I honestly don't know what to believe and it would had been nice if I had been told but sadly i wasn't. I am sad for your stress I don't wish that for anybody. I did text in world to ask what was going on but i never got a reply, I do understand you had your hands full.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Tina Landau

[Katya Dirval]

No worries Tina. It was a huge mess and i am sorry for everyone who was effected. I hope this never happens to you again.

[Tina Landau]

Me too Katya thank you so much for trying and I am happy I was able to talk to you 🙂 

Take care of you 

[Katya Dirval]

Thank you Tina, you as well xoxo

[Gerald Yifu]

Katya,

I tried contacting you a while back but I actually stepped away from SL for a little while.

I was wondering if it was you that owned the Palma Beach sim because I had land on there and I guess I still have a lot of my items stuck there and I'd love to be able to get them back.

Please let me know, THANKS!