Beware Landbaron Merlin: 'Poof and Your Land is Gone' (UPDATED)

Posted April 8th, 2007 by Taran

Update: In the interests of readability regarding donations, new donations as of 10 April,2007 will be put within this entry. The community support has been staggering - thanks everyone!

Some say that Landbots aren't an issue - and I know a few landbot owners who are good about addressing mistakes. But there's one out there now who I have personally lost money to, but tonight something really cataclysmic happened.

Two Italian ladies lost about $2,000 US. To a landbot. To Landbot Merlin. The land was purchased for 25,000L by Landbaron Merlin - the lady who was working with the interface, Lucrezia Ah denies that she confirmed that the land was for sale.

Either way, an obvious mistake was made. 44,832 square meters of land set to sale for 0.5 Linden dollars per square meter is not something one would do purposefully. Most landbot owners would return the land, but Landbaron Merlin doesn't. Instead, he resold to CP Costello, who in turn sold to Sarah Nerd. Chaos Mohr decided to help the ladies out, sell the land for what it was worth and give the ladies the proceeds - the honorable thing to do, for lack of honor in Landbaron Merlin.

The response from Linden Lab's 'Live Help' was that there was nothing that they could do. Indeed, no Terms of Service have been broken.

So now, the land is for sale by Chaos Mohr - you can see it here: Atira (214,127,36). A lot of good people have showed up to help, and have supported not only these ladies but each other.

The proceeds of the sale are to pay the ladies back some of their money... something where the present Terms of Service and Linden Lab have fallen short.

In this case, $2,000 US short.

Plus all the other land sales which weren't intended... 'Poof. Your Land Is Gone'. This is what gives bots a bad name, and something which affects ALL SecondLife users. Where is the response?

I suppose the lesson here is: Don't expect to be allowed human error in SecondLife. You can lose a lot of money rather quickly.

Taran's blog

And more at the SL Exchange forums.

On April 9th, 2007 Taran says:

Take a read at what Chaos had to say here.

When SL prompts you with the

On April 9th, 2007 Shmoe (not verified) says:

When SL prompts you with the dialog display... "Remeber all sales are final" it means that all sales are final.

I do no hold remorse for the parties involved that lost their money as their own stupidity and ignorance to the fact that they did not correctly read and comprehend the screen that lists the exact specifications of the land sale being placed into effect.

Users should be more aware of their actions as it effects them in many ways they often learn the hard way.

However I do not condone nor support the use of landbots it does justly and efficently take advatage of other persons mistakes.

Sobeit lesson learned.

I wonder...

On April 9th, 2007 Taran says:

what if you were prompted in Italian?

Shmoe - if you are, indeed, Shmoe - when you have some experience with selling land, you'll know mistakes happen and that people typically are understanding about mistakes. That you aren't simply means that you think you cannot make a mistake.

Knowing that you could make a mistake that could cost you $2000 US and seek no recourse - tell me, Oh Great Shmoe - would you indeed even bother?

Thanks for the wealth of experience you brought to the topic. Shmoe.

Sobeit lesson learned.

On April 9th, 2007 Honey (not verified) says:

Schmoe 2000 USD was misappropriated

Not a few thousand Linden Dollars

Did you misunderstand that?

Your cavalier attitude is appropriate for only a few thousand Lindens, not for a few thousand USD.

But here is another thing that is bothersome about your post, it is full of typo's while the content seems to imply mistakes are inescusable. Not critisizing the typo's, I am a typo queen, but hey, mistakes are not hard to make, are they?

Whatever, did you log in at all yesterday? There were all sorts of system glitches and anyone with any experience in SL at all knows it's risky, Linden Labs controls the system, or I guess sometimes they don't, and it goes all wacky and you could lose a lot due to that one unexplained glitch. Bot's notwithstanding, Linden Lab should retract the sale as it was probably made in error OF THE SYSTEM. Not of the lady involved, but even if it were her mistake, they should (as flaky as the system is) give her the benefit of the doubt.

Am I missing a trick?

On April 9th, 2007 Ian Betteridge (not verified) says:

Wouldn't a simple solution to landbots be to change all land sales to eBay-style auctions, with reserve prices? Of course, you could then script a landbot to snipe on low-priced land, but unless it met the reserve, there would be no sale.

That's an interesting idea.

On April 9th, 2007 Taran says:

definitely worth thinking about - but that requires Linden Lab to do...

'Merlin' vulnerability

On April 9th, 2007 Han Fei (not verified) says:

Since the profile for 'Merlin' uses the Walt Disney name, has anyone thought to drop a line to Disney's legal department? It won't get the lady's money back, but it would be a pleasure watching the sleazebag being sued into next week by the enthusiastic lawyers of mouseland.

What a thought...

On April 9th, 2007 Taran says:

That would be interesting - especially in the context of DMCA as applied to SecondLife. Plenty of violations there, though the violators are not in the loop.