A decorator was paid for services and took back their stuff that I paid them for.. What is the protocol for this?

[DevilGirl Enchantment]

Hi, I hired a decorator to decorate an area in my club on 9/30. Today they came and collected all the stuff I paid for they had decorated, I've never had to file any complaints besides your usual griefers. If I could get some help with this, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you 

[Rolig Loon]

You can try submitting an Abuse Report, but I predict that Linden Lab will disregard it as a Dispute Between Residents, since it does not appear to violate the TOS.

[Lindal Kidd]

There's not much you can do.  When someone puts objects on your land, those objects still belong to them, and they can move, edit, delete, or take them back at any time.  The only thing you can do with other people's objects is Return them.  If an object is Transferable, you could have your decorator sell it to you, and then you would be the object owner; but most things that are sold are No Transfer.

Next time you hire a decorator, hire them to give you ADVICE...pay them an hourly fee to take you shopping, recommend items, or create a theme for your club.  Buy the actual items yourself.

[LittleMe Jewell]

13 hours ago, DevilGirl Enchantment said:

If I could get some help with this, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you 

The forums are simply a Resident to Resident discussion and advice site.  You have to use the Support ticket system to talk to LL, but as Rolig said, they don't get involved in disputes between residents.  Transactions between Residents are pretty much a 'buyer beware' situation.  Thus, as Lindal said, when dealing with decorators/landscapers, you should do the actual purchasing of items they recommend for use, so that they truly do belong to you and can't be taken back.

[Markham Weatherwax]

14 hours ago, DevilGirl Enchantment said:

Hi, I hired a decorator to decorate an area in my club on 9/30. Today they came and collected all the stuff I paid for they had decorated, I've never had to file any complaints besides your usual griefers. If I could get some help with this, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you 

You have no recourse. None. LL will not do anything, not even send a note to the person suggesting that they return the objects or give you a refund of the money you paid. 

I have been in similar situations several times, but on a much larger scale. You hire managers or staff and they come in and put down objects that they own, and then later they decide to quit and take their objects with them.  Or, you hire outside landscapers/designers to do specific work using objects they own, they accept the contract and agree to the payment, give you their object rights, and can leave their objects on your property for months or years. They can come back later, sometimes years later, and suddenly demand more money. If you don't pay, they take everything.

The simple fact is, unless you own the object, it is not yours. Many designers/landscapers come in, put down objects that they bought, and you are paying for that design service, but they are not selling you the object(s)/product. They can't, because unless the object is transferable they cannot sell it to you. They can loan it to you, or even rent to you, but they cannot sell it fully to you.  If the object IS transferable then they will transfer ownership to you. If they don't give it to you, it is probably because they can't. 

Here is another issue I have with designers who use non-transferable objects that they purchased from stores and then give you their object rights: They landscape, decorate, and furnish and so on, give you their object rights so you can move things around if you need to over the months and years, and all is good. Right? Wrong. Because most these design people who give you their object rights also give their objects to every customer they have done work for. That means that possibly some previous customer of that designer can come to your place and mess things up, move things around, or return objects, because they have that person's objects rights too.

And, really, if you are relying on their objects rights you are at risk if they suddenly decide to leave SL and cancel those object rights, or their account gets deleted, or they go MIA from SL and their account settings become corrupted. If you can't get ahold of them anymore and move to different sim on the grid, you can't pick those objects up and take them with you. It is really a risk if you don't own everything yourself.

What you have to do is buy the products/objects yourself and have the designer or staff place them. You own it, it is yours, you can give them your object rights temporarily and they can design/furnish/landscape, move, and modify. If a designer/landscaper is also the creator of what they are putting down, they can transfer everything they want to use first to you, then you rez it, and they do the rest.

A true professional sim designer, landscaper, or interior decorator, will either be the creator of everything they use so that they can transfer all to you, or they will give you a list of everything YOU need to go purchase so that you are the owner of every object. If you are not the owner, you will always be at the object owners mercy. 

