When Saturday morning dawned, Hawk Lightcloud was looking forward to a starting his eighth year in Second Life by buying a full region with two friends. They intended making a beautiful place that would enhance Second Life. He had sold 75% of his Second Life mainland property a few days before and was marking the final two parcels for sale before buying his new region.
That’s when everything changed. This picture shows the result: Hawk has lost his property and is prevented by red ban lines from even entering it.
Hawk got up early, before breakfast, to mark his land for sale, but the moment that he was marking the first parcel for sale, there was a distraction and he marked the sale price as 20 Lindens instead of 20 Lindens per square meter. It was a simple mistake, easily corrected… or would be if a landbot wasn’t lurking, waiting for land to come up for sale cheaply.
Hawk marked the land for sale and then checked to make certain that it was done correctly… and found that the land had already been sold, for 20 Lindens, to a waiting landbot. It was instant. The land was purchased literally the second that it was marked for sale. There was no opportunity to make a correction.
Contacting Second Life support produced no results and filing an abuse report only got an automated response. Frustrated, Hawk put up signs next to the property telling what happened. The owner of the landbot responded by threatening to charge him with harassment.
Hawk is now so upset that he’s not only probably going to cancel buying the full region, he may sell his last remaining Second Life property and cancel his premium membership. It’s been very unsettling learning how easily land can be taken.
Can someone really take $150 land for only eight cents without the owner’s permission? I’ll write more when I know how it turns out.
By way of full disclosure, the reason I know so much about Hawk is that I am Hawk Lightcloud. He is my oldest Second Life avatar, and is the avatar I use for owning land.