Recently I’ve been blogging about how Second Life has been generating some good news articles. In this post however, I’m sadly reporting on something that isn’t positive. Sometimes stories appear in the news feed that aren’t current or aren’t what they seem, but I’ve now seen this story in two places.
The Reporter Times inform us : Investigation uncovers alleged land scheme in Morgan County.
Indiana Public News reports : Virtual Land Scam Of Morgan County Resident Leads To Arrest.
The case surrounds a supposed loan of over $50,000 to a man whom promised to invest that money in virtual land in Second Life. The idea was that after two years the loan would be paid back with another $10,000 on top.
Ok I would imagine plenty of us are scratching our heads now, not just about the idea that virtual land in Second Life is a good investment these days but also regarding such huge sums of money being involved here. I say this as someone who is familiar with virtual worlds and how expensive they can be as well as the rewards they can reap.
Secretary of State Connie Lawson is quoted as saying :
We’ve seen a lot of real estate scams, but we’ve not seen a virtual scam like this before, It’s amazing that people want to invest in something like this, but obviously it’s out there, it’s on the web, and people need to be aware.
I’m still scratching my head on this one. However there is gold in them there virtual world hills, it’s just hard to find.
An interesting part of this is where the fraud actually lies. The man allegedly invested some of the money in Second Life, but not all of it. Another issue was that neither the man involved or his product, were licensed and registered with the State of Indiana. Apparently in Indiana all securities or investment products are required by law to be licensed.
What’s interesting about that is, however slowly it may have been happening, real world laws have been catching up with the virtual world and deeming it, to be part of the real world when it comes to rules and regulations. We’ve seen this recently with a man being sent to jail for four months for not fully disclosing his income, some of the income he had not declared had been from Second Life.
Linden Lab have been contacting people over the last couple of years regarding tax and account documentation and whereas this led to much gnashing of teeth, the more we see cases like this the more we can see why it’s in Linden Lab’s and their customers interests to try and ensure their affairs are all above board and open to scrutiny from the authorities.
As for the story I’ve linked to regarding the alleged virtual land fraud, this sort of thing really does not happen very often, certainly not with those figures. However like in any walk of life, always engage with caution when people are selling something, virtual worlds are certainly not immune to people who will chance their arm, we have seen many examples over the years but the vast majority of people are well meaning and have good intentions, don’t let this sort of story scare you away.