Jump to content

MARKETPLACE SELLERS


TaylaAtlantis Ashbourne
 Share

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 3018 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

I have been as of late running into a lot of AVs selling on MP that are either no longer in SL or have not been in world for years, this is shown in their groups by joining their store group. Even officers and support personal show the same and no response from group chats. This is very frustrating but onto my question. Why are these AVs still allowed to sell on MP and where does their lindens go on sold items from people who do not check who they are buying from not knowing they are no longer in SL. Even if they had a new alt you would figure they would sign into the main account more often than over a year ago, hence why I say they are no longer in SL. But the point is there is so much junk in MP that cannot longer be supported is there a way to report these to LL and have them removed from MP?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What? No.

Everyone with account in good standing is allowed to list their products on the MP, regardless of their user activity. No-one gets to police this, not LL and certainly not other users.

Supporting products is not an obligation in SL and never has been. Neither is being around to answer questions.

Doesn't matter if they have new alts or not. Their earned L$ go into their accounts and wait for a possible return. Just this weekend I met someone who hadn't logged in for 5 years, they had enough L$ to buy some not-to-new-but-new-to-them mesh stuff.

Also worth mentioning that not all profiles that state "This name is not available" are abandoned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Freya Mokusei wrote:

What? No.

Everyone with account in good standing is allowed to list their products on the MP, regardless of their user activity. No-one gets to police this, not LL and certainly not other users.

Supporting products is not an obligation in SL and never has been. Neither is being around to answer questions.

Doesn't matter if they have new alts or not. Their earned L$ go into their accounts and wait for a possible return. Just this weekend I met someone who hadn't logged in for 5 years, they had enough L$ to buy some not-to-new-but-new-to-them mesh stuff.

Also worth mentioning that not all profiles that state "This name is not available" are abandoned.

If they haven't logged in in five years it means they are likely not to have done much in the way of customer service, which is fine for some things but not for others. In any case I don't think it much of a hardship to require sellers to log in once a year to keep their listings active.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Pamela Galli wrote:

If they haven't logged in in five years it means they are likely not to have done much in the way of customer service, which is fine for some things but not for others.


Pretty sure it's fine for everything. CS is not something anyone is obligated to provide here.

Brilliant example is an animation studio beginning with H. Every couple months the forum thread about that seller gets updated with another sucker who buys something from there, not realising that the associated website - required for activation - is long dead.

Account is in good standing, Second Life is Buyer Beware, therefore this is fine and acceptable. 'Round and 'round we go.


Pamela Galli wrote:

In any case I don't think it much of a hardship to require sellers to log in once a year to keep their listings active.


Sure, maybe. I don't think it's quite as reasonable as you seem to, but I can't say it is likely to affect me either way. LL already have the content in their hands, why should they chase up the merchant? Reckon it'd be insurmountable to change this policy so late in the game, and that no-one's really motivated to produce a Marketplace solution that doesn't have everything.

Looking historically and with regard to maintaining SL as it is, there's no downside (to users, LL, merchants) to their current strategy. Service quality across SL does not suffer. This kind of change would have to be done at the beginning of a service, before reasonable limits to behaviour by service operators is set in stone and while the userbase is in a position to be well-informed about the change.

Beginning to hear the irony in my words.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Freya Mokusei wrote:


Pamela Galli wrote:

If they haven't logged in in five years it means they are likely not to have done much in the way of customer service, which is fine for some things but not for others.


Pretty sure it's fine for everything. CS is not something anyone is obligated to provide here.

Brilliant example is an animation studio beginning with H. Every couple months the forum thread about that seller gets updated with another sucker who buys something from there, not realising that the associated website - required for activation - is long dead.

Account is in good standing, Second Life is Buyer Beware, therefore this is fine and acceptable. 'Round and 'round we go.

Pamela Galli wrote:

In any case I don't think it much of a hardship to require sellers to log in once a year to keep their listings active.


Sure, maybe. I don't think it's quite as reasonable as you seem to, but I can't say it is likely to affect me either way. LL already have the content in their hands, why should they chase up the merchant? Reckon it'd be insurmountable to change this policy so late in the game, and that no-one's really motivated to produce a Marketplace solution that
doesn't have everything
.

Looking historically and with regard to maintaining SL as it is, there's no downside (to users, LL, merchants) to their current strategy. This kind of change would have to be done at the beginning of a service, before reasonable limits to behaviour by service operators is set in stone and while the userbase is in a position to be well-informed about the change.

Beginning to hear the irony in my words.