 

 

 

[julieare]

 

Oks to start i am sorry to hear you had a bad experience with the designer, its never nice to have a bad experience, and though Lindern labs might not be able to help you, you can do something positive, and that is learn from those mistakes ,  and tell other people like you are here. 

Unfortunately  there is no trading standers as such in SL, so if you pay 1000L$ for an item that boxed  and you find a empty box from a store , only thing you can do is report them to linden or/& complain to the person who you paid. If you are lucky you will get a reply, but so often you will get no reply at all.  

As a Landscaper myself - providing a service in SL. I would like to take this opportunity to explain my role, what I do and set some point straight that have been answered above and give some advice, ofc I cant speak for all landscapers & designers in SL, only my self.   

On 10/16/2020 at 8:02 PM, Markham Weatherwax said:

you hire outside landscapers/designers to do specific work using objects they own, they accept the contract and agree to the payment

• You hire a Landscaper/designer, yes this is what you did, but I would recommend that you look at there last work, and ask if they have any references , maybe speak with the last person they did work for if possible. most professional people artist, designers RL/SL will be happy to share a portfolio with you of there last work and any references they may have.   If you where getting a new Kitchen in RL wouldn't you ask around 1st, maybe get some quotes from a couple of company s etc? 
• Yes we do tend to use our own objects, but this is normally why we are hired as the customer doesn't have the time, inventory or know how to do what we do, so this is why we provide this service. there are also a few reason why we use our own objects to start with, as we cant copy your items, so if we are designing a path or road around your sim, it is very time consuming to ask the customer to rez each part of the road that we need . Tho this might be possible to use the customers objects on a small scale, we often use our own to start as we are able to quick, edit, shape, copy , delete and texture our own objects to fit the design quickly when building/laying out the main design. now on this point as a designer i have also had customers wishing to replace our objects with there own, and this can be possible, and if the customer states they wish to do that, i will be careful not over edit the design/build or once the basic design for the road /path is played out, i be happy to go along and note card the names of those parts used, so the customer can change them out in there own time. 
• Contact & payment details - I do have a policy, this is to protect you as much as myself, the policy lays out what is involed, the process of the work/project and best practices for the customer & myself.  And we do advice the customer to read the policy and accept it before any payment is made. I believe i am very fair, personalty i dont do landscaping to make money in SL i do it cause i enjoy helping people, designing & landscaping in SL.  

I know someones going to ask, why i dont do it for free then, well my answer is , In order to be able to do what I love, it costs me, weather that paying the internet bill or buying the items required for the landscaping & design. So this is why i charge a going rate for my services and the hours I do. Its nothing like a RL hourly wage and its not going to by any way make me rich, there are people that charge 3x more then i do, and there are properly some one that charges less. I also belong to a union of sorts - its a group called Landscapers & Decorators Elite - it is set up to provent the cowboy builders, rotten traders , scammers in the landscape/decorate world. Being a member i have to follow as et of policy rules, and offer a fare rate for the service i provide. It works both ways, as if another member comes across a none paying customer , they can be reported in the community and if a customer has a bad e with a landscaper/designer , we get a black mark against our name, or you will see a bad review on there profile etc  

On 10/16/2020 at 8:02 PM, Markham Weatherwax said:

Here is another issue I have with designers who use non-transferable objects that they purchased from stores and then give you their object rights: They landscape, decorate, and furnish and so on, give you their object rights so you can move things around if you need to over the months and years, and all is good. Right? Wrong. Because most these design people who give you their object rights also give their objects to every customer they have done work for. That means that possibly some previous customer of that designer can come to your place and mess things up, move things around, or return objects, because they have that person's objects rights too.

 

• i would say 80% of the items I use are non transferable objects that i purchased from the stores , you can buy transferable items, but these are normally non copy items . sometimes theses items are objects i have picked you for the customer and some times these are items that i have used before (had in my inventory).  As it states in my policy, i only give edit rights for 10 days at a time, after i have complete the project/work and i also state that you are welcome to request an extension to theses rights on request.  most people find 10 days is plenty, and ive never had any complaints of people abusing my rights. If you are in fear of people come in and moving items around, then there are a few suggestions , A) make the land/parcel group access only. b) have a security orb in use. - But if you find someone is moving your things around, then contact the landscaper/designer and im sure they will do there best to work with you. It would be important & pretty easy for me personalty message my customers and make them aware that someone with my rights is moving other customers items around, i think that is something very serious. 

