Anya Ristow

Yes. This one, at least, does not appear to be part of the end-of-the-month purge/binge. These appear to be islands she's already paid tier on and doesn't want to pay tier again. That is, these are being dumped and she's trying to get *something* for them.

That theory would be shot to hell if she buys more next month.

Autumn Osterham

It's a standard region transfer ad. As was said, when the due dates get closer the price should go down because the transfer loses value with less time left on tier. The date given is the tier due date to LL.

__________________

Anya Ristow

More info on this particular seller...

These ads seem to be on behalf of a free-to-join in-world group called Full Transfer - Private Regions, founded by Bell Joubert of Bell Estates.

FWIW The Bell Estates groups are founded by someone named Bell Estates (bell.bellestates). I had forgotten that LL sells custom names. I had assumed it was more expensive than most are willing to pay.

Anya Ristow

Since this didn't turn out to be an example of someone selling newly minted islands, we're still left with trying to explain the purge/binge behavior:

It's apparently cheaper to dump an island at the end of the month and buy a new one at the beginning of the next month than it is to pay tier at the beginning of the month.

My theory is still that there's no setup fee and tier for the first partial month is free.

It can't simply be that setup is free and moves aren't, because that could happen any time during the month. Unless for bulk customers setup *can't* happen in the middle of the month. Is there data to suggest that?

ETA: Another possibility...moves are free once per month for bulk customers.

ETA2: And still un-addressed is how some estates rent below cost.

Couldbe Yue

a slight digression

if you buy an island the set up fee includes the first month's tier (paid in advance - unlike mainland which is paid in arrears). If they waive the set up fee then by default they're waiving the tier too. I'd say it was highly unlikely that LL put any resources into amending the software that is used to purchase islands to separate the two out - at best I'd say they created a flag that stops certain accounts being charged the set up when they buy them - or they contact LL direct and LL does the set up manually.

my assumption is that the landholders who benefit from this were once part of the atlas programme and therefore are large landholders. I'd say you'd be unlikely to be able to get any more information than is out there because they already undercut because of the grandfathered estates and any tier reduction they get for such large holdings. They're not going to reduce their profit any more than they have to.

If I had 100+ regions I'd certainly expect a reduced/no setup fee for further purchases and would expect a substantial tier reduction (actually I'd be looking for a sweetener if I had 10 or more but that's me). Fairness towards smaller estates just doesn't come into it.

__________________

Anya Ristow

Not at all a digression. It's a perfect explanation for what we see happening.

Daniel Regenbogen

But that is exactly what LL did at last years "no setup fee promo" - regions "bought" in that promo did not come with first months tier included (so it wasn't a 1000 dollar discount but just a 705 dollar one). First months tier was due on the day of the "purchase".

Couldbe Yue

I didn't realise that. Now that is interesting as it suggests that they have an extremely (well, for LL) sophisticated bit of software there and it's unlikely that it was built specifically for that one promotion.

hmmm

Anya Ristow

Okay, maybe...

The people who bought an island in the sale have their tier due on the day-of-the-month the thing is set up for them...right? Easy to implement. The setup fee is $705 (reduced to $0 for the sale) and tier is $295, due immediately. Nothing new or temporary to implement, other than changing $705->$0 in some field, and then back again at the end of the sale.

The large estates, which apparently have their tier due for all islands at the beginning of the month, have to have their first partial month's tier pro-rated for new islands. They've paid zero for the setup for some time already, and are upset with LL for erasing that benefit, even temporarily, so LL responds by saying they won't bother calculating pro-rated tier anymore. A new benefit, also easy to implement.

linkin Slate

Is there a way to see % of new sims coming online that payed a setup fee?

linkin Slate

It seems to me all these posts, are tipy toeing around the idea, if deals are being made to some and not others. I belive we all belive thats true. The Qestion then is why ? Why hand all this power to certain groups ? its like a bank that can print its own money and charge interest .
I may be wroung, but i look at it like this,its kinda like back in beta, we payed for our accounts like 150 usd .After when they went live and offered free accounts, they had to come to agreements with those that payed to have account , they gave life time accounts, cuse the payment counted as ownership.
I see the 1000 setup fee as the same thing, that there working at not to have to deal with, it implies a sence of payment, ownership.
Now a full auto-mated system where you pay your monthly sim fee and cancel when done i see as there goal no set up fee a pure rental system there full owners ,LL that is.
I see this as ,there slowly waiting for most of the sims to be changed over ,owned by the larger land owners, with no setup fees for some of them right now , allows them to recoop losses,
Hey , ya i might be wroung, but LL is all about profits and auto-mation,there not given some group deals unless they have reasons.or goal, they cut educational discounts, you think there going to do that and then line some larger landholder groups pocket ? dont think so .

