December 6, 2007 by Sarah Nerd
Well this time Celene got a large parcel from Montelli Vantelli for the bargin price of only $22L. Montelli feels he never hit the sell button and he was somehow hijacked. Whatever the case, Celene got a $22L parcel that wasn't intended for her. Latley she has been claiming to give back errors or mislisted parcels, and in this case she does but she charges Montelli $10,000L or approx $38.00USD to do so. On top of that she once again plays the power card, humiliating him and forcing him to say what she wants to hear like she did with Michelle Lingiuan a while back. In that case she did the land back fee free after 5 days and a lot of drama, and a promise from me to correct things on my blog she disagreed with.
[20:16] Celene Ballinger: lots of writing
[20:16] Celene Ballinger: i am at the land
[20:17] Celene Ballinger: have you confirmed with lindens?
[20:24] Celene Ballinger: are we set?
[20:29] Celene Ballinger: Montelli, you got to respond to me. I have to take off soon
[20:31] Montelli Vantelli: Celene,
[20:32] Montelli Vantelli: looking at funds i have 240 lindens.
[20:56] Celene Ballinger: I am leaving
[20:56] Celene Ballinger: I'v etalked to lindens too
[20:56] Celene Ballinger: you don't want to work this out
[20:56] Celene Ballinger: I guess
[20:56] Montelli Vantelli: i am here getting funds
[21:09] Celene Ballinger: i have to go soon
[21:09] Celene Ballinger: do you want me to set the land to you and go?
[21:09] Celene Ballinger: so you can just buy it before you take off today?
[21:09] Celene Ballinger: I need to clear it from my tier
[21:09] Montelli Vantelli: if you would
[21:10] Celene Ballinger: I will set the land back to you for 10000
[21:10] Celene Ballinger: I hope this helps
[21:10] Montelli Vantelli: i wouldappreciate it celene
[21:10] Celene Ballinger: please try to be careful nex ttime
[21:10] Celene Ballinger: this is a lot of money you would hav elost
[21:11] Celene Ballinger: okay the land is set to you
[21:11] Celene Ballinger: good luck, please buy it before you go off today
[21:11] Celene Ballinger: Have a good day
[19:47] Celene Ballinger: can you make correction to your statements first
[19:47] Celene Ballinger: If you had mistakenly sold a land for darn cheap, don't create a monster out of by lying in the first place, mmmm i was fixing my land and opps it was gone. Celene stole it.
[19:48] Celene Ballinger: Explain what happened?
[19:49] Montelli Vantelli: hello?
[19:49] Montelli Vantelli: yes you are there?
[19:49] Montelli Vantelli: this is what happened
[19:50] Celene Ballinger: Yes I asked you a question
[19:50] Montelli Vantelli: Land HACKED and then stolen! Celene Ballinger has this cabability apparently. This occured at about 4AM est on Dec 4 2007. I was on the land when all of a sudden I had no modify capabilities for my own objects. Well this was shortly after a lagging slow server connection. Then I notice I have 22 lindens for some land sale. Well it was the I was currently on, PennyCat over 6700 sq m for 22 lindens? how? I did contact Linden labs via phone, then I was directed to make a abuse report. I hope it gets resolved, Question is the hacking? can they get into credit card accounts too? Also note I was NOT selling the land, was modifying the description of the land. Montelli Vantelli of SL.
[19:50] Celene Ballinger: Explain really what happened
[19:50] Montelli Vantelli: this is EXACTLY what had happened to me.
[19:50] Celene Ballinger: If that is the story you are telling people, then you will never get your land back
[19:50] Celene Ballinger: Good luck to you
[19:50] Montelli Vantelli: I shall see you in court.
[19:50] Montelli Vantelli: the choice is yours
[19:50] Celene Ballinger: because I never hacked and i never did anything. you sold your land on the market and i bought it. you sold your land for $22, damn cheap
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: computer lag perhaps?
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: 450 dollars
[19:51] Celene Ballinger: If you tell me you made a mistake and ask for your land, i always give it back. not for this threat because i didn't do anything wrong
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: plus tier fee
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: I sit here
[19:51] Celene Ballinger: I always give land back, but not for lyers like you
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: celene
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: I understand...
[19:51] Celene Ballinger: Get your story straight first, please if you want to ask for your mistake
[19:51] Montelli Vantelli: but honestly...
