Please help - dispute with gaming site owner- about 30K lindens owed.

[OfficeBoy]

Hi all,

I will be grateful for your advice on this matter.

I used to play solitaire/zyngo etc at a certain gaming site

in Second Life. I used to be on good terms with the owner.

However, due to a couple of misunderstandings and

personality clashes I probably became one of her

least favourite customers. Very recently I had a query

as one of the machines/features of her site didn't work.

She didn't respond to my query after about 90 minutes,

to be fair she is a busy person. I sent her another 2-3

polite messages to her two avatars.

 

Eventually I saw her avatar in person and tried to start

a local chat, she left. And then without any warning I got

banned from the site totally. The issue is that she is fed

up with me and I am also getting quite upset with her

so the ban is fine. However, her site, like others have

an attractive rewards/cashback system. I have often

qualified for the highest tier reward. Each week's 

reward is based on previous week's play. She has

banned me totally and ignored all my messages and

not even given me a reason for banning me. From

My estimation I am owed 5 days of reward starting

from yesterday (Thursday)  to next Monday and the

total is between 20000 and 30000 lindens.

 

It is a fairly big amount. To be honest I am more hurt

with the ban than the money. I have probably lost

more than 30 times that amount playing these games

on SL which I really regret now and will stop playing

all together. I didn't know what I was doing at first

but lately started to break even or made a small profit.

Could someone please advise me on how I can resolve

this issue? She doesn't talk to me at all neither is the

manager it seems. I have a friend who plays at the site

and offers to act as mediator but I for now turned down

the offer. I have upset the owner before and previously

we managed to make peace. But she didn't ban me

before, just removed me from the rewards group and

at least we had a good old argument over the issue.

This time, not a word. Just banned and possible

put me on ignore list and don't even read my messages.

 

If we cannot resolve the issue peacefully is there

anything Linden Labs can do? I want to be peaceful

and this is a private matter between me and her and

I don't want any publicity which could affect her site.

She works extremely hard for the site and put a lot

of money into it. And she is 98% fair and a good

site owner. Sadly for me when she is upset with

me she seems to act in the 2% where I feel she

is unreasonable. I admit perhaps I was quite

impatient yesterday but the feature which didn't

work yesterday was quite an important thing.

It was the camping server, for the first time

it didn't work for me but it seemed to work

for other people. And I get my playing money

from the camping as I had nil balance yesterday.

 

Thank you for reading this.

 

[Mayalily]

20000 to 30000 lindens, that's a lot, imo.

I'm not interested in that game myself, but since you said it's no great loss, aren't there other sims where u can play that game?

[OfficeBoy]

The thing is that I felt I have earned the camping money owed to me.

Because last week I played a lot and earned the right in the highest

tier camping/reward group. So I feel whatever is owed to me is already earned

and due.

It is different from say you get 3000 lindens each day for camping to be payable

end of this week and I got 9000 Lindens camping from monday to wednesday.

She is the owner she can ban me if she wants to. And then I cannot argue

for my potential lost earnings for the reminder of the week as those earning

from Thursday to Sunday are in the future. And if she offered a bonus for

camping all seven days then tough on me as I only camped up to Wedneday

 

But in my case my camping money ifor this week iss based on previous week's play.

I strongly feel that  I have  rightfully earned it already even if I didn't play anything this week so far,

as I had a bad loss last sunday so I decided to cool down and save up for later this week.

 

I have tried my best to hide the precise details/name of her site so her site can remain anonymous

and I use my newly created avatar so people cannot associate me with her site. 

 

Thanks again for reading this.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

Alas, Linden Lab don't get involved in financial disputes between SL residents. You'll have to resolve this issue yourself and involve RL authorities if necessary.

Also, I'm afraid that this kind of gambling machine is no longer allowed. Online gambling has been made illegal in the USA (or parts of the USA), which is why it is now a ToS violation to host games of chance in SL.

[OfficeBoy]

Hi the gaming machines I played are all legal in SL

as there are the legal versins of solitaire and zyngo and deal etc.

Not the recently banned ones from SL with autoplay/too much 

of a lucky element involved.

[Mayalily]

You got 9000 lindens from camping?  That's a lot, too.  How did u do that?  (Send me an IM sometime of how u did that from camping!  'Cuz I'm expecting SL twins soon, so I need some extra money to help my babies.)

I've seen many TV documentries on online gambling, and what I got from the documentries, is it's sort of allowed, but user beware as a lot of things are computer-generated (rigged) to make u lose, so if you go the online gambling route, you're kind of screwed.    That's why I'd never bother with Zyngo or whatever it's called.  That's kind of why online gambling is illegal in the U.S., it's far too easy to rig.   Not to mention the online game creators are deep in the middle of South America or somewhere else that is usually too hard to find.  Online gambling is extremely player beware because the authorities have an extremely difficult time finding out where the game seter upper is even actually located. 

 

 

[Mayalily]

But how would solitare to win money be any different from playing poker to win money?  They are both card games.  So, what IS the difference exactly? 

[Venus Petrov]

I think you are out of luck here unless you can resolve this dispute directly with the owner.  LL does not get involved in resident-to-resident disputes, sorry.

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Caveat Emptor. ()

Unless there's a solid TOS/CS violation, the entire situation is between you and the owner.  Their land, their rules, and they can change their rules at a moment's notice.  Also, you hold no contract requiring them to do anything for you.  There are over nine thousand other places to visit in SL.  Explore. ()y

 

 

[Magnek Fang]

Cut your losses and stick to Freeplay. It's less painful that way.

[Cabbage Acanthus]

I hate to say it but this issue is just between you and that business owner.  LL won't get involved unless you can find a violation of the TOS, as others have said.  

If you became an annoyance great enough (as you seem to indicate) for her to ban you, then you are banned.  There is nothing anyone besides the person that banned you can do to change that.  If she is a successful business owner and you were thowing around enough lindens to rate a 30,000 linden bonus then she will probably welcome you and your lindens back if you give her any indication that you will be less of a pain in the future.  Just send her a notecard politely explaining how much you pay her and a polite request to be let back to the gaming machines.

Privately, if you are spending that kind of money on the sort of games that are "legal" here in SL, why don't you just take yourself over to one of the online gambling sites because that is what you are doing, gambling.  There are better, more entertaining games, and their games are probably less likely to malfunction since they are not tied to the crapshoot that is SL's stability these days.

Or, if you are spending so much that you are getting a payback of what.. around 120 USD or so you must be really throwing down the cash.  Save it up for a little bit and head over to Vegas (or whatever is its twin wherever you live).  You will have a MUCH better time.

The person that banned you probably did you a favor.

[Phil Deakins]

There's nothing you can do about the lost money, which is only your estimate anyway, so forget it.

You said that recently you'd started to break even and even win a little. Perhaps that's the reason for the ban. Those owners are in the business to make money - not give it away. And such things as owners playing the games with alts, in order to be the winner and prevent other players taking the money, is far from unknown.