Mrs Chung

Since 20 individual owners of estate sims, own 35% of the estate sims, Linden Lab caters to them. That LL gives them sims with no set up charges, and obviously no tier to pay for the first month, LL considers this to be to their own advantage in some way. However, such privileges are given out even to only a few in these top 20. One could go crazy trying to figure out which privileges some or all of them have.

The end result is this: small and medium sized estate land owners suffer for every privilege given out to the top x estate land owners. LL does not care, nor do those to whom those priveleges are given. That is the bottom line.

__________________
I am no relation to, or, in any way connected to, 'them.'

Couldbe Yue

if they do own 35% and are paying around 150 pm per region then they're generating over 1 mil per month (at an average tier price of 150usd per region - to account for homesteads) to ll and that's from only 20 estates. Is it any wonder they get sweetheart deals?

The savings LL makes on customer service (ok, we know they don't actually give anyone service but let's pretend) alone would make it reasonable to give them a substantial discount to encourage them.

Beebo Brink

Working with a few customers who deal in volume is always more desirable for a company than hanving to deal with hundreds of customers with small accounts.

It's not exactly comparable, but the company I work for offers reduced hourly rates for customers who buy large blocks of customer support time. A small accounts customer who buys a block of 15 hours pays the top hourly rate for support developers, whereas a customer who buys a block of 300 hours will pay a much reduced hourly rate. Although there is a posted price list for these differences, individual companies may work out a custom pricing agreement based on the totality of the work they are bringing to us.

This makes business sense. It's not a comfortable fact for small customers of any kind to deal with, but "fair" is not much of a match against "bottom line."

__________________
Noob: "okay.... im in a house with cages and people in gags and the door just locked and i cant get out :c"

Anya Ristow

That's a more interesting question than it appears on the surface. No, there's no way to tell who paid a setup fee, but if by that you mean can we get a count of those brought online for the largest estates vs the rest, I suppose there is.

What would that tell you? It might tell you the largest are holding ground (or even growing) while the rest are shrinking. Let's take a look...

5000 estate survey June 26, 2011 (total 24380 private estates reported a few days later):

5000 estate survey July 1, 2012 (total 22627 private estates reported same day):

2011: 29.4% of 24380 = 7168 regions (17212 for everyone else)
2012: 34.8% of 22627 = 7874 regions (14753 for everyone else)

Difficult to compare since they rename/combine/split, but it appears "the top 20 landowners" have made 9.8% gains over the last year while the rest saw 14.3% losses.

linkin Slate

Well the reason i ask about the % paying setup fee's is , at this point any one that would pay 1000 set up fee is wasting there money if the large land groups are not paying it and there is enuff private sims for sale i would think any one paying 1000 usd for set up should be 0 %. over all percent should be really low. and for LL to have allowed to give up this cream of money flow they must have a perpose and over all plan is all im saying.

linkin Slate

I my self im down to my 1 grandfathered in sim. so im content in my current state. but im compelled to state, for some reason my 2 cents.
This 1000 setup fee is important in the chain of events . up till now the set up fee is what gives the land barren its place. in the land game. putting sim land out of reach from the common person. really think about it if sims can be got with first months rent and then cancel when your done with it. what perpose would a land barren serve ?
Last year we seen the LL sale of sims with no set up fee. this was a test. i think most have really over look there perpose in this, was it really a failure as most have seen it ? maybe from a land barren point of veiw.
I belive its there plan to remove the set up fee. And without this fee a more auto-mated rent and return system for the sims,Sad to say this kinda removes the land barren from the system, the problem being is back to this 1000 set up fee. you cant just cut this off with out law suits,we are talking about 10's of millions in set up fees payed so far.
But with the tools at hand right now allowing top land holders to have no set up fee's, and allow rental of lands below cost, in time will force alot to give up there sims, if i can rent a hole sim lower then my fee's directly to linden labs wouldnt i do just that ? isnt that the current events that we are seeing with in the land markets ?
Some of you are saying the lindens dont care who there give these deals to, im sorry but i belive this is a lie or at lest untrue, lie seems like to strong of words.
I would say these top land onwers that are getting the big deals know whats coming, and are getting these deals to recoop money invested with set up fee's,and also being used as a tool to cycel out ,or better worded push out those that paid set up fee's.
Like i said this is my 2 cents and about worth that also

linkin Slate

Another way to look at this is also, Once those groups accepted the no setup fee's, they basicly made a agreement , (knowingly or unknowingly) that there sims now have no real value, the only reason we sell a sim is to recoop the setup fee,that is what give value to the sim, with out that it has no value.
Understanding that, understand how that effects those that payed and asign value to there sims, in time you will have a devalueing, witch we are seeing.

