The Alphaville Herald

Private Eyes For Hire in SL

by Alphaville Herald on 06/02/09 at 7:46 am

by Alessandra Narayan

It all started due to a gap in SL’s service industry – and some resident's need to monitor other avatar's actions – but ended up becoming a profitable business. Now anyone can hire private detective to watch other avatar's moves, following them and filing elaborate. precise reports – a definite benefit for the clients who hire a detective agency’s services.

According to Mercury Madsen, CEO of the oldest corporation in this area – Private Eyes – all the activities respect TOS as well as Linden Labs laws – an important consideration because the residents who usually knock on this company’s doors are those who see SL not as a game but as an extension of their real lives and wish to keep an eye on their partners, either in love, business or both.

Mercury Madsen – Private Detective

Alessandra Narayan (AN) – When did this started? Why?
Mercury Madsen (MM) – I have been into detective work for about two years now in SL. Started with just me in a company called Mercury Heat. Expanded and had around 8/10 agents working for me. Private Eyes was always my rival. Then after about a year I had to sell Mercury Heat due to RL issues. Sorted that after a month and came back an approached owner of Private Eyes who bought PLS and been running ever since.

AN – How many agents you have now?
MM – In between 15 to 20.

AN – How did you come up with this idea?
MM – Right back when I started SL, I saw a gap in the market and decided to advertise…

AN – What do your clients usually ask? What are the classical situations?
MM – Code blue and code green. Observation and surveillance including pictures and chat evidence and regular reports. Clients believing partner is cheating or business partner cheating. Investigation with interaction, infiltration and interrogations to find out an information. Clients believing cheating but needing additional informations.

AN – Those partners are usually just SL or RL&SL?
MM – Mostly SL but some RL. If it’s RL then the situation becomes code black.

AN – Mostly being just SL don't you think it is a bit exaggerated to hire a private eye?
MM – No. There are 2 types of people on here. The first type which see this as a game and the second type who see this as an extension to RL. We have mostly the second type.

AN – Is the business growing?
MM – Yes. Up and downs but generally a steady growth. We have been hit, as many have in SL and RL with the globe credit crunch.

AN – Do you have any RL background on private eye's activities?
MM – No.

AN – Since you have no formation in this area how do you manage to make this a successful company?
MM – SL is a different world to RL. It’s easy to learn approaches and skills needed to track targets and find out info you need. Practice makes perfection and many will say.

AN – Doesn't it sound dangerous knowing that there are people in SL specialized on watching your moves?
MM – Doesn’t that sound dangerous in RL?

AN – Is that your final statement?
MM – We’re here to help keep SL a safe and happy place.

AN – How?
MM – Cheating on partners and coning people is not helping SL – we have the ability to find these people out and report what they are doing. Surely that is helping. All of what we do is within the TOS and that is a key to our agency.

AN – “We’re here to help keep SL a safe and happy place" sounds like a benefactor’s sentence but you're paid for it…
MM – Clients pay for a service as they do to Linden Lab for buying land, owning a premier account, purchasing L$. If we can help on the way then everyone is happy.

AN – Any other projects going on?
MM – Personal Touch. Ever wondered what it would be like to have people working for you like VIPs do? Whether its security protecting you, a personal assistant doing anything you want or a mob that will get the job done, whatever it is. All you need to do is contact us, tell us what you want and we will sort the rest.