Not sure I understand your point. The downside is that ppl sometimes find when they need customer support, the seller is no longer around. There are a number of solutions that have been advanced, like posting by the sellers name the last time he logged inworld. Just so buyers have some assurance that the seller is available to contact if needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Freya Mokusei wrote:

Sure, maybe. I don't think it's quite as reasonable as you seem to, but I can't say it is likely to affect me either way. LL already have the content in their hands, why should they chase up the merchant? Reckon it'd be insurmountable to change this policy so late in the game, and that no-one's really motivated to produce a Marketplace solution that
doesn't have everything
.

Looking historically and with regard to maintaining SL as it is, there's no downside (to users, LL, merchants) to their current strategy. Service quality across SL does not suffer. This kind of change would have to be done at the beginning of a service, before reasonable limits to behaviour by service operators is set in stone and while the userbase is in a position to be well-informed about the change.

Why change it?  Because it would go some way towards chaning the perception that SL is rife with dishonest merchants, lack of customer service, thieves, fraudsters and similar perspectives.

I disagree that it can't be put in place now.  We periodically have to accept a change to the TOS, why should it be the case that content should continue to be on sale by people who have not accepted  the current terms of the platform.  That's a disconnect for starters.

If someone isn't a current and active participant then i'd challenge them to justify why their content should remain on sale, if they're not active, what impact would it have on removing it?  It's likely to be old and stale.

Simply put, if someone cannot login periodically to reset a TLL on their listings, the listings don't belong here!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem with your request is the majority of marketplace content that is posted by avtars whom have left SL is vaild functional content.  The people who purchase it are largely satisified and everyone goes home happy.

So the problem with your request is you can't mathamatically define "usefulness".  It's a subjective term dependant upon the purchaser.  That's why we have a review system in place, so that people who are dissatisifed with their product or the service with the associated product can voice that they are dissatisfied and everyone else can read that prior to purchasing.

If you're buying a product that has the last 10 reviews posted "Do not buy, creator not in SL for a decade" then ~ I'm going to say that's more or less your own personal negligence.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can't creators who are no longer logging in just take their money out via the website?  That wouldn't show their avatar logging into world in groups. They COULD be happily collecting money on items they made long ago. I amazingly sell quite a few VERY old items still. And some thing like animations don't age at all and are very viable products. Some customers don't LIKE mesh (well, what can I say?)

So while some lindens might be stacking up in accounts, others might be in banks of long ago creators.

 

I have written to creators that seem to be AOL with no answer BUT if before leaving the folks set IMs to email then they would still get and could answer messages. I DO know that when the new TOS comes out it shows up on both the website and the login screen -- you can accept either place.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't care.

If the seller has LEFT for good then where are the L$ going, nowhere, just sitting in an account, nobody is disadvantaged by this content disappearing.  As I said, it will likely be old, stale content, long since surpassed.

I'm not after a mathematical outcome, just a common sense one that says "if this merchant isn't here and hasn't accepted the current TOS, then content should not be onsale as it could be in breach of TOS"

It's that simple!

I've long asked for a "last logged in date" to be shown against listings, a VERY simple method to show the likelihood of a merchant being around to offer support, clearly this is also deeply buried in the "too difficult" bin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Chic Aeon wrote:

Can't creators who are no longer logging in just take their money out via the website?

I DO know that when the new TOS comes out it shows up on both the website and the login screen -- you can accept either place.   

Yes to both and showing a "last logged in" date on the listings would show this to be the case.

However to circumvent both the new TOS for the merchant avatar and to hide logins, they could also have a "thief prim" inworld which allows an alt to transfer funds but that's only going to be relevant for wilful actions described.

Genuine dormant accounts do not help anyone.

Animations do age though, just like content.  Feel free to compare a keyframed animation done in the likes of Qavimator against a recently imported high quality MOCAP.

I know what you're getting at but for most content, there's a high chance that there's a better one that's newer.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually LL is extremely disadvantaged by this content disappearing, especially if it's valid content.  It provides people something to shop for, it provides LL with pure profit~ as Lindens are purchased, transferred but never resold for USD.

It provides the content creator with actual rightfully earned money ( in most cases ) should they ever choose to cash out.

There's no earthly reason to remove old listings.

The remaining complaints are handled by the review system and content flagging system.

 

Edit: It's also worth mentioning that old listings very rarely show up in "the front page" of search results, as their purchases are infrequent and since the creator is not active they get pushed down in the search rankings.  So, especially with new search coming down the line~ even less reason for content removal.