Marcusgay Lefevre

Alright, here it goes:

I cannot reveal any mystery about estate owner who receive advantages for bulk purchases, nor i am able to present real proofs where Bunny Claven & Co. got her regions from.

But i did have some exciting 48 hours and i was asked by several people to publish the results which i will do here. The relevant logs i will not post here, but provide the google doc url. I don`t want to spam Tyche`s thread with it, as its only on a low level regarding to her thread.

Some of you may have figured yet, i sent my alt to Bunny`s regions and contact her to start renting a region from her, for the advertised rate of 14999L$. Besides that most of her regions for sale/rent did have public access turned off and it took her, respective her alt Trixie which she logged to show me land, about 20 minutes to fix this

While talking to her, she assured me, my tier would remain at 14999L$, no additional costs, etc pp, all fine there.
My alt has the mission to keep the region, to see what happens, i don´t mind..., maybe i learn building on there while waiting to see what happens with the region.

After she left it took about 2 hours and my alt got a visitor on his new land and she IM`ed him. I´ve promised not to share her name. She sent me a chat log between her and another resident who rented from Bunny.

You can read the chat here, Resident 2 is the person who IM my alt.

Chat Log 2 Renter of Bunny Claven

The log is edited as i promised not to share their names.

The mentioned new owner of the transfered region, Katya Dirval/Weezles Estates, is well known to me, i think i know her some years now even, and she were most helpfully about this story, when i IM her about, and i also know she helped the residents to understand what was happening here. My thanks to her here, as i know she`s going to read it.

The mentioned BDK Estate, where the tier office was located, was the region i mentioned in my 1st comment to this story two days ago, region Yucatan, which belongs to RGF Estates Land Holdings, rented by German Land Holdings and subrented through BDK Estates. When we discovered Bunny`s/Trixie`s tier office two days ago, i asked our reseller, GLH, to ask BKD to remove the office and to reclaim the parcel. Thats why the parcel was deeded to BDK Estates.

The 2nd part in this story of past 48 hours went not that good for me, as i suddenly saw me personally accused to participate in Bunny`s/ Trxie`s scam.

1st i got contacted by a former RGF customer, who informed me, that apparently one or even 2 of my employees at RGF Estates most likely have a connection to the whole thing, via Jim Estates, where LadySmack Gears work(ed) as General Manager, and last week appeared to be working for Bunny/Trixie too.

The provided chatlog below was sent to me a couple hours later from another direction. It was edited by the sender before yet and no mod for me.

Chatlog X & Y

In this chatlog RGF Estates, Master S&M Estates and i get accused to be part of this scam or least to support it. I do know very well who spread this rumor, although no names were told. Usually i do not care about rumors at all, but here it is 1st time in my time as RGF Estates Director i get involved public.

Therefor i publish here an official statement from RGF Estates, Master S&M Estates and me personally, written by me.

It is very long and maybe hard to read, since my english is not the best though.

Official Statement from and about RGF Estates, Master S&M Estates and Marcusgay Lefevre

If i can`t stand one thing..., then it is when people with low knowledge mean to reveal unproved rumors to people who tend to believe and to spread further. It`s part of SL as well as RL though... some characters seem to be that way.

Meanwhile i also met the mentioned employee, Lorac, and i had a talk with her, to figure her role in all that. She allowed me to share the chat log and assured me to be available to me but also for everyone, to answer questions if any open. Below the chatlog, almost unedited, but i had to remove 1 name, as it regards to the former customer who IM me about same thing before.

Chatlog with Lorac

I do have very certain reasons why the converstation/meeting ended like it did. Some of you probably would have expected another ending. But..., i don´t fire anyone about unproved rumors.

Further i had a talk with LadySmack Gears when i figured she changed her profile text, stating to residents, they better don´t buy with Bunny/Trixie
and appeared to be suddenly on the ban list of my alts just rented region.
I´ve promised not to share the log with her, only i can tell is, that she lost 400US$ about her cooperation with Bunny/Trixie.

