How to protect yourself from fraud in secondlife !THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU READ !

[Gavin Ling]

Its been a while since i felt the need to start a thread here but this concerns all the residents in world and could affect anyone who sells items ,Last weekl i was unlucky enough to be involved in some type of L$ Fraud and my account was promptly placed on administrative hold i was advised to either send a ticket or call them,after searching for a free phone number to call them i was put through to a lady who advised me that my account was on hold as a suspicious transaction had taken place through my account,i was told to just wait untill my account was activated again and that i could do nothing untill then,15 minutes later i was lucky enough to be back in world and back in business....... so i thought,

24 hours later i have to send a ticket asking why my account was on hold as no explanation is given to me and im left in the dark over the whole process

Anyway to get to the point of this thread i have now found out that the reason my account was put on hold was that XXXXX resident purchased L$ from linden labs using a stolen credit card, the resident then proceeded to spend these in my shop.

for the past 4 days i now have linden labs taking random amounts of money from my account to counter balance the stolen Lindens brought by the stolen credit cards, im not given any explanation or even a message explaining what there doing, The most frustrating thing about this is that theres nothing i can do to prevent this,when you think that its over nothing stops the thiefs from hitting your shop again and taking your products and you lose the money from your account when linden labs feel like taking it back

 

Now i can understand that the money was stolen and that it needs to be returned to the rightfull owner but why is the security so lax?,also it seems that its not only credit cards they hit ,they hack into peoples accounts and do the same scam with stolen money , the result is the same for anyone unlucky enough to be sent this stolen L$.Linden labs will help them selfs to your account balance when it pleases them

I sell no copy items that i have to buy no copy , i wont go into detail of my business here but i cant afford to give away item i have to buy and then get the money taken away from me by linden labs , i lose twice in this scam , im given ZERO support by any in world lindens and advised to file a ticket which goes unread or ignored for days . this scam is affecing a lot of people in my line of business but it could be your shop hit next you have been warned

Any comments or advise be great

 

 

[Shad Raffke]

Good to see post addressing these types of concerns. Over the years, I have witnessed FRAUD attempted in many different forms occur in SL.  Recently, I had seen a group notice where a popular creator admitted similar problem.  We must all remember there are potential victims both UPSTREAM (e.g., a person may have had their account hacked to have L$ stolen) and DOWNSTREAM (e.g., an innocent person who unknowingly bought 'hot' merchandise and now loses both the item and investment because LL has deleted it without reimbursing them).

Should not "ALL" innocent parties be reimbursed? While its absolutely proper that the initial victim is reimbursed, it seems egregious that people downstream from the initial fraud can be effectively made victims in the process.  I am not certain if Linden Lab is fully sensitive to this. It would be nice to see better support and security for the residents who participate in the Second Life economy.  Any thoughts are welcome.

[Chelsea Malibu]

I know it sucks but it happens to merchants all around the world every day.  In fact about 1.5% of all credit transactions are fraudulent.  It is unfortunately one of the burdens we must bear.

However, merchants in the real world have fraud prevention systems that block and blacklist transactions.  And they always go after the person committing the fraud first.  If Linden Labs does not have fraud prevention features then to me, they should be held liable but as we all know, its their world, their law, not ours. 

The truth is, the person who accepted the credit card in the real world is the one who is liable, not the downstream providers.  That would be like WalMart not paying their suppliers when a fraudulent transaction appears.

In the end you loose and unfortunately, much like piracy, it is the cost of doing business in the virtual world.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Unfortunately, a lot of these scams go on because people are lax in their own security, giving out passwords to their account to others or accepting things given to them out of the  blue that they didn't request from people they don't know, or clicking random web page links they see in chat or IM.  Then when their account is compromised, they scream to get their money back.

In cases where you are not the creator and you lost merchandise that can't be replaced, LL should also track and return the stolen merchandise too.  But since most people sell their own creations, it probably isn't automatically part of their procedure.  If I were  you, I'd call them and/or file a ticket requesting the return of the property stolen from you too.  You should explain why its not replaceable and should give them a list of the specific items and their UUID if you have it.  Not sure if they will, but its worth a try, after all you were stolen from too and they do have the ability to track it.

[Paul Hexem]

---

Chelsea Malibu wrote:

The truth is, the person who accepted the credit card in the real world is the one who is liable, not the downstream providers.  That would be like WalMart not paying their suppliers when a fraudulent transaction appears.

---

This is so spot on... If people ever actually pushed, LL would be in so much legal trouble over the way they handle things... It's happened before. It's just a matter of time before they do something to someone else with the means, and they're going to find themselves sued again.

[GothGirl Demonia]

http://money.howstuffworks.com/identity-theft1.htm

http://money.howstuffworks.com/money-laundering.htm

http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/credit-card.htm

Creditcard fraud is also a common thing.

1. Use Paypal
2. Try to avoid giving out your creditcard number to many people/merchants.
3. Swipe your card yourself.
4. Protect your PIN/Change your PIN.
5. Shred Identify information, maybe burn it.
6.Check your transactions often.
7. Protect your SSN, thats right At the social security office you apply for a benefit, however everyone standing in line next to you while you enter your SSN on a computer, or give information to someone else that is security fail.