Edit #2: I'm going to offer this hypothetical situation as well ( because in all likelihood with the number of terminally ill people in SL it's not a "hypothetical" at ALL)  That someone creates a successful store, succumbs to their illness and their next of kin will log in and take the money but never ever ever touch the avatar itself because of sentimental reasons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In any given month, 80% of listings have no sales.

Like I said, the old stuff has been largely superceded, I have no problem with it being there as long as it requires a merchant who has complied with current TOS and who is prepared to reset a TTL on a listing.

If they're neither of those, dump it.

Your edit 1 demonstrates that its removal would reduce the out of date dross

Edit 2, yes it happens but comes back to the issue of support, there is none so show us the date of last login and let the customer decide or just remove it.  It's very much an edge case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to wade in here for a number of reasons, but primarily because I am absolutely incensed at what people here are willing to call "okay".

There is this attribute of a person called "Honesty". When you are honest, you are clear and truthful about your situation, your products, your business .. your life in general. When you are dishonest, you hide things that might cause people to make decisions you don't want them to make.

My family, wife and kids, are honest people. When I croak off, they will be honest and tell people "Oops! DG croaked" and pull my products down from MP. They won't let them sit there, unsupported and worthless to anyone buying them while at the same time collecting the money. That is flat out dishonest!

This whole "should stuff stay listed or not" is .. at its bottom level .. about honesty. About being upfront and truthful. About bilking people out of money. The example cited above about a product that depends on a web site .. a web site that is long gone .. is perfect example. Where is the money for those sales going? Into the creator's pocket? It's the creator's family's pocket? Into LL's pocket? It doesn't really matter WHOSE pocket!! It's STEALING! It's taking money for services not provided. It's THEFT! And it's dishonest.

Linden Lab: YOU are the only party capable of doing the right thing. And yet, you continually condone (through both inaction and direct avoidance) illegal acts. You want to avoid lawsuits and criminal entanglements? DO THE HONEST THING!

Or get ready to always fail, always suffer Karmic Revenge ... and quite probably suffer legal action by a class of your customers fed up with you stealing their money, knowingly and with malice aforethought.

(Go ask your lawyers just how much protection your TOS provides against years of wanton illegal inaction.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Darrius Gothly wrote:

Linden Lab: YOU are the only party capable of doing the right thing. And yet, you continually condone (through both inaction and direct avoidance) illegal acts. You want to avoid lawsuits and criminal entanglements? DO THE HONEST THING!

Not just inaction and avoidance but take a 5% cut of the action.  I can partly understand when they're not aware but once made aware, the result is usually "TOS says caveat emptor so tough!" even when they actively remove the product, eventually.

What I can't understand is the apparent refusal to implement very simple measures that give the potential customer information such as last logon date of merchant which is ridiculously simple and has no negative reasons to NOT do so.

*baffled*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The vast majority of content on the marketplace is Mesh, Sculpt, Prim and Texture work that needs little to no support at all.  It's valid content that people enjoy.  There is no "theft" in revenue generation off of 'abandoned property', especially when that property is digital content.

There is no metric for how long someone has to be "away" from SL to 'lose the rights to their account'.   I literally just talked with a builder who signed in yesterday for the first time in 6 years.  She was shocked to see her build still rezzed on the sim on which it was created.

I will concede that there is content on the Marketplace~ predominantly script and service related, that requires support.  Someone might be able to make an argument for possibly flagging that past a certain point.  But again ~ I still feel the review system provides more than enough insight for would-be customers.

There is also a substantial amount of content that presently requires third party servers to function { *cough* THE MESH PROJECT *cough* } that will just cease working the day that entity decides they're done with SL.  That's all throughout SL and there's really no warnings that any customer can have about the internal programming of any object that they buy.  There's no review system warning them of the hazards.  And there's no way that LL can monitor that either.  The only way we~ the 'customers' can find out about it~ is if the service stops working and suddenly every mesh body sold by TMP suddenly doesn't have a skin on it for a few hours ( "whoopsi" )?

The script functionality that leads to the above scenario is required for something like Caspervend to work as well.  ( Which the day that Casper decides he's done with SL, will also cease functioning, not that I'm expecting that to happen any time soon ) But that's just part of ANYTHING with an online dependency.  Sometimes you buy something and at a later date it breaks!  At least with a review system in place people can communicate that to others before the purchase, unlike with in-world sales.

