Second Life content creators warn about scam site

by Tateru Nino Oct 7th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Economy, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Numerous Second Life content creators are warning their clientele that the Web-site virtualget.net (which has been apparently been operating for a couple of months now) is a credit-card harvesting scam. Whether that's correct or not, the site appears to be using the product images and product descriptions and trademarks of numerous Second Life content creators without their permission. The original images and text appear on Linden Lab's Xstreet SL virtual goods shopping Web-site.

Numerous DMCA notices are reportedly being filed by content creators at present. We attempted to contact virtualget.net (anonymously registered in Singapore) for comment, but none of their email addresses appeared to be functional -- One email address was restored to function when the majority of the site was taken down a short time ago, but we received no response. Linden Lab, who has an intellectual property stake in the matter, was not available for comment either.

Users of Kaspersky protection software found the Web-site marked as a phishing site several hours ago, presumably based on user reports.

Update: The operation seems to have disabled access to much of the site in the wake of numerous DMCA notices filed by content-creators.

Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Tags: copyright, copyright-infringement, kaspersky, linden-lab, phishing, second-life, singapore, trademark, virtual-goods, virtual-worlds, virtualget, xstreet-sl

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

daniokc91 said on 12:09PM 10-07-2009

There's an interesting note on the website now saying the site was only up for demonstration purposes.

Uccello Poultry said on 12:15PM 10-07-2009

Thanks for your diligent investigation, Tateru. We can always count on you. Only one item of mine was ripped from Xstreet, and not an expensive one at that. Translating from L$ to $ it would cost a shopper all of 12 cents and, allegedly, the loss of their credit card information. At Codebastard Redgrave's suggestion I edited the item on XStreetSL and appended

"The Exclusive Web Vendor for Pop Dept. store, Microstuff, and Poultry Co. merchandise is XStreetSL. Do not buy from any other Website. Many items available in-world. Uccello Poultry, CC Columbo, and Usra Ostrich are the Sole In-World Contacts."

to the description. Sadly, to do this with the six pages of merchandise I have is an arduous task I don't look forward to tackling. I miss the batch editing of OnRez.

Evalia Magic said on 1:56PM 10-07-2009

Sounds like it was a bit of a misunderstanding: there was nowhere on the site to enter billing, and the pictures were just being used for demonstration.That is if you believe the creators, anyway.

Lacie Chambers said on 3:37PM 10-07-2009

"IF" this website was in a production phase, then it shouldn't have been live for over two months, they never should have allowed member registration, let alone credit card info to be entered. And yes, despite what they say, I know first hand they DID have a shopping cart you could "check out" by entering a credit card number. When I found the site with my items listed on the 2nd of October with a "log in for price" button I "signed up" to see what this site was up to with my items. I found that all items on the site were listed for free, but they charged a monthly membership fee, with a 3-day reduced price trial period stating you'd have "unlimited access to downloads". A friend of mine was nice enough to test the site for me by entering a disposable credit card number. She said there was no where to put a second life avatar name and an email was received stating something along the lines of "contact the creator as there was an issue with delivery". So they got your credit card info, have no actual products to deliver, and are using my intellectual property along with several other content creators for this "demonstration"? Yeah, I'm sorry, but that's entirely too fishy. Oh, and when they took down the site they also stated that the only "members" they had were from 10-6? Well gee, I got my confirmation e-mail of my "membership" on 10-2 and you can be certain I still have it. So, if this place was trying to be legit, then they went about all wrong, completely wrong. Through all their little fibs (in my opinion) I can say they were honest about one thing, they didn't sell our products because they didn't have them, luckily. They apparently just used the appearance of having our products by taking our listings from xstreet word for word & image to image. That in itself is enough for a DMCA, which I definitely filed.

TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 9:31PM 10-07-2009

has anyone reported them actually using the credit card info they phished from people?

TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 9:35PM 10-07-2009

someone should get a cheap disposable credit card, give people like this the credit card number and stuff, and register the credit card as stolen, so they would get busted when they try to use it

sigmund leominster said on 12:48AM 10-08-2009

Following our contacting the company late yesterday, the Metaverse Tribune did get a response from the company, reinforcing their claim that was a test site. See http://metaversetribune.com/2009/10/07/virtualget-responds-to-phishing-allegations/ for the actual response.