by Cynthia Barley, Guest Writer
Location: Utopia
In an ideal world, people would be equal and treat each other with respect. You would instinctively trust others knowing that they trust you the same.

To many people, Second Life is such an ideal world. With the possibility to create a whole new persona that is not bound by your Real Life limitations, it should be possible to live a carefree live amongst equals. Every new resident starts at the same point: with a very simple avatar and little knowledge about this new world. And that’s when the idealistic bubble bursts for many of them. As soon as they start to fill their new persona with “life” by giving your avatar a unique look, clothing style or body language, most residents have to spend Linden Dollars that they got in exchange of “real” money (as real as money is in our world today – see Iggy’s blog). One thing is necessary when buying something in the world of Second Life: trust.

Being ripped off is something that can happen to you very easily. One of my friends bought a new skin for her avatar from a well-known designer and paid 1,400 L$ for it, but never received anything. She looked up the store owner’s profile and followed the instructions she was given there: she wrote a notecard including the relevant details of her transactions history and her contact details. She then gave the notecard to the person in charge of the sales. Nothing happened. She contacted another person and still had no results. She even found an email address that was especially for customer support, but when she wrote an email she got an information from the mail server that this email address did not work. She then checked if she had accidentally “muted” the seller (which means stopping someone from contacting you or sending things your way by putting them on your “mute list” ). It’s been almost a month now and her chances to either get the skin or her money back are decreasing. The two owners of the shop have been online for several times in the meantime as the records of some inworld groups show.

I made several of these unpleasant experiences myself. The discussions in SL forums reveal that there are designers who are known for their horrible customer support. The problem is that many of them have a big market share in SL and therefore can “afford” not to have a good customer support. A few disappointed customers won’t lessen their profits. There is nothing you can do apart from telling others about your experiences and start to boycott their products.

In your daily life, you would have the chance to use your legal rights to get what you paid for from the merchant. But as someone stated in the SLExchange forums: “Welcome to the Wild West mentality of SL: no rules, no laws, LL won’t get involved in resident to resident stuff…”. And this is correct – Linden Labs states in their Terms of Service (5.1.) “You release Linden Lab from your claims relating to other users of Second Life. Linden Lab has the right but not the obligation to resolve disputes between users of Second Life.”

So for every transaction you make in-world, be prepared to show a lot of trust. Trust in the merchant that the merchant won’t rip you off, trust that the vendor is working and trust that the LL server won’t lose your data.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

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