The reason LL suspends the account is because this is a common tactic used by griefers/friends to launder money, however there is a way to actually get away with Real Money a lot faster, and you are 100% able to actually collect the laundered money and escape I will not give these details to the public others may already know it but I will say LL You need to change some of your policy, and increase game security.

Usually when this is done a lot to a single person it is someone who has a personal revenge tactic, or a griefer who you have made upset if it happens more than once considering the person has 100% nothing to do with it not accusing you of anything, but usually that is what it is.

Security LL should add.

1. Require ID to make an account over the age of 18 years old.
2. Add more security, and actually do checks before suspending an account that got fraud L$ in the most, and explain the issue to the person.
3. Require ID for spending over $300 per month in the game to limit fraud transactions or certain amount.

4. Do not just suspend someones account who has been paid fraud L$ for a product, while this can be a commonly abused tactic is to spoof hardware/IP use someones elses card and pay themselves, or friends do it for them etc. Do an actual investigation, and send the person an email first so they may respond. I know a couple of friends for quite awhile who had their accounts framed just like this, I for one whould hate to have L$ taken from my account later on if some of it was found to be stolen because I do not make a big profit in SL I only make what I need to to buy what I need and pay tiers thats it, and would never knowingly submit to fraud so I am always trying to be careful of all of this myself because I know griefing happens in Second Life a lot and even in one other game I play.

5. Linden Lab does need to improve security I agree Griefing, has and will always be a common thing in Second Life, and then you will have the people who stand by look on evil and do nothing/ not care aka the griefers who own sims and knowingly allow griefers to use them for illegal activies and the groups that do nothing about griefers in their groups but know about it I hate it.

Over the last 8 years I have only had one fraud transaction on my card which was for 0.99 Cents thats right, and I spot this transaction almost immediately where I immediately got a replacement card, this was a philisher from one of those Gold Seller sites like World OF Warcraft that was going to overspend my card thats their common tactic but it didn't work because I caught it really fast. ( First they charge it to see if it still works) Then they go splurge.



[wrable Amat]

That is wy I cash out weekly...lol j/k..Not really I do cash out weekly but not due  this kind of deal.I am poor....

That really sucks you sell no copy product and you just lost out on the whole deal.You think they be kind and return the products to you,fair is fair..take the money sure...but at least return the object as they have a list of what it was on  their side and access to the inventory . As my Daddy use to say "this is run ass backwards "..maybe it was back ass wards....im not sure but bottom line ..that is phucked up...

[windrider07]

Well the users in this thread have already posted enough info to cover everything that needs to be covered   Would be great if LL did step up its security measures.  My best advice is to never give your password to anyone and keep your credit card info secret.  Keep everything hidden and in confidentiality.  Run a scan on your computer and make sure no one is tracking you.

I've actually had one moment in my life where fraudulent transactions were placed on to my bank account.  Ended up filing a claim and got the transactions reversed.  Also got me a new credit card.  Did a scan on my computer that I no longer use.  No fraudelent transactions ever since.  But you never know...always gotta be careful.

[Christi Maeterlinck]

Gavin,

If its any consolation, the same happened to me:

a) Linden tells me my a/c has been suspended since someone has tried to buy lots of Lindens through my a/c

b) my bank tells me they have refused payment on my CC: which presumably is what led to a)

c) Linden are unclear in telling me about how it happened that someone got hold of my CC details

d) But when helping me to change my arrangements, they suggested I use the word "password' as my temporary password, which must be the grossest breach of security ever!

I've now made new arragements, and I suggest that everyone else does too. I won't go into the details, but think it out for yourselves: a system in which, even if your avatar password or CC number get compromised, there is never more than a trivial amount of RL cash at stake in any arrangement known to Linden.

Then all you have to do is a virus-scan to see if anyone has placed keylogger software into your machine. But, dear Gods, if that has happened, then there's more than an SL account at risk. 

Funny old world.

Christi

[Naraya Twine]

Shad Raffke

Recognized Resident

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Reply to Gavin Ling - view message

03-13-2012 02:17 PM

Good to see post addressing these types of concerns. Over the years, I have witnessed FRAUD attempted in many different forms occur in SL.  Recently, I had seen a group notice where a popular creator admitted similar problem.  We must all remember there are potential victims both UPSTREAM (e.g., a person may have had their account hacked to have L$ stolen) and DOWNSTREAM (e.g., an innocent person who unknowingly bought 'hot' merchandise and now loses both the item and investment because LL has deleted it without reimbursing them).

Should not "ALL" innocent parties be reimbursed? While its absolutely proper that the initial victim is reimbursed, it seems egregious that people downstream from the initial fraud can be effectively made victims in the process.  I am not certain if Linden Lab is fully sensitive to this. It would be nice to see better support and security for the residents who participate in the Second Life economy.  Any thoughts are welcome.

 -LOL may i laugh ur Account would be first banned......... bad i may not type here what u do.... but no wondering u Club get colsed 2007. I just wait till i found more PPl they have something against you.!!!!

[mirakitty]

Whats the number to call LL to put a pin on my account?