landscamming/fraud by [NAME REMOVED]

[Catherine Foulon]

Friendly greetings

Today, 6 in the morning europeen time i found 1.920 qm estate land, with 505 prims owned by the simowner “[NAME REMOVED]” (she advertised 15%+ primbonus) for 1250L tier/weekly and a saleprize at 4500 Lindens in a sim called “Roamed”.

While i standing on the land and read the covenants, i got an IM from her.
When i was finish reading the covenants carefully I IM her back to clear some pre-sales questions. She was very friendly and it looks like we booth satisfied with anything we talk about. I save any word what I wrote her and tell her, I will buy the land and pay the tier.

The parcel is at a tropical themed and zoned sim. Everything is beautiful and i like the striklty covenants she had, because i was looking for realy nice land.

I bought the land for 4.500 L$ (i know this is a high prize but i like the sim). One minute after i pay the tier for 4 weeks (under 4 weeks wasn't possible) 5.000 L$ but that was no matter for me because i wanted to stay long.
After I pay all she came and set the tierbox in the water. She ask for friendship what i agree and then she gave me two NC’s. I keep them and want to read it later because before i paid read the covenants twice!

I never saw her again. There was NO invitation in a landgroup/supportgroup as all other landlords do.

I am not a newbie, also not in buying land. I join SL in december 2006 and i had land, sims, homesteads, land again all those years. In fact  one week after joining SL i was not 1 day without home/land or sim.  All land was estate. But what i meet today was never happend before. Bad experience at all.

When she go, i checked the landinfo to do some changes and found that she have 70 from my 505 prims in use for the landscaping she did on the island. There was no way to see that before. So for me 435 prims to use. First i wanted to deed my land to my landgroup – wich not works. I call her in IM and tell her that. She say let me check the simsettings and after some minutes I deed my land.

I sort and search objects in my inventar, get some from my alt and put out a buildingstructure wich was only a deck - no house and check the prims of her items.
I found 4 older single palms wich count all together 38 prim.
One of her 9 prim palms (the island was landscaped) sticks in my deck and i send it back to her. Some minutes later another 10 prim single palm.

While i talk with friends, ansered IM’s and searching inventory again to find the radio – she IM’t me, to ask if i send her one of the palms – but i do not see the IM.
I found the radio and wanted to deed it. Open the landinfo because it do not work and get shocked.

My group was removed and she herself was the owner again. Because that was never happend to me I thought LL probably have problems with some databases, maybe they put a backup in and.. you know what i mean..
In this time i do not even realize she herself do that!

I IM her the issue and read that she asked me in IM, if I have send one palm to her.
I tell her, i have send two palms back but one is back here again.
NO answer for hours. I thought ok, we all have to go afk for a time. I was patient and wait.

After 3-4 hours she got back to me via IM. I please her to come an set the land to 1 L$ for me to buy it again. She say she will fix it by herself and ask me to deed the land to my group again. She was still the owner and my group don’t acept the deeding procedere because she was not a member of my group. So she want me to give her the group and officer rights. LOL i do so but all this sound more and more curous to me. She could not deed the land to my group with officer-rights and ask me for ownerright for a moment.
I had to bring my alt on because he is the groupowner and he have to give her the owner-rights and yaaaay!! she did it.

I ask her if she had claimed the land back. And now she told me, she had not claimed it back, she just did a pause.. because i send her two palms she and wanted I get back to her in IM.

???

She has claimed the land back after 3 hours... because i send 2 palms back to her ???

She told me what i did was not in her rules. All her stuff, all 70 prims have to stay on my land and i should not remove it. And now a endless discussion about contract, covenants, extra rules after I pay her 9500L$, prims and palms and plants starts... over hours...
I copy her, her own covenants who sais, I can remove her stuff and put up my own.

I told her I will just replace the 4 higher-prim palms with better lowprim palms. She want to see my palms – i should rezz them. I say come here and look at your own other 3 palms from eeh Oh – i have the whole palm collection from this creator. She said, she don’t like i put cheap stuff on HER! Land and spoil up her whole sim and her design... I should rezz my palms she ist floating (yes she say so) and she don’t come.

I can’t believe what i read from her – my compagnon try to IM with her (because her english is perfect) but perfumed do not answer her. I told her i have expensive but low prim palms and just want to replace 4 palms all her other stuff may szay here. Then she said when I remove her palms the land is plain and with no green..
Me ???

