September 18, 2007 by Nobody Fugazi
Posted in
I caught a comment on my KnowProSE.com entry about Landbaron Merlin (last one presently on the page) which deserves some attention. Being buried in the comments there does it no justice; I contacted Jezebel Bailey and she agreed to it.
I spoke with her about it, and will add some commentary afterward. Here's her story as she wrote it:
Poof your land is gone!
Submitted by Jezebel Bailey on Tue, 09/18/2007 - 19:18.This is in reply to all of the above. Apparently, Merlin has switched names and now operates under the name of Celene Berringer. How do I know this? Because I am one of, if not, THE latest victim of an antiquated security system to protect real people who invest real money into a "game" and who are investing real time trying to be a contributing factor to all they come in contact with.
In my case I have (had) a business partner who suffers from dyslexia. Although he is a very smart man, it takes him a bit longer to pick up things because of the way his brain translates. We owned a club on about 45,000 sq m of land. Thank God there was a sim crossing the middle so the land could not be "connected" or it would have been even worse. While showing my partner how to sell group land, as he was the largest land contributor, I set the parcel to 1L. Not intending to sell, only intending to teach him. He was standing right in front of me. I set it said ok now buy. To late it was gone. TWO seconds is all it took to lose 22,112 sq m of land. When trying to contact the "bot" owner who if you look at her profile now has a be nice or else on it. She refused notecards from friends refused to return the property refused everything and informed my partner he could buy the land back for 6.5L per sq m. To make matters worse this was business land. We had an up and coming live event club with many events scheduled encluding an artist galleria and a 2 runway fashion event to be held within the next 2 months. The Fuzzy Navel was trying very hard to be a contributing factor in the SL world.
In 2 seconds it was gone. Everything. The new remodel of the building to the wonderful 30x20 dance aquarium. Four months worth of sweat and work to someone who had no sense of moral gumption to try to understand or return what they so blatently took.
What was I told when I tried to get help from the Lindens? All sales are final.I wonder how much this person who they protect with such useless statements contributes to the economy of Second Life? Or is that person a Linden themselves?
The bitterness that I personally feel towards Linden Labs will not stop here. I have the San Francisco Chronicles Web producer coming into to SL to listen to and learn of other such cases and the response we have given.
I want the unsuspecting INNOCENT people of SL to be aware of landbots and how easy it is to lose any or all of an investment that keeps the Lindens living a life most of us dream of.
If any one out there wants to be heard please please email me. One voice cannot do anything but if we stick together and I get enough support the producer of the San Francisco Chronicle will come in.
On the flip side of this, to get our land back and our business back up and running a very very near and dear friend who has helped out others as well I have since read, purchased the property back from the Voom sisters who unwittingly bought it from this Celene person.
Thai Racer turned the land over to us and said we will work out the payback later, right now get your club built.
We are also going to be having a benefit with live singers such as Ish and Neekie Lednev, Shantu Selene, Kelvinblue Oh, and more. The date has not been set yet. The benefit itself is to assist in recovering some losses of the 133,500L Thai paid for the land and to "Make some Noise". The Lindens need to know that the people who keep their economy going are the ones being taken. I will be posting and sending out notices as we gather the backup necessary to be successful in our undertaking.
If you have any questions, please, contact ~ Jezzie.Bailey@gmail.com .
Thank you,
Jez B
It is uncertain whether Landbaron Merlin and Celene Ballinger are the same person - only [w:Linden Lab] would know, and they have been as helpful as they have always been in situations like this. In speaking with Jezebel, she told me that they lost their business - her partner is so disheartened after everything was autoreturned that he doesn't want to rebuild (at least now) - especially after buying back the land for 133,500 L. That is US$481 or so.
That isn't chump change.
What I noted here is that unlike the bots of Elanthius, at least when I was dealing in mainland, he didn't sell the land right after buying it. Celene Ballinger apparently sets the land for sale immediately. That is all permitted with the Terms of Service. Linden Lab permits it. And it is one of the most disgusting things that Linden Lab allows to happen to honest people.
And all you have to do is buy a bot from someone these days and have a lack of scruples. Linden Lab responses always blame the user rather than the land interface or the lack of education on the interface - and they certainly do not say anything derogatory about landbots. Even when I was researching Making Your Mark in Second Life: Business, Land, and Money, I was stonewalled and then railroaded to Lewis PR which then copied and pasted from the website1. It is sickening, and is basically why I left mainland. If land losses such as this were tallied up, I could easily see $100,000 US cropping up - or more - over the last year. In one week, I saw people net about $10,000 US in losses. Sickening.
Could Linden Lab do something? Sure they could. Plenty of people have suggested things to them over the years, but... it just isn't that important to them, it seems. And it also doesn't seem to be too interesting to the mainstream press. Maybe eventually the press will put some pressure on Linden Lab about this. Or maybe some lawyers. Linden Lab does seem to pay attention to press and lawyers... not too much residents, though.
Otherwise, things are absolutely wonderful in the metaverse... right?
1 I actually have information on dealing with the land interface in the ebook, as well as tips on avoiding ad farms. I got burned a few times myself with landbots and ad farms.
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Where do you find these hapless dopes?
This has gotta be the bitchiest, whiniest blog out there.
I don't know who's more clueless, the schmoe who is the victim here, coming up with some cockamamie excuse of dyslexia, or you, for falling for obviously exaggerated sob stories, again and again...
Take away any exaggeration,
Take away any exaggeration, and anything You feel is sob like. What Your left with is still someone making a human error or a LL bug, and someone who preys on and profits from the mistakes of others. No matter how You look at it, If You have any ethics at all, just the slightest little concern for others, and You know that it's dirty business. Go ahead and ad me to Your Schmoe list, and I'll be sure to ad You to the uncaring ass who just insults without making valid points list. Whats Your name again? Oh yea, Anoymous...