Todays morning my alts region didn´t change, EO is still Bunny and my alt land owner, estate manager. The tier office, Bunny told me to go, when i asked where to pay, still does not exist and whole tier office region is for sale, apparently griefed by someone with overhuge prims, allowed by unprofessional land settings...

As result of the past 48 hours:

I do enjoy the discussion here and often i read posts, especially from certain users, as i respect and appreciate the experienced and valuable opinion of most users here.
This certain case i will not comment anymore, nor will i reply to any comment regarding this post now. Still i will continue my investigation inworld and will see what happens to my alts regions. The very most i wish, is that as many people as possible, who made experiences here about, report their cases to Linden Lab and warn others about.

I surely will join other discussions again, when i feel i can help somehow, i.e. by investigating or providing informations.

Apologizes to Tyshe about this long post.

Thank you all, lovely sunday to you...

__________________
Marcusgay Lefevre - RGF Estates Director

Mrs Chung

I guess I forgot option 6: malevolent scammers; but the thought never occurred to me, quite frankly.

Lizard Howl

Short version of the story:

A scammer is renting out sims for 15K/wk, collecting the Ls, then re-renting the same sim within days.

Lesson learned:

Do business with reputable Estates.

If you aren't sure who is legit and who isn't, ask around.

Ask the Estate Owner for referrals, ask your friends for referrals, and use your best judgement.

Also:

Not all that glitters is gold, some of it is just spray painted tin foil.

Ayesha Lytton

I don't actually mind that large and reputable estate owners get some special benefits. I have gotten a few from Atlas, though never discounted tier on new sims. My objection is that the benefits are not disclosed, there is no way for me to find out what I'd have to do to get the specific benefit I might want. This is not a standard business practice either. Most businesses state discount levels up-front to large customers. For example, I used to have a t-shirt business. I got a wholesale license and went to American Apparel to buy blank shirts. They gave me a price sheet with rates for buying by the piece, dozen, or case. Of course the more you buy the cheaper it gets - but I know exactly how many shirts I have to buy to get the cheapest price.

With LL I have no idea how many sims I'd need to own to get a tier discount. If I knew, I could decide whether to aim for that number. Not knowing is unfair and creates a near-monopoly for certain companies. It isn't right.

__________________
Solace Beach Estates: Beautiful Residential & Commercial Land for All Budgets!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Solace%20Beach/193/48/23

Tyche Shepherd

Monday's fall of 110 regions contributed significantly to this weeks loss of 159 regions and like last week all the loss was amongst Private Estates

Total number of Main Grid regions is now 29585 ( 22468 private estates & 7117 Linden owned)
53 new regions were added and 48 returned to the grid, with 269 regions removed (19 were renamed and 0 came and went since last report)


ACS estates had a net loss of 65 regions this week (Azure Islands dropped 23, Jessica Chung 18, Barbie Chung 14 & Miriam Chung 10) whilst Lala Rentals also had a net loss of 13.
On the plus side Weezles Real Estate added 20 regions.

This week also saw the first Class 8 Servers appear on the grid. At this moment in time I don't know their specification, but there are currently 2 of these, 1 hosts Linden Estates, Linden Estates2 & Linden Estates4 whilst the other hosts the Paradisiacal private region. In all cases the server class is listed as 801

Adult rated regions continued to grow,up by 12 to 3542 (12.0% of the grid) whilst General rated regions fell by 5 to 4403 (14.9%)
Breakdown of current regions by Ownership and Classification:

• Estate - Adult: 3189
• Estate - General: 2661
• Estate - Moderate: 16603
• Estate - Offline: 15
• Linden - Adult: 353
• Linden - General: 1742
• Linden - Moderate: 5022

Breakdown of Host Server Classes by Ownership:

• Estate - Class 5: 8819
• Estate - Class 7: 12540
• Estate - Class 8: 1
• Estate - Class Unknown: 1108
• Linden - Class 5: 4448
• Linden - Class 7: 2440
• Linden - Class 8: 3
• Linden - Class Unknown: 226

The 101 new/returned regions are :
ª indicates region which have returned to the grid


The 269 regions no longer on the grid are :

