I was recently contacted by a Full Perm Creator (Vaientine Resident of Underground) who has informed me of a seriously frustrating problem on marketplace regarding full perm illegal sales.  Apparently there are many accounts on the marketplace reselling full perm creations that they do not have permission to resell.  They purchase full perm items from valid full perm creators such as: Underground, Creative Studio, Deadpool, Meli Imako, CBB and many more, then they illegally resell those items, with full perms, at a lower price than the creators themselves. 

This can be quite a frustrating ordeal for the original creators because not only do they have to DMCA these items over and over until they are taken down, but then they must also DMCA items that are being sold by people who have bought these illegal full perm items and are selling them in their stores thinking they have a legal copy of the item. 

The valid full perm creators have contacted Linden Lab by chat, phone calls and emails but unfortunately nothing has been done about this issue.  All they are being told to do is file DMCA’s.  A DMCA take down usually takes a week to be taken down, but the next day, that account puts it right back on that same Marketplace as a new listing. 

If you, or someone you know, purchases full perm items on marketplace to use in your own stores, here are some of the things that you should look for and be aware of before making a purchase:

Before purchasing look at the seller’s other listings.  If there is a hodgepodge of brand names and the vendors all look different, they are most likely an illegal seller.  Purchase the items from the inworld store of the full perm creator instead of the marketplace, to ensure that you are not purchasing from an illegal seller.  Most of the illegal sellers have blank profiles.  Real full perm sellers usually have a full profile filled