[19:52] Celene Ballinger: NO ONE CAN HACK OR STEAL YOUR LAND
[19:52] Celene Ballinger: YOU MADE A MISTAKE TO LIST YOUR LAND FOR CHEAP
[19:52] Celene Ballinger: NOW TELL ME THE REAL STORY
[19:52] Montelli Vantelli: well I see I was not in that menu
[19:52] Celene Ballinger: AND I WILL CONSIDER GIVING IT BACK TO YOU
[19:52] Montelli Vantelli: Person to person
[19:52] Celene Ballinger: WELL I SAW THAT ON THE LAND LISTING, THAT IS HOW IN THE WHOLE DARN WIDE VIRTUAL WORLD, I KNEW YOU WERE SELLING
[19:52] Montelli Vantelli: I respect all
[19:53] Montelli Vantelli: lagging for 5 minutes..
[19:53] Celene Ballinger: I respect people too, but not those that twist the story
[19:53] Montelli Vantelli: when my screen came back I saw 22 linden
[19:53] Celene Ballinger: If I really hacked, you think I will be on now? Lindens will have my neck on the woods by now
[19:53] Celene Ballinger: well at that screen you should have canceled it
[19:53] Montelli Vantelli: This is honestly what I saw, and honestly i was not in the price section
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: my lagging caused it to go on market?
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: but why so fast was it gone
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: and your avatar was right there
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: i spent 2 hours with you
[19:54] Celene Ballinger: a land won't automatically get listed on the market, if that is the case, Lindens has a huge issue,
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: well now that is my point.... a huge issue
[19:54] Celene Ballinger: I was not around, my younger brother helps by land, he can't speak
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: I always lag
[19:54] Celene Ballinger: english
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: lag get bumped off
[19:54] Montelli Vantelli: lag more
[19:55] Montelli Vantelli: it is frustrating
[19:55] Celene Ballinger: you need to get a faster computer if you are going to play around with this much money
[19:55] Montelli Vantelli: now 450 dollars later...
[19:55] Montelli Vantelli: what is this
[19:55] Montelli Vantelli: I have verizon fiber...
[19:55] Montelli Vantelli: is SOny Viao just pruchased
[19:55] Celene Ballinger: Here is what I will do, you go and update your dispute and let lindens know what really happened and tell them that you will work it out with me
[19:55] Celene Ballinger: and then if you cover my tier expense due to your mistake, you can have you rland back
[19:55] Montelli Vantelli: I see server go red
[19:56] Montelli Vantelli: then network yellow.
[19:56] Montelli Vantelli: Celene
[19:57] Celene Ballinger: are you reading what i proposed?
[19:57] Montelli Vantelli: it is less then 19 hours
[19:57] Montelli Vantelli: what is the tier expense?
[19:57] Montelli Vantelli: I certainly will
[19:58] Montelli Vantelli: when I get the land
[19:58] Montelli Vantelli: I just called 1877 linden number as we speak
[19:58] Celene Ballinger: maybe like 10,000L to cover my time and tier and you can have your land back, which is worth well over 50,000L
[19:58] Celene Ballinger: I am just being nice, it is up to you
[19:58] Montelli Vantelli: I was being nice. 19 hours of my time is worth what?
[19:58] Celene Ballinger: I can sell this land right now to others and Lindens will not be able todo anything, because you sold me the land
[19:59] Celene Ballinger: Don't know, 19 hours should teach you the lesson not to play around with $450 US, and to be careful, thats what you get
[19:59] Montelli Vantelli: ok GOOD POINT....
[20:00] Celene Ballinger: i always give land back to people when they admit the mistake they make, lag or whatever it is, it is a mistake on the client side
[20:00] Celene Ballinger: so if you agree to this, i will set your land back before i get back from lunch
[20:00] Montelli Vantelli: I certainly would admit that
[20:01] Celene Ballinger: Please let Lindens know too and confirm that to me. I will come over in a bit and set your land back to you for 10K
[20:02] Celene Ballinger: Thanks for agreeing. Not a lot of people give land back where they can make easy $450
More of Montelli's feelings can be found at this comment he left at on The Landbot Directory.
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Celene Ballinger Bot at it again.
