Giving estate owners absolute power over those who buy land on their estates often leads the to inevitable result: estate owners abusing and defrauding those they sell land parcels to.

Linden Labs knowingly aids and abets these con men and women who find the SL land system easy pickings. Linden Labs knowlingly receives a portion of money stolen from defrauded land buyers in the purchase payments and monthly fees it receives from crooked estate owners.

Land buyers should be protected, and their land only confiscatable in the event of nonpayment of tier fee.

The current private estate land parcel system will prevent any deep pocket corporation from acquiring Second Life. As it stands the Second Life business model depends on creating an attractive environment for criminals and then sharing in the proceeds of their crimes.

A look at the map shows our island has now been renamed Azqua (yes, Azqua with a Z) and reparceled, apparently to be sold to another bunch of unsuspecting victims.

I say apparently because we all must speculate as to what is going on. Almost a dozen of us immediately formed a group and filed abuse reports with SL and have continued with follow up inquiries, but to date the Lindens have seen fit not to respond to any of us in any way.

What makes this particularly ugly is the fact that Hispaniola was marketed to virtual homebuyers as a kind of Gay Paradise. The estate owner TJ Melnik deliberately established himself in the SL gay community, even going on virtual dates with me before I purchased land on his SIM.

A current glance at TJ Melnik’s profile, under “Picks,” describes Hispaniola. Curiously, at the bottom in the box containing the island’s location coordinates appears the name Giel Writer. Giel Writer’s profile shows him to be the sole member of a resident’s group called “Giel’s Isle.” Is Giel Writer the new owner of the SIM, or an alternative avatar of the original owner?

We don’t know if we have been the victims of a scam or if our estate owner simply didn’t pay his bills to SL. We don’t know if he is reselling land we paid for, or if SL is doing that without any thought of returning our land to us, or compensating us from the proceeds of its sale.

What we know for sure is that a community of gay guys had our home taken away and a couple of thousand bucks stolen from us. We know that the company that set up the system making that possible is not talking to us, nor apparently doing anything to prevent what looks like the imminent recurrence of the same situation.

Great post – Virtually blind !

Rgds
Locutus

See my commentary here for my views on the matter.