 

TLDR;  Old SL Marketplace content is no more or less disappointing that buying something from a mail order catalog only to have it arrive and not be quite what you had hoped for.  It's also not any more legally actionable against than that same scenario.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


polysail wrote:

The vast majority of content on the marketplace is Mesh, Sculpt, Prim and Texture work that needs little to no support at all.  It's valid content that people enjoy.  There is no "theft" in revenue generation off of 'abandoned property', especially when that property is digital content.

 

There is no "theft" when you use fake money and a ToS that doesn't resemble any contract known to man. In the real world it may not be classified as theft, but there are penalties for not paying someone for their property that you're selling as a middleman, which is what LL is. Doesn't matter whether it's digital goods or not, laws still apply.

We've made some progress in getting government to recognize fake currency as something that needs regulation as real currency. More changes likely to come as content creators everywhere get shafted by devaluation and lack of legal compensation and recourse. Stay tuned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm very sure that you have never looked at the issue from the consumer perspective. If you had, you'd be singing a far different tune. Let's begin at the "Mesh, Sculpt, Prim and Texture" only products:

You purchase something that isn't what you expected. Whether it's because you didn't read the description, or because it wasn't properly described doesn't matter. The simple fact is .. you're not happy. This is a basic Customer Support issue. But now for the hammer blow part: The seller doesn't exist in SL any more. They've not checked in for .. years. What are your options?

Yes, you can leave a review. A very negative review. But what has that done? It has warned people from that one product. Maybe. What of the other products from that creator? Unless someone is dedicated (and crazed enough) to purchase and slam every other product, the seller's remaining line is still just as unsupported, just as much orphaned as the one product.

But now back off a step or two. In fact, lets use your example of the "Mail order catalog". Why do they have the reputation they have? And yet they DO have a way to contact them. They are still in business. And their phones still work. Yet they still fight the reputation of the entire industry. It damages their sales, it prejudices customers to be hair-trigger angry, and it keeps their price margins razor thin.

Back to SL and Marketplace: This is an issue that damages the reputation of the platform, the reputation of every other seller and Merchant, and Linden Lab itself. Ignore for a moment the legal ramifications of selling services (and digital goods are primarily service, even prim/texture/mesh/sculpt only creations) without delivering said service. Look at the overall effect it has on the viability of the MAIN product .. Second Life.

The predominant attitude 'out there' is that SL is a rip-off. Most people don't really give a rat's whiskers that some nameless avatar was the original creator. What they care about is that they paid their money to Linden Lab .. and they got ripped off. They care that the entity in charge of overseeing things .. of controlling things .. isn't doing that. They are ticked off because their money went into LL's pocket and they didn't get what they bought.

Every marketplace operator out there, from Amazon to the smallest web seller in existence, knows that the viability of their marketplace DEPENDS on the overall good reputation and support of every one selling through their service. They police it carefully, demand proper customer service from their sellers .. and will disenroll anyone not living up to the standards they set. Because they know .. THEY are the customer facing entity that will catch the brunt of negative feedback.

When Linden Lab purchased SL/X they purchased not just the name but the responsibility to support their customers. Make no mistake about it .. people purchasing from Marketplace ARE Linden Lab's customers. Not just for the product purchased but for the entire platform. People that get ripped off by missing-in-action sellers don't turn their anger at the seller, they turn it on LL. They tell their friends "SL is a rip-off and LL don't care".

User retention goes down. Commercial success pulls farther away. Income goes down.

Linden Lab is doing exactly the wrong thing. They are intentionally and knowingly driving away good customers. They are purposely driving people out. All because they don't want to be bothered doing the FULL job.

Maybe you haven't been burned yet. But your glib dismissal of this as "no problem really" is just naivete taken to the extreme. What matters is not that one product, but the ENTIRE success of the ENTIRE platform.

When you take the broader view, when you realize that nothing happens in a vacuum, then you will realize why this is a big problem with only one solution. And you will realize the only one that CAN resolve it is Linden Lab.

But apparently they'd rather just drive away the people that keep their company running.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What he said but he beat me to it.  I've said the some of it already in the thread.

Expecting the review system to warn people is like waiting for the obligatory three children to be killed crossing the road before the authorities acknowledge a black spot and install safety features.

Look at Apple, they police their appstore very carefully, how about if they ran a "10 bad reviews and you're out" system?  Can't see it somehow.

Again, there are NO negative issues that surround each listing showing the last logged in merchant date and requiring merchants to accept the TOS in order to continue selling (and to ideally reset a TTL before auto de-list.

Also, there IS a criteria for this:-

"There is no metric for how long someone has to be "away" from SL to 'lose the rights to their account'. 