Hi and nice to meet you all–
Just to let you know that
yesterday i had my land 2000m2 “taken” by the Celene Ballinger Bot. I
was in the process of giving the land over to my in-game partner
Dashkova Flow. I, being new to the game and not knowing bots existed in
SL,selected the “sell to anybody” option and set the land for 1L$. There
was no one else about the area. My partner(who i was communicating on skype with) was standing right next to me to buy the land, but did not get the chance, because as soon as i
clicked “sell land” the land was automatically bought–that instance, in a split
second. My only mistake was to be dumb and naive. It’s obvious to
anyone that no one would sell for that price and, on investigating
further, I learned that there were bots in this game and linden allowed
this practice which is outlawed by every other online game. It is obvious that there is not as many people playing SL as there once where and for Linden to turn a blind eye to these kind of practices just means newcomer's like myself will look elsewhere for online entertainment.
Like all online games or mmrpgs they all have a shelf life and SL seems to be fading and now i know why.
CarlJung Morales
Update
She has now sold the land and after ignoring my sent notecards.
SHE HAS NOT CHANGED.
The remainder of the land i have left will be donated to neighbours about 4000m2 and i will move on to better games that dont allow bots or third party software.
"[19:52] Celene Ballinger: NO ONE CAN HACK OR STEAL YOUR LAND"
That is an interesting assertion, but she can't prove it. In fact, it is in her interest to be unable to prove it. Of course, Linden Lab turns a blind eye because the reality is that it really doesn't care about the community (there's MY assertion).
Mainland is as good as the people running it, you see.
Second Life Consultant
Hmm
She has a point about tier, but charging for her time? Isn't that the risk you run when you run bots? He makes a mistake and she makes him change his story before she'll sell it back and that's supposed to be ethical? Those aren't the actions of an honourable person and really, it's about time LL stepped in when people are manipulating the market in this fashion.
Tier is a fixed cost
Bots do not purchase additional tier each time they purchase land, they maintain excess tier at all times so there is room for additional purchases. the Tier didn't cost her anything, and the quicker she is about returning mistakes, the less chance she has of filling her tier with mistake parcels and therefore not being able to make a purchase.
A full sims tier cost about 1700 Lindens per day.
That makes sense
Well that makes sense, bots running with excess tier. I mean if a bot takes a landowner over tier surely that's a problem for the person running the bot, they are the people who configured it to take them into the next tier level so that would be their mistake.
'Excess'
I think the perspective needs to shift a little. To a pure programmer, efficiency is key. Most bot-owners that I had dealt with - such as Elanthius - wrote their own bots. Elanthius and his wife really had an interesting system the last time I spoke with them, and they did return land - but now let's talk about 'costs' for a bot owner.
Elanthius, among others, decided that this was not a pure numbers game. People like him chose good will for a better reputation over pure profit, and if you consider it from a Celene Ballinger perspective - that is a cost because when one looks at the numbers alone, it is very different: What one could make versus what one actually makes. This is the same mentality that created all sorts of rules on Wall Street. :-)
Since Linden Lab, by choosing to do nothing, allows her sort of business to happen within their 'product', they are rewarding negative behavior. In fact, if you really look around, Linden Lab rewards a lot of negative behavior, from ponzi schemes to landbots.
One cannot fix Celene Ballinger. The person who runs that bot probably has a personality disorder - certainly lacking in any sort of conformance to social graces - so it is beyond anyone's ability to fix him/her (I do believe it is a 'him' - a teen or low twenties male programmer who thinks that they are the best). What do we do in a real society when someone does not bow to societal norms?
But in Second Life, Linden Lab assures that societal norms include this sort of behavior. Why? Well, now - perhaps you should ask them.
Second Life Consultant
I think this is fixable.
I wrote some ideas on my blog here - http://daltonic.blogspot.com/2007/12/miscreants-live-tonight-on-sl.html
I think it should be both possible to fix the LL behaviour on this matter and the miscreants' behaviour on this matter.
every AR is the time ($$) spent by LL. If every person who gets into the trap, files an AR, eventually the amount of money LL spends on handling these ARs, would trigger the discussion about whether it is cheaper to fix the issue (technical - UI-side, or policy-side).
Or, they might simply take a shortcut by nuking the respective account - which will take care of the miscreant's behaviour.
In case this kind of behaviour is addressable via RL legal system, this might be an even more powerful lever.
In the meantime, the fact that the above activities might trigger all sorts of unpredictable policy decisions on the LL side, should also trigger the peer pressure to eliminate the bad apples out of the pie.