We talk for hours and I slowly noted, she DON’T WANT TO UNDERSTAND ME – she wanted to fight and i get afraid for that women. If you read the chat you will think I was talking to a lame horse or a person who is sitting in a rubbercell in a house for crazy people.

At 9 o clock in the evening europeen time, I was soooooooooo tired and tell her.. parfumed please refund me and lets end up in this stress – lets end up as friends not as enemys.
Answer was.. NO refund for used land! And she don’t like people who are so greedy with prims.

Now I wanted to know.. what I may espected from her in the future.
I told her i send two more palms back - 19 prim.
I did and in a second she claimed the land again.

I told her, her behavior is like a landscammer. I pay 9500 L$ for nothing and 10 hours stress. I please her to think about and we find an agreement. I am avery good renter, i stay long, pay good and have avery good reputation from big simowners here.

The answer was a ban for me and my friends – some hours later she returned my stuff.

So now someone who don’t know her and her tricks can buy and rent the land what i paid for. GOOD BUSINESS.

We send AR’s to LL – but i am not sure they will stop her. I have all chatlogs, screenshots, covenant and the changing rules by NC AFTER!!! payment. For me and everyone i know this is landscamming and/fraud in any way. 

 

03/08/2012 22:20:06 7a5ce474 Source: [NAME REMOVED]

Give Inventory

    L$0       

03/08/2012 22:16:01 af143385 Destination: [NAME REMOVED]

Payment

Region: Roamed

Description: hippoRENT Rental Box 4.5-Illius(default)V2

 L$5,000         

 

03/08/2012 22:15:45 37ef1857 Destination: [NAME REMOVED]

Land Sale

Region: Roamed

Description: 1920

 L$4,500 

 

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Unless it states in the covenant that you can't change the landscaping that already exists, then she was wrong to do what she did.

Unfortunately it seems you ran into a scammer.  They are out there and LL won't do anything as they specifically state in the TOS that transactions between residents are between them only and LL won't get involved in them.  Aside from taking your dispute to a RL court of law and suing her, your only recourse now is to take it as a rather expensive lesson,  Your only comfort is that eventually she'll lose her business, if she continues to act this way as word eventually gets around.

While you can't use her name or estate name here, you can warn other people about her on a one to one basis within SL .  The naming of names restriction doesn't always apply to other sites,  Just be sure to read their rules before you post anything.

Anytime I buy land on a private estate I not only talk to the estate owner, but to other people who have land there and find out what they like and don't like about the estate.  I also only buy land on estates that have been around a long time and have the majority of all their sims occupied.  That's a good sign of financial stability and good service.

[Faithless Babii]

BeforeI labelled anyone a "scammer" and soiled their business reputation..Id have to hear both sides of this story. It seems mighty odd that a longstanding resident (2005 birth date) would act in this way without some sort of a reason no? Perhaps a misunderstanding and language problem...I could be wrong of course..but Id hate to take any side unless I heard the whole scenario..reputations are hard won...and easily ruined.

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

How can the reputation of an unnamed person be hurt by what I said?  If the name was there, I would have not posted for that reason..  But since the name was removed before I had even read the thread, I had no way to check both sides of the story and  took it at face value to offer some advice.

From personal experience I can tell you SL age is no indication of honesty.  Maybe the person normally was honest but got in a jam and is short on tier and did this as a last ditch effort to save the sim, but its still wrong and still a scam.

I do however know for a fact there are scammers like this out there and this is pretty typical of the way they operate - make some minor rule up that wasn't in the covenant or change the covenant suddenly without notifying tenants, as an excuse to repossess land to resell it. 

Since LL won't involve themselves in scams like this, the only thing you can do is warn other people about them.  Its up to the people that hear the actual name and story to then decide what to think.  I hear stories all the time that I discount because I suspect there was more to it than stated.  However, people remaining silent about scammers is why they are still around to scam others.

[Faithless Babii]

Steady on..I wasnt referring to YOU..i was answering the poster.

Yes I agree that age is not an indication of honesty...which is why I said "I could be wrong"..however this person does talk often in concierge chat and they dont appear, tome anyway, to be anything other than a normal landlord....also...this thread has been posted on SLU INCLUDING the persons name , as it was included here also...also with the tags "scam & fraud" added by the poster.

