Do I have any rights to report a seller to linden labs?

[Dakota Noelle]

Back in November I made a purchase with a popular well known Hair seller.

I received the wrong hair, so i checked the vendor link in the store and the wrong hair is actually loaded into their vendor.

I sent them a notecard, (which is stated to do in their profile) and 2 weeks later still had no response. I put everything required in the notecard, the date the pack i was purchasing and the transaction number.

I sent a 2nd notecard again with all the information, stating this was the 2nd notecard I have sent them. I also checked the group to see that the owner had not in fact been online during that time, so didn't worry over it too much.

Since then, the owner has been online, has not responded to either of my notecards, I have sent a 3rd request, I have gone back to the store even and checked the vendor and still the wrong hair is loaded into the vendor, I feel I have been very patient thus far, but feel I should have had some response or at least been sent the correct package. Do I have any rights to pursue this with Linden Labs?

[Lucia Nightfire]

It's a resident to resident dispute.

I doubt Governance would intervene as fraud isn't easily apparent and the lack of response could be for other reasons.

I've had the exact same thing happen with a hair seller and the same lack of response.

"well known" could also be debatable with many hair brands.

Presence or inventory is one thing. Sales and a returning customer base is another.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Lucia Nightfire

[Rolig Loon]

You can always submit an AR, of course, but chances are very high that LL will decline to intervene.  The LL TOS (Sect 1.4) says "Your interactions with other users and your use of User Content are entirely at your own risk. Linden Lab has no obligation to become involved in any dispute that you may have or claim to have with one or more users of the Service, or in any manner in any resolution thereof."  Your transactions with another resident are between the two of you.

[Claireschen Hesten]

If this hair seller has a group with group chat enabled you could try reaching out there. The most popular stores have people that deal with their customer service often via the group chat

[Charlotte Bartlett]

Also you could find out if they have social media eg Facebook and public post / tag / Dm.  Tends to get the attention of creators if they, for some reason, are not seeing notecards etc. 

[Coffee Pancake]

The best you can do is poke the creators account every now and then in IM and with a notecard, don't get impatient or angry, they really might just not log in very often, and everyone messes up from time to time. I'm confident that the seller will fix this.

There isn't really a clear resolution in contacting LL, they can't access the creators account, won't refund you, can't fetch you the correct hair, fix the vendor, or coax the user to come on line. The best they can do is give the same advice you have received here and say "we're sorry that happened".

Plan B might be the better option .. the hair you got and didn't want, find a use for it, build a whole new avatar around it if that's what it takes. Happy accidents.

[Lucia Nightfire]

26 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Happy accidents.

[Paulsian]

If I purchased something from a vendor and received something totally different I would first reach out to the seller. If that did not work, I would submit a ticket by going to: help at top of screen and support portal / contact support / submit ticket. If you're a premium resident try chatting with live support during business hours. I'm sorry that happened to you, seems very rare. I'm kind of suprised the seller did not resolve the issue in their vending system.

I would also send support screen shots of the vending system conflictions and maybe they will at least return the vendor to the seller and let them know there's complaint. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Paulsian
correction

[Paul Hexem]

Unfortunately, that's one of the "features" of Second Life. I can put a vendor out that says anything I want, have it deliver a wooden cube to you, and there's no recourse or refunds.

Better yet, if you bought the L$ with a credit card or used a credit card on the MP and disputed the obviously bad charge, LL will punish you, not the seller.

It's amazing SL stays in operation at all, really. 

[Innula Zenovka]

3 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

It's amazing SL stays in operation at all, really. 

Has your amazement at this caused you to reconsider your assumptions about how and why companies stay in business?     

I mean, if the theory predicts that something should happen and it doesn't, then that generally indicates there's something wrong with the theory (unless you're an economic forecaster, of course).

[Qie Niangao]

The problem with the theory may be that it's about a different business. Only indirectly does SL's success depend on the uniform reliability of third party product delivery in the platform, so judging its viability on that basis is like evaluating Twitter's stock price by the average literary merit of trending tweets.

That said, removing obviously defective vendors seems something a grown-up platform might do, inasmuch as it has effectively licensed all those vendors in the ToS, even if it hasn't assumed liability for them.

[Jackson Redstar]

while frustrating, in context though, what is this? 2 dollars USD?

[Teagan Tobias]

 

Unfortunately two dollars of what some have to spend in SL is a lot of money. Some will laugh at that, but that does not change the fact that some have a very limited funds to spend here, very limited.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

It is also the principle of it, aside from what some might consider the low cost. The seller has been contacted several times and has had ample opportunity to resolve the matter and yet fails to do so. There could be the potential that a redelivery may net the proper item and that the customer was not contacted about the update but if not then at the very least I would be warning through the reviews, other prospective customers of that particular product, the problem with it, both on the demo if there is one and the full product, letting others know they will not get the product advertised and that contact with the seller has failed for getting the proper one.