Example, if someone is a premium avatar and their account falls into arrears, then after a period (90 days?), the account is suspended and inventory deleted.  Yep deleted.  Happened to a friend of mine.

So, you say "well that's their problem!" and I don't disagree but i'm curious now that VMM is integrated with inventory as to just how much "integration" this amounts to. 

What happens to a account that is in arrears, that has Marketplace listings that are VMM sourced when inventory is subsequently deleted by LL?

One for the very active Linden input in this forum...I wonder if they accounted for this scenario?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's legal, what's ethical and what constitutes superior customer service are not always the same thing.

And while we may question the legality of some of Linden Lab's actions and inactions, that is what appears to be their prime concern with the other two factors getting very minor attention.

 

eta:clarity

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have very strong reservations about the time-sensitive, automatic deletion of content which some of you seem to be suggesting.  I'm all for sensible regulation, but I'd rather see it be attempted with a scalpel before a machete.

Are there products long past their viability still available on MP right now?... sure; I've no problem with LL mitigating their damages where those products are concerned.  But, there are far too many products on MP which are and will remain viable into the foreseeable future.  For instance, the shelf life of any well made texture is virtually infinite.

For example, I've got one thing and one thing only for sale on MP... a freebie alignment texture which I created for people who are colorblind, such as I.  I see no reason why, upon my departure or demise (whichever comes first), this tool which people seem to find useful enough to buy regularly, should not continue to be available... just because I was no longer around.

If someone would care to give me a good reason why such products should be automatically kicked to the curb, I might be convincible.

...Dres

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Perrie Juran wrote:

What's legal, what's ethical and what constitutes superior customer service are not always the same thing.

And while we may question the legality of some of Linden Lab's actions and inactions, that is what appears to be their prime concern with the other two factors getting very minor attention.

The legal system in the USA is largely based on "what is right". Right is also closely aligned with ethical. While there are some discrepancies, they are mostly legacy laws (from long ago) or very ticklish situations. The situation discussed here is not ticklish, but it is very unethical.

Let's examine a simple transaction: Customer A uses their RL funds to purchase Linden Dollars. They then turn around and use those L$ to purchase something from the Marketplace. Their purchase is directly traceable back to their "legal tender" acquisition of coupons (L$).

Now make it even more simple: Customer B uses PayPal (or their credit card) to purchase something from the Marketplace. You have a direct connection with no intervening transaction into coupons. Their RL money has been used to make the purchase.

Now in both examples, the product purchased is posted by someone that no longer participates in SL. Whether they've completely pulled out (such as the dead web site issue mentioned earlier) or if they simply do not support the products sold under their name, the purchase made by both A and B above are fraudulent sales.

Why fraudulent? Because Linden Lab knows (or should know in light of them being the only ones in possession of the last log on date or activity for the seller's account). The fact that they hide (do not make available) such basic details means they are also actively engaging in fraudulent sales. It can be readily argued that they acted (or did not act) simply for the purposes of increasing their own income.

We are no longer in the realm of ethical vs. illegal; we are squarely in the realm of illegal activity. They performed a financial transaction between two parties with full knowledge that one of those parties was acting fraudulently. As the party with fiduciary responsibility, they are responsible TO both parties to ensure BOTH parties are acting in good faith. Failure to support a product by the Seller is bad faith on the Seller's part. And Linden Lab knows that. They know it because they are in sole possession of the information that proves the lack of good faith on the Seller's part.

That Sole Possession of full knowledge is the factor that will net their lawyers more fees. Any intermediatary to any form of financial transaction is liable for certain assurances and must make specific disclosures about both parties involved. If a real estate agent knows that the Seller of a house is acting in bad faith, and even though they are legally representing the Seller (which in some states in the USA is how the law works) .. they are STILL required by law to disclose this knowledge to the Buyer.

Are purchases on Marketplace "financial transactions"? Customer A may not be able to prove it in light of their use of L$ coupons. But it can be easily defended that coupons offer no protection and no advantages over using real money (such as the purchase by Customer B). Just as you purchase tokens and chips at a casino, you purchase L$ coupons in order to participate in the activity offered. In light of the fact that there is no other currency provided in-world, the L$ wall is immediately and easily pierced.

LL knows beyond any doubt who is selling fraudulently on the Marketplace. They are the sole possessors of that knowledge. They withhold that information for the purposes of accepting financial rumuneration .. and only that purpose.

And THAT .. is Fraud .. in its cleanest and clearest definition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 3018 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...