The Alphaville Herald

Con Artist Capitalizes on LL’s Slow Rez Bug

by Pixeleen Mistral on 07/03/07 at 10:05 am

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Monday Beam, ESQ. alerted the Herald that a grifter has been making the rounds among the horsey set. Apparently, a glitch in Second Life causes horses bought from some vendors to fail to appear in the buyer’s inventory until after they log out and then relog into the metaverse. A con artist has been taking advantage of this LL bug – and some unwary buyers – by presenting herself as a horse ranch employee and collecting L$ 750 to help. With horses costing around L$ 2000, some buyers may feel that spending a bit more to recover a missing purchase is warranted.

AKK ranch owners Kristivon Kolache and Spritely Pixel

This con is particularly galling to AKK ranch owners Kristivon Kolache and Spritely Pixel. Mr. Pixel explained, “SL doesn’t always deliver product on time, and you have to relog to get it – this person was basically giving advice we would give for free and follow up on for 750L – and that was to relog”. With the possibility of the wicked preying on the unwary, Ms. Kolache advises Herald readers that, “you need to check credentials anytime someone offers help for money”.

Ms. Kolache told me that she heard another ranch was having delivery problems as well. Apparently the Lindens are aware of the issue – Mr. Pixel said, “I am working with the Lindens and they are being very good about trying to find the [slow rez] problem”.

Mr. Pixel and Ms. Kolache suggest that in the event of vendor trouble, IMing the creator or seller is the best way to get help – “left click and edit the vendor, look at properties in the more section of edit gerneral tab, and find the owner of the vendor, click the profile button and IM”.

This is sound advice – but with the number of less than virtual street-wise residents entering Second Life – and the cursory orientation to commerce in the metaverse provided on the Linden “Orientation Islands” – perhaps some new residents have to learn the hard way. As Ms. Kolache pointed out – at least we don’t have pickpockets in SL.

While I wandered over to pet one of the horses I thought about the pickpockets. WIthout petty crimes such as shoplifting available, are the evil and wicked forced into more cons and scams in the metaverse? How much time will the Lindens really spend on these issues, and what tools do the residents have to combat crime?