  On 10/16/2020 at 8:02 PM, Markham Weatherwax said:

  relying on their objects rights you are at risk if they suddenly decide to leave SL and cancel those object rights, or their account gets deleted, or they go MIA from SL and their account settings become corrupted. If you can't get ahold of them anymore and move to different sim on the grid, you can't pick those objects up and take them with you. It is really a risk if you don't own everything yourself.

• This is always a risk, but normally once the project has been complete and the customer and landscaper have gone there seprate ways, there is not much need for them to be in contact with one another, ofc its always nice when customer do stay in contact, but i dont accpect it. once the work is complete and the customer has had my rights for 10days, then can always ask for my rights again if they wan to move things around, but if they deside to move or what a different design, they can either return my items - and auto return or one by one. Book be again or create there own.   if.. and its a big if, my account gets deleted for what ever reason, the same would apply once the build is completed - what you do is up to you.   

 

 

 

 

[julieare]

On 10/16/2020 at 8:02 PM, Markham Weatherwax said:

A true professional sim designer, landscaper, or interior decorator, will either be the creator of everything they use so that they can transfer all to you, or they will give you a list of everything YOU need to go purchase so that you are the owner of every object. If you are not the owner, you will always be at the object owners mercy. 

There are not many creaters of mesh items that create everything them selfs and then will build your garden for you, for a price most people can afford.  To create mesh costs RL Time and money. 

Most mesh creaters wont have the time to do this for you.  

[Jennifer Boyle]

I wonder if anyone has ever filed a lawsuit in RL court against the owner of an account to recover losses due to fraud in SL.

I realize that most disputes don't involve amounts for which that would be practical. Surely, sometime it must have involved residents of the same state, so that a suit could be filed in small-claims court, which might be practical for large amounts.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Jennifer Boyle

[AdminGirl]

On 10/16/2020 at 12:49 PM, DevilGirl Enchantment said:

Hi, I hired a decorator to decorate an area in my club on 9/30. Today they came and collected all the stuff I paid for they had decorated, I've never had to file any complaints besides your usual griefers. If I could get some help with this, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you 

Did you try to contact them to find out why they did this? I wonder what the agreement was.

[DevilGirl Enchantment]

She was recommended by someone I thought was a friend. I did contact the decorator I had hired to decorate one room in my club. She was upset over how little I paid her but had never given me her price up front. I believe how she conducted business was bad. Needless to say I will never be using her services again. Everyone that replied to this thread gave exceptional advice. I will definitely need to locate that group, Julieare. I'm hoping to locate some options for future decorating. This was my first run in with this problem. Usually I do everything on my own but not knowing where to start or look can get overwhelming at times. Hopefully, I won't run into this problem again. I hope everyone has a happy, healthy & safe holiday season. 

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, DevilGirl Enchantment said:

She was recommended by someone I thought was a friend. I did contact the decorator I had hired to decorate one room in my club. She was upset over how little I paid her but had never given me her price up front. I believe how she conducted business was bad. Needless to say I will never be using her services again. Everyone that replied to this thread gave exceptional advice. I will definitely need to locate that group, Julieare. I'm hoping to locate some options for future decorating. This was my first run in with this problem. Usually I do everything on my own but not knowing where to start or look can get overwhelming at times. Hopefully, I won't run into this problem again. I hope everyone has a happy, healthy & safe holiday season. 

I'd say next time, regardless of who you hire, agree to the price first, have them give you a detailed list of what they plan to use and then you purchase the items.  Rez out what they need as they need it and give them temporary edit permissions.  They decorate, you approve, you pay what was agreed for their time,  take back edit permissions and done.