Thanks for commenting.
If Linden Lab actually even acknowledged the issue, I'd probably have less passion when posting about it. But hey, I'll stick my name on it because I stand behind it.
If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. :-)
I linked this up to the
I linked this up to the official forums. Theres some interesting, although not the most understanding views.
Well...
those with little to risk are always brave.
I like this line, I may
I like this line, I may quote it
A lot of truth to that.
Hmm.
That was off the cuff. I think it would be better to write:
'Those with little to risk always appear brave.'
After all, it takes risking something to demonstrate whether someone is brave or not.
I'm not sure which is worse,
I'm not sure which is worse, knowing this is Merlin, or the fact there are 2 ultra greedy pukes hurting people on this level. Now lets see all these dirty S.O.B.'s who defend bots to the death say how taking advantage of someones disability error is perfectly acceptable because "hey, it's not against the TOS, so all is good!"
They can't do it on estates.
I think it would be poetic justice if Linden Lab, the landbots and the ad farms all have to park it on all those new sims. I really do. I left mainland before I got angry enough to carve a 65,536m sim into 16 m2 chunks.
I never looked back once I got the island and started renting space from you for the store. But as Jezebel pointed out, no one mentions this level of aggravation and financial loss in any of their writing - especially the published writing. They seem to hide it. I did mention it, which is probably why I'm not featured on a Linden Lab site - but that is perfectly ok with me too, and I really mean that. I wouldn't want to be associated with a company which allows their residents to suffer this way. It is no wonder that some people have postulated that some of these landbots are run by Linden Lab employees. I don't buy into that, but where the rubber meets the road there is - unfortunately - space for that theory. But Linden Lab doesn't even seem to care about that.
You were out there with me, Sarah, you saw what happened with Lucreza Ah and the poor German lady who crashed while pricing land. You were out there before me, too.
I just changed my personal rules since Linden Lab wouldn't change theirs. That is really the only situation until someone can convince Linden Lab that they are enabling this sort of nonsense... and that enabling it is not good.
Solution?
What is it you would expect Linden to do? Step in and take a side when someone decides they weren't serious about a sale?
There have been suggestions.
A grace period before listing a plot of land in search results is one.
Also, modifying the Terms of Service a little is not beyond the question. If 1 person complains, it means nothing. But when you see a lot of people complain about the same person, maybe it is worth looking into.
Finally, I know when I was dealing in mainland that there was a glitchy interface. Lets not forget >what Cory said:
A lot of people have claimed to have had land listed at prices which were not right, among other things. These statements by Cory do allow for problems with the transaction system which could benefit bots.
So - in answer to you - no.
ServMe Nakamura
This is really bad, and makes me wonder or state a few things :
1. if land is set for sale to a specific person, even at L$1, how can it be bought by someone else? Is that a flaw in the system that is being abused?
2. LL doesn't seem to care because these stories remain under the main radar and the people it happens to are one fish in a very large pond. Unless it really starts affecting LL PR, I don't see them changing stance on it.
3. Whenever land is snagged in this way and resold, two or three people may end up with high (or higher) tiers, which ultimately benefits LL.
4. It is not against TOS is a lame cover because scanning the land for user or system errors by landbots will definitely have an impact on the LL systems and could be seen as resource abuse. Which - I didn't go check the TOS for it, that I admit - probably is against the TOS. So they can take action if they want to. However, see 3.
In response...
1. Not sure the land was actually set to be sold to anyone in particular, was it? I think maybe it was just set for sale at L$1.
3. I don't think Linden gets ahead this way - while the new landowner's tier will increase, the seller's tier will 'decrease', so it's possible Linden's income will remain the same?
4. As we've seen this week, LL has no problem revising their TOS whenever it benefits them, so we can't rely on that to resolve anything, hehe.
At any rate, back in early July I had a neighbour get nailed by "Celene Ballinger" and he tried the whole "being nice or else..." and sending a notecard explaining the mistake he made in listing the land for sale.
And as one might expect, of course Celene did not reverse the sale.
~ Wrath
Tier
'3. I don't think Linden gets ahead this way - while the new landowner's tier will increase, the seller's tier will 'decrease', so it's possible Linden's income will remain the same?'
Actually, peak tier is done monthly, so depending on the sale time it is very possible that Linden Lab will charge both parties tier for the same land. Think about it.
'4' - right on.
Poof your land is gone!
No whining, maybe some bitching, but unlike people who won't even say who they are, I am doing something about it. At least doing what I can so that maybe we can make a difference to the next person this happens to. Sunday Oct. 7th on the Dream Land sim we will be having an all day benefit ft. Louis Volare, Shantu Selene, Ish and Neekie Lednev, Kelvinblue Oh, and more. I will be selling some "Raise Some Noise" T-shirts and have a few give aways.
As far as the dyslexia is concerned, everyone who knows Jamer knows he has it.
This has already happened to me and my partners. It is for the next person I care about. Nothing will ever get changed if people don't care enough to try, and many have tried before me. I am not doing it alone, I have alot of support and volunteers and we all know that it may not happen this time...not even next time...but if we keep plugging away at it...it WILL change one time.
For the few of you that know it all, maybe we can send new land buyers your way to be educated on the ways their land can be taken away before they can blink.
I will be posting more on the event as we get closer to the date, for those of you who would like to come and be heard, donate, or just listen to some good music with some good friends.
Jez
a note aside ~ With the rare exception, I have met some of the kindest most giving people in SL, that I have ever met in my life. People I am proud to call my friends and who have shown me and my partners just how very lucky we are. That is priceless, and even the Lindens can't glitch that away.
Celene Berringer
*Error in the name Celene Berringer. It is Celene Ballinger. NOT Celene Berringer.