[Paul Hexem]

6 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Has your amazement at this caused you to reconsider your assumptions about how and why companies stay in business? 

No.

5 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

The problem with the theory may be that it's about a different business. Only indirectly does SL's success depend on the uniform reliability of third party product delivery in the platform, so judging its viability on that basis is like evaluating Twitter's stock price by the average literary merit of trending tweets.

Actually it has more to do with the fact that other businesses won't work with them (some literally mention SL as banned on their ToS) and that normally financial institutions will blacklist domains and sites that are known for fraud.

LL has been fairly lucky to not wind up on said blacklists.

[Rolig Loon]

 It can be dangerous to speculate about things when we only know what's in a few forum posts. There may be legitimate claims and counter-claims, but it's best to let the OP and the merchant work them out instead of guessing and creating drama where there might not be much to shout about.

[Colt Leeder]

We are talking about a single purchase of hair here so a few hundred L$ tops. You have raised the issue - the merchant appears to have not responded. 
 

I’d say - let it go. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

13 hours ago, Paulsian said:

I would submit a ticket by going to: help at top of screen and support portal / contact support / submit ticket. If you're a premium resident try chatting with live support during business hours.

..

I would also send support screen shots of the vending system conflictions and maybe they will at least return the vendor to the seller and let them know there's complaint. 

Both, a Support ticket and Live Chat would be wasted time.  LL will not intervene unless there is obvious fraud.  The wrong item being delivered is seller mistake -- and the person did get something for their money, even if not what they wanted.  That is not fraud.

Screen shots of the vendor won't help either and LL will not bother returning it.  

Basically -- LL will not get involved in this.

Edited December 13, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Qie Niangao]

27 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Actually it has more to do with the fact that other businesses won't work with them (some literally mention SL as banned on their ToS) and that normally financial institutions will blacklist domains and sites that are known for fraud.

LL has been fairly lucky to not wind up on said blacklists.

Now I'm intrigued. Businesses are refusing to complete transactions with LL? Is it possible to see what grounds they cite for that refusal? Is it really about conditions similar to the OP's situation here?

Because as I understand it, the Lab does take action against resident-to-resident fraud if the infractions are egregious enough. If that's not true, even for cases that would qualify real life legal action, then yeah, that would be a real problem. (But also if that's not true, there's a whole Abuse Report category for Fraud that must route to bitbucket even more directly than the others.)

That's not to minimize the OP's problem here, and I think it may well be good business for LL to be somewhat more responsive about third party products sold on the platform. It's difficult, though, to find a balance. Presumably neither sellers nor buyers would want to wait for SL items to pass Apple Store-caliber vetting before they could be set for sale, at one extreme.

[Ardy Lay]

I could be mean and say:

Report the vendor, the object, not it's owner, as a Gacha, since you did not know prior to the purchase what would be delivered and add that you were possibly misled by information presented either by or about the vending object prior to making the purchase.

[Dakota Noelle]

6 hours ago, Jackson Redstar said:

while frustrating, in context though, what is this? 2 dollars USD?

It is not the money I am frustrated over, it is the lack of communication from the seller, despite that i have followed the instructions they have posted in the store as a way of contacting them with any issues. my other frustration is the fact that they have been online, not replied, despite 3 notecards and still their vendor has not been corrected. All i want is the hair I was purchasing, i would buy it again, only i still will not get the correct hair.

[Dakota Noelle]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Both, a Support ticket and Live Chat would be wasted time.  LL will not intervene unless there is obvious fraud.  The wrong item being delivered is seller mistake -- and the person did get something for their money, even if not what they wanted.  That is not fraud.

Screen shots of the vendor won't help either and LL will not bother returning it.  

Basically -- LL will not get involved in this.

yes i got another copy of a hair i already had, same colours also, so as much as I got something for my Lindens, all i got was something extra to delete.

[Dakota Noelle]

16 hours ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

If this hair seller has a group with group chat enabled you could try reaching out there. The most popular stores have people that deal with their customer service often via the group chat

Their group chat is closed

[Dakota Noelle]

15 hours ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

Also you could find out if they have social media eg Facebook and public post / tag / Dm.  Tends to get the attention of creators if they, for some reason, are not seeing notecards etc. 

I tried reaching out via their Flickr account, public and private message, but still again no reply. I am just surprised more than anything considering this hair seller has been in SL selling hair for a lot of years now.

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

Now I'm intrigued. Businesses are refusing to complete transactions with LL? Is it possible to see what grounds they cite for that refusal? Is it really about conditions similar to the OP's situation here?

No, no. No one's refusing transactions that I know of- that's the part that surprises me, considering how often these types of issues come up.

Although I will admit that I did dispute an SL transaction once with one of my cards- they didn't even question it, simply waived it. Whether that's due to it being SL or the small amount, I don't know.

That said, I am aware of other virtual stores that do prohibit use of their assets in SL, because of the way things are handled here.