Or Not: Con Artist Scheme in Second Life Gacha World

          I am so trusting and I expect the good in people. I am always floored when I see blatant evil in others. As I blogged yesterday...

   
      I am so trusting and I expect the good in people. I am always floored when I see blatant evil in others. As I blogged yesterday, I opened up a new gacha re-sale store. It was actually kind of hard because there are about 44 yard sale places that I know of and many of them were all fully rented as far as the shops go and I had decided that I wanted more than a table (which I also already had). I wanted a little bit bigger place. So after hunting around, I came across Drakes' Public Gacha Car Boot owned by FDrake Resident.

     When I found it, it was already pretty full and almost completely rented. However they had just built a whole new section and I thought I was getting lucky because I found it when there were still a lot of shops open. I rented that day and by the next day the entire new section was fully rented as well. As I said yesterday, Gacha addiction, Gacha resellers, and yard sales are all over SL.

     I was all excited about my new little "thrift store." I made a cute shabby chic logo indicative of me and who I am: girly and a lover of pink. I filled up my store and blogged about it too. Today I logged in to nothing (see picture above) and was at the bottom of an empty sim drowning in the ocean. The owner of the yard sale apparently returned everyone's items en-masse without any notice and abandoned the land running off with a whole lot of monthly rent and donations that renters had just paid for a few days previous.

      To those of you that tried to visit and ended up at the bottom of the ocean, I am truly sorry. I was conned. I did not intentionally send anyone to an empty sim! I had readers send me IM's like this one:

"Hello, I am one of your devoted blog readers. I was so excited about your Gacha Shoppe, but I've tried the tp 3 times now and I am drowning in the middle of nowhere lol Help me Help me!"- kallieme

I also had similar comments left on my blog post also. Again, I am sorry and thank you for supporting me!

      As I sat in the bottom of the ocean almost like a fish with my mouth agape, I realized that this was most likely an intentional con artist scheme. My fellow renters reported that they believe they caught this same avatar in an alt attempting to open up another yard sale location the very same day. I heard they went over there in angry mob style and the place is closed already. No doubt this particular individual will probably just try to open up another place, but I am hoping that the Gacha re-sellers are a small enough group that we will figure it out and expose him. He will hopefully need to move onto another con scheme. That (and the fact that I am mad as a hornet) is why I am blogging about this. Someone that is doing something so shady needs to be exposed!

   Drake writes in somewhat broken sentences with that characteristic ellipses pattern where one never finishes a thought and always has something more to say. He is from the UK and on voice chat he speaks with a British accent. I had one person report to me that it was very cockney and not refined and another who reported that he was always well spoken when she conversed with him. Both ladies at least agreed on the British accent. He is a heavy smoker and coughs a lot on voice.  He seems to have an army of alts that he has in reserve so they are not newly made and not as obvious. This kind of activity seems to be something he has planned for and works hard at achieving so he can con as much money out of Second Life residents as possible before moving onto his next scheme.

     Possible avatars of this same person: FDrake Resident, Jamesbryon1 Resident, and z28m Resident. If you know of any others or this blog post makes you suspicious of someone, please leave them in the comments. The best offense against crime is a good defense, knowledge, and good people looking out for each other. So be cautious when you rent! I suppose that I am looking around for another shop now, but I have an awfully bad taste in my mouth. (I promise that I will get back to fashion and my normal modus operandi next post!)

Kirsten Corleone

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7 comments

  1. Check out the yard sale on a SIM called, The Foundry. I've known the SIM owners since 2008. Mellifera Szondi has been a friend, employer and/or landlady of mine for all of these years. Some of the best people. They own a full SIM and two homesteads.

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  2. Wow, I am totally floored by this kind of behavior and I am so sorry you had to go through this. There are plenty of good gacha resale places out here that have been around for some time, mine included. I hope one person's wrong behavior doesn't ruin it for all the rest of us.

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  3. I'm sorry for your experience. My husband and I opened up Wildthorne Gacha Plaza. The mall is already fall, but we have plenty of tables and some carts left in the lovely courtyard. We have owned our sim for some time and are very stable. We do not rely upon our renters to cover our costs. We also believe in living our lives by the Golden Rule. Just thought I'd also give you some hope - there are good people out there. :)

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  4. Thank you everyone! I have received all kinds of nice comments and IM's. I have had readers IM me and offer to make me a store on their land free of charge, even those not in the Gacha mall business. While flattering and very appreciated, I just want a cute store in a well established Gacha yard sale sim. I went looking again and every one I went to was full. So if anyone knows of one, please let me know. Thank you! Kirsten Corleone

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  5. He's now going around the gacha groups. This was posted in Gacha Addicts Trade and Chat: -

    [07:45] z87m Resident: now your all happy i left gacha and lost my land after paying back poeple that i could afford to great friendly gacha poeple
    [07:52] z87m Resident: those who have been stalking me since drakes went
    [07:53] z87m Resident: well ya cant stalk me now im homeless lol
    [07:59] z87m Resident: one thing i did learn while i was in gacha .. is all those people just in it for massive profits buying cheap then adding over a 1k to the price lol
    [07:59] z87m Resident: now thats ripping people off
    [08:00] z87m Resident: and will sooner or later kill gacha market just like breedables
    [08:00] z87m Resident: greed greed greed
    [08:02] z87m Resident: now go read tos on big land groups about renting if you leave after renting you dont get a refund .


    Mmmm but if you rent out land then run off with money, you too have broken TOS! :P

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  6. Pixie Ruby: Hey i read your blog earlier.. I am in several gacha groups and someone is saying that he refunded everyones money who said something to him.. IDK how true that is ( I did not rent from him)...Hopefully you can get your money back

    I have not gotten any money back. Have any of you guys? I don't know how to contact this individual because he seems to be hopping around alts as far as I can tell. Some of you seem to be stalking him though (GO YOU!), rofl!
    Kirsten

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  7. as i stand here at a store called Hiatus..which has gacha machines in it, i've paid 100L and recieved nothing though the gacha i've paid has a tattoo from a style card for a shape i purchased on it....wtf....

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