To give an opinion and call a persons reputation into doubt with one side of a story..for me..is wrong. Personally Id give advice about how to resolve...not label without al the facts.

(edited to add, the name was there initially here also)

[Chefzicke]

I am/was the co-owner of this land you were talking about, and I was there the whole time and knows what happened. As far as I can see, this was definitively a fraud... I do not care for how long ppl are in SL, I just care how they are... I can tell for sure, she is a land scammer! We have all the IM's saved, and if you read them, you will see what we mean...

imho: I kissed my money goodbye, with the knowledge she did it on purpose!!!

[Melita Magic]

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Catherine Foulon wrote:

 

She has claimed the land back after 3 hours... because i send 2 palms back to her ???

 

 

She told me what i did was not in her rules. All her stuff, all 70 prims have to stay on my land and i should not remove it. 

 

---

Based on your story which is all I have to go on - It sounds like she went into a snit because you returned her gorgeous landscaping and while angry she removed you as land owner. 

At that point she should have refunded your money, perhaps less a fee or deposit (as some landlords do) and both moved on. 

The whole landlord thing in SL - like anything else really - is beset by a lot of amateurs who are ruled by emotion. A professional, even in a virtual world, would have tried to put their refund policy in writing and given that to you. 

If she does not want a tenant to return group deeded items, then she should not have that ability in their role. Another mark of an amateur.

I do not think she set out to scam you but I do think you rubbed her the wrong way (made her angry) and for that she made you pay - literally. 

Sorry it happened to you.

PS I confess I stopped reading about halfway down because it was so long and hard to read. So if I missed something important, sorry. It also does occur to me the communication problem might have made things worse but again, she should know that going in also. It's a global platform.

 

[Catherine Foulon]

thanks for your reply.

you can read on here

 

[Melita Magic]

I don't click links but if that link goes to a place in which you name and shame - you can't use a SL forum to do that, even to direct someone to a site where it happens. So if you're using a SL forum to forward people to a place where you have posted IMs or something you might wanna rethink that.  Just FYI FWIW.

Unfortunately land rip offs happen a lot. It's one reason I went premium so I didn't have to rent any more.

[Catherine Foulon]

lol, because u are premium, you don't pay tier anymore?

are you sure you own land?

i was premium from 2006 to 2011 - so what? i can't remember as a premium i got my sims, land, homesteads with no tier.

but i see, with 2.915 post in the forums for sure you are an expirienced user of inword-sl and i guess your day have 24 hours daytime and 24 hours in the night too. ;-)

tjank you very for the: "FYI FWIW" i don't know what it means - but i wish you the same.

 

[Phil Deakins]

You didn't read what Melita wrote. She said "rent".

Now I know that tier is effectively renting from LL, but, in SL, "rent" means from another user.

[Melita Magic]

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Catherine Foulon wrote:

lol, because u are premium, you don't pay tier anymore?

are you sure you own land?

i was premium from 2006 to 2011 - so what? i can't remember as a premium i got my sims, land, homesteads with no tier.

but i see, with 2.915 post in the forums for sure you are an expirienced user of inword-sl and i guess your day have 24 hours daytime and 24 hours in the night too. ;-)

tjank you very for the: "FYI FWIW" i don't know what it means - but i wish you the same.

 

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Wow - just saw this. 

Now I can maybe see a glimpse of what happened between you and the landlord. I have been nothing but  helpful to you and I got snark back.  How did that happen? 

FYI = for your information

FWIW = for what it is worth

Phil is correct  (and thank you Phil) - I was talking about rent paid to a resident landlord (as I specifically said, landlord, rent) not tier paid to Linden Lab as in a Linden  home or mainland which is what a premium membership enables someone to do. 

To answer your question (although I know it was not a question) yes I own land.

 

[Lizard Howl]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

Anytime I buy land on a private estate I not only talk to the estate owner, but to other people who have land there and find out what they like and don't like about the estate.  I also only buy land on estates that have been around a long time and have the majority of all their sims occupied.  That's a good sign of financial stability and good service.

---

 

Amethyst -

Thank you!

You hit the nail on the head.

I've been telling people to do something similar for years, but nobody actually does this.

If you do, good for you!

Also, if you don't mind I'd like to quote you in my blog. 

That is the best, most specific advice I have seen on buying estate land since, well, ever.

Lizard Howl

Segarra Estates Owner