You can find this in the land business (land bots, certain unethical mainland slumlords and private estate owners), the content business (copybotted content that gets blacklisted, scripted products that do not work), gaming (games that do not pay out at all/sufficiently to winners(even skill games)), as well as financial businesses. Even charities have had their share of scam artists.

The number one rule of commerce in SL is known in the legal world as ‘caveat emptor’, i.e. buyer beware. Ultimately it is the consumer/investor/player who is responsible for their own decisions about how to spend/invest their own money. That is what freedom is all about: you are free to use your money how you wish, and you are also responsible for the consequences of bad decisions.

Those of us in business can help inform the consumer by creating market-driven industry standards by which people can judge various providers, much as Underwriters Laboratories or Consumers Reports works in the real world. However all the standards and rules in the world, either industry driven or government mandated, wont matter if the consumer refuses to get informed.

All we can do is provide information, it is up to everyone to get informed.

75% of our customer support queries at ACE are generally avoidable if the customer simply reads the notecard that our ATMs give out freely.

There is no such thing as a stock market in Second Life. There is no such thing as a *stock* in Second Life. There is no such thing as an imaginary currency you made up on your own?

These fake companies have no board of directors in the sense of a real publicly traded company, they have no actual independent accountants, no audited quarterly statements, their employees do not pay federal withholding taxes, these so-called publicly traded companies are not registered with the NYSE, NASDAQ, or the SEC.

They have no business model except lulling financially unsophisticated people into giving you Lindens.

People from other countries, whose English may not be the best, come here and get ripped off. Well are they coming back?

This world is full of pyramid schemes, high yield investment fraud, and a myriad of other scams constantly running in Second Life. The Herald should not treat this like it’s “Business” news. This belongs in the Police Blotter.

When you fake bank bastards steal real money it hurts the world – it detracts from the reputation of all businesses, drives away users, and puts our world in legal jeopardy.

The account wipe warning is essentially meant to give Luke the pretext to eliminate massive numbers of liabilities (all those pesky WTFs, for instance, cash deposits, etc). Despite not being in business for 7 months (but having paid approximately US$2100 in tier to LL without revenues to pay for it), Luke invented WIC 20 million to pay a dividend to his WSE shareholders (given he donated his majority ownership of WSE to WTF, that puts all that money in the accounts of people he is going to wipe shortly anyways, so its all a fiction). Shaun of course is keeping his mouth shut in the mean time, as the largest WTF shareholder, he doesn’t want to give Luke any pretext to seize his account.

I’ve even heard comments from some quarters about the benefits of being high up in a ponzi: you get out with your gains so long as more suckers keep coming in…

So this WIC, I dont see him making any effort to get online retailers to accept it for payment for any products… just which world is it the internet currency of?

Protip: Get all your assets converted to WIC before Sept 22nd and get your conversions to USD done asap. When they finally allow cashouts, the WIC is gonna tank like the Zimbabwe Dollar (currently trading at about ZW$ 200 million per USD). The WSE market index has already tanked by over 80%.

I have talked with a number of CEOs who are still listed on WSE, and they are generally looking for their share prices to tank hard so they can buy back their shares cheaply and go private again. The threat of loss of assets is keeping many shareholders from voicing demands for companies to delist from WSE and relist elsewhere.

Basically everybody is being held at gunpoint by Luke and they don’t know what to do about it.

Recommendations: Document your portfolios. Contact an inworld attorney like Little Gray or Ben Djuranske, and take action. Do not let his intimidation efforts work. Luke’s self modified terms of service are not legally valid and he remains subject to RL laws. Any TOS he modified after closing his ATMs last December are null and void legally.

Those who are unable to log in, due to forgotten passwords, etc are not getting the help that WSE claims that it will give all customers – even after various password resets that they try on their own accord. WSE has been TOTALLY and COMPLETELY unresponsive, even though it’s giving inactive users (like the majority of the Ginko people) until the 15th to login or their accounts will be wiped.

WSE needs to get off their collective duffs and provide the customer service that they promise, or they are going to go the same way of Ginko. I certainly would NOT trust them with access to my Paypal account, considering the lack of response or assistance.