(click here for a raw shot)

I recently tried this new applier from Glam Affair called Mavi, made exclusively for the LeLutka mesh heads. I felt like a perfect mesh doll in it. One of my favorite appliers to date!

Glam Affair does such amazing skins with all sorts of appliers that I decided to login to my male alt, named Manberry, and take him to the Glam Affair sim to check Tableau Vivant. They create a lot of gorgeous skins for men, which I own, so I went to see if they had released an applier for the new SLink Physique male mesh body.

As soon as I landed there, I received an object from a Second Life resident that was only one day old. They offered me some sort of discount object claiming that it would give me 60% off at Glam Affair (the store sim I was on).

I had heard about this sort of thing from other creators on plurk complaining about giftbot avatars sending these kinds of things to their customers as soon as they land on the sims. It’s basically an object and once you wear/attach/rez it, you get this kind of message asking you to give it access to your linden dollars:

What people end up doing is believing they can trust this sort of thing, or perhaps they accept without reading it completely, and then realize that this bot script will steal all of their lindens. This can be quite troublesome for them and also for the content creators that own that sim. Every content creator tries to make sure their customers have a pleasant shopping experience and their sim is a safe place to shop. These kinds of things can make that difficult.

Unfortunately there is not much the content creators can do aside from letting Linden Lab know about the account and banning it from their sim. However, as mentioned in my plurk, it’s futile since these are bots and a new one is created by the culprits within minutes to replace it.

If this sort of thing happens to you, these are the steps that you can take:

Deny/Delete Object: Immediately deny or delete object without attaching, rezzing or wearing from your inventory. Report: File an Abuse Report against that resident/bot right away to make Linden Lab aware of it so they can take the appropriate action. Block: Block/Mute that avatar/bot right away. Inform Sim Owner: It might be a good idea to also let the sim owner know, even though they cannot do much else but ban from the sim.

Most of these bots that you may encounter on popular sims will be named ‘shopsdiscount’ or ‘giftbot’ or something similar. So if you encounter an avatar like that, especially if they are only a few days old, please don’t accept anything from them. However, be aware that the names change frequently, it’s not really the name of the avatar that matters. What matters is the entire idea about this discount/free gift scam that you need to be aware of , watch out for and also tell your friends and family about. We don’t need more people losing money to these scammers.

Hopefully if you ever experience this kind of script asking for permission to access your lindens, you will make sure the source is a legit one and you will read it carefully before accepting because this kind of message and script is used legitimately in certain situations. A few people in my plurk have shared instances in which you may accept giving permission to access your lindens:

If you are a shopper, certain vendors that have shop at home HUDs sometimes require access. If you are a merchant and setup a certain type of vendor, you may need to give access for various reasons such as: to give refunds to your customers in certain situations. For a vendor at an event or rental sharing percentage with landlord. For different charity or partnership vendors. If you are a DJ, perhaps you may need to give access to a tip jar if you are splitting tips with club or host.

So you see, there are certain situations where this kind of script for giving access to your lindens is legitimate, but please keep in mind, if you do not 100% know what this thing is and where it came from and are not entirely certain it is legit: DO NOT ALLOW! It’s just not worth the risk!

A big thank you to everyone in my plurk that helped me understand all of this and guided me on how I should blog about it. Please make sure to share this post with your family and friends so people are more aware and not easily scammed.

If you have any ideas or comments about this scam or want to share your personal experience, please do so in the comments. Perhaps we can all find a way to be rid of these scammers for good! Thank you!

What I’m wearing in the first image:

*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V3.3 by Onyx LeShelle

*Mesh Head: .LeLutka.Mesh Head-Karin by Jadenart

*Skin Applier: Glam Affair Mavi by Aida Ewing

*Eyes: IKON Triumph Eyes by Ikon Innovia (@ ShinyShabby)

Hair: Magika Itch by Sabina Gully

*Tattoo: Letis Tattoo :: Rasalhague by Leti Hax

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