Word comes down from the Official Blog that phishers are appearing, offering bargain-basement deals on buying lindens (£, as I refer to them, though I know this is actually the symbol for the pound sterling). Read the actual announcement for the details if you haven’t seen it already, but keep this in mind: if a third party is offering better rates for linden dollars than the LindeX itself, and they’re not a source you know to be trusted, then run, don’t walk, as far away as possible, and notify Linden Lab so they can be tracked down and busted. Besides the reasons listed in their own post, these artists are just plain undermining the economy of the Grid with what are essentially bogus bucks.
UPDATE: 11:41 p.m.:
Eric Reuters gives a deeper coverage of the question in his report from Reuters Island.
UPDATE: 1/4, 1:43 p.m.:
Eric Reuters follows up his above story with another, where the Lab elaborates on the penalty LL is allowed to charge under their Terms of Service Agreement. There was some fear that individuals buying their lindens through the fraudulent exchanges would be the ones penalized, at a rate up to 150% of the value. Eric’s story quotes Peter Gray of Lewis PR, Linden Research’s public relations firm:
“The policy stated at http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/api/risk seems to have caused some confusion… The policy stated at the above webpage is directed at operators of Linden dollar exchanges; if Linden Lab identifies that the operators of these exchanges have purposefully purchased fraudulent L$, Linden Lab may recoup 150% of the amount.”
“To date, this fine has never been levied,” Gray said.
This spells relief to individual Residents, and more so to the merchants who may be accepting the bogus lindens — though they may not be totally out of the swim. Read further down:
Gray downplayed the risk to residents. “Linden Lab has no blanket policy to fine all buyers of fraudulent Linden dollars, and any incident is handled on a case by case basis,” Gray said.
So there could be some degree of risk/retribution from the Lab yet; just not quite as penal as was originally feared.
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