Thursday, July 01, 2010

Being aware of scams in Second Life

So, this was originally going to be a post about the new SL Marketplace, but I had just received an IM by someone (you can IM me in game for the name) stating that his main account was suspended, but that he purchased one of my houses on it and asked if I could replace it on his new account.

He sent a screenshot of the purchased screen from xstreet. The page itself only showed that the house was purchased, but I noticed in the URL it has the Item number and the sales number. So I looked up the sales number first, and nothing. So i looked up the item number and it was a free environment sound emitter.

He photoshopped the screen to change the name of the free item to something else (in this case my house) to try and get one for free under the pretense that he had already purchased it on his other account. 

So just want to give everyone a heads up if he or anyone else tries to pull something like this. Make sure you let your friends know about this scam too, so they can make sure they dont get taken advantage.

It's sad that as in real life, there are people who try to take advantage of those who work hard. So, if anyone approaches you in Second Life, asking for replacements, you do have to be careful, and check all information you can, because there are those who WILL take advantage of you.

As for this scam, here is that to look for. This is the url that will show in the picture of the browser window: 
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=receipt&ItemID=203&SaleID=39023779&message=Purchase%2520[...]


Although in the main page, it might say your item name, but this is photoshopped!

The parts that you need to look for is: ItemID=203 and SaleID=39023779. The ItemID is the unique number of the item itself. You can find out what it is by adding that number to the end of this URL: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=
The next part is the SaleID. This is the number from your Xstreet transaction history. The good thing about Xstreet, is its transaction history can go back years, and you can search by transaction history.


So, there is what to watch out for in a scam like this.

3 comments:

Cree Rydell said...

wow.. thanks for the lesson, Gattz!

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