Of these 19 are renames :
Estate groupings going off line

• 1 (n=2): Aerelon,Leonis
• 2 (n=2): Annenberg,Annenberg II
• 3 (n=3): Bismark,Graf Zeppelin,Ravenloft South
• 4 (n=2): Cades Cove,Smoky Cove
• 5 (n=3): candylicious I,candylicious II,candylicious iii
• 6 (n=6): Celebrate,Frolic,Gala,Hoedown,Jamboree,Shindig
• 7 (n=2): Chasspian,Niflheim
• 8 (n=2): Dreamworld Shamone,MJ Kingdom
• 9 (n=2): Elihu Island,Yale University
• 10 (n=2): Frankfurt City,Frankfurt West 2
• 11 (n=2): Hazelnut Beach,Time Line
• 12 (n=2): Horizon Caye,Yadua Island
• 13 (n=4): Monkey Beach,Monkey Surf,Monkey Tail,Syx Monkies
• 14 (n=3): Monkey Cove II,Monkey Paw,Syx
• 15 (n=2): OfficeLink,Threes Company
• 16 (n=2): Saint Kitts,Sands Island
• 17 (n=6): SLSFC5 NORTH,SLSFC5 NORTHEAST,SLSFC5 NORTHWEST,SLSFC5 SOUTH,SLSFC5 SOUTHEAST,SLSFC5 SOUTHWEST
• 18 (n=2): Trade Breeze,Trade Wind

Estate groupings coming online

• 1 (n=4): Hair Fair - Flower,Hair Fair - Garden,Hair Fair - Sand,Hair Fair - Water
• 2 (n=2): Seductive Allure,Seductive Isle
• 3 (n=2): Truk Island,Wake Island

The following 15 regions were on the grid but marked as down when the last survey was run:

• Brasil Rio RPG
• Caraibes Diamond
• DeVry GSP
• Dunes
• EduIsland 4
• Footloose
• Isla Vallejo
• La Bahia
• Land Of Venue
• Luna Maria
• Takutea
• Tangled Couture
• Umatilla
• White Star
• Wizard

__________________

Aribeth Zelin

This is enough to make me want to have all new land procuring adventures be through mainland [the scam, the hidden benefits for the 'big guys' etc.

And yes, Ayesha, you see the same with other wholesale companies - Fire Mountain Gems, if i put in an order, it will tell me how many units before a cost break, and I have taken advantage of it before, its tangible. These under the table deals are actually incentive to just go back to physical crafting, rather than virtual crafting. But every time I mention closing down, I get told to stick with it if I have fun.

__________________
Faerycat Designs In World -Marketplace 1- Marketplace 2

Katya Dirval

That's not the short version of the story, that's making up your own story.

Long story short is this:

A scammer bought cheap sims (or already owned them), put them all up for rent for cheap and as soon as she collected tier she sold the sims (owner transfer through linden labs).

This is how I ended up with some of bunny's sims. I dont have any thing to do with the scam. As most people already know I buy / Sell sims almost every day. I dont check sims as in my eyes a sim is a sim and as soon as I own it I do my thing and dont really care what others used the sim for before me. Just think about this: Renaming / Moving a sim would cost 200 USD .. Why would I try to take 15k (around 60 USD) And then move and rename the sim to cover it up?

But I understand the victim would see me as the evil person asking her to pay rent again while she just paid 15k. Not much I can do about that since I got bills to pay too and nobody paid me anything

And yeah, The rent a sim and get a tenant and boot them and find another tenant is the oldest scam in the book, but that's not what happened here and that's not how I ended up with over 450 sims today.
People doing these shady things are always people who come and go (knowing a ban is around the corner) or plan to leave SL for good due to failed succes and try to grab as much money as they can before someone stops them. So please lets hope LL pulls the plug on these people asap.

Im not sure if anyone has been following the sim transfer ads but bunny seems to go from 4 available sims to 7 for sale again. Either she's still buying more or she still owns alot more (she claims to be extended support which equals a 17 FRE) so I guess she still owns alot more sims. LL wont join in land disputes but I think someone at LL should make an exception here since its very obvious someone is ripping people off on a large scale. People are losing serious money which ends up again in people quiting SL which isnt good for anyone. Not to mention on one of the sims I got from Bunny I found someone who was about to rent a sim from me a few days ago but never showed up again, because apparently she couldnt refuse the 15k weekly deal but now got victim of this fraud. Not only did she lose money but honest real estate owners are losing money as well

Anyways, I try to to stay away from public discussions but I felt I had to leave a reply here to set something straight, not sure if Lizard didnt read or if he tried to bad mouth me on purpose since we had a slight issue in the past. I hope we can move on to the order of the day and stop this drama in Tyche's thread. As I already told Tyche a few times inworld she's doing an awesome job here and I told her I would love to thank her in this thread but prefered to stay away from posting. Now im here I'd love to thank Tyche for her awesome work she does for us every week and I hope we can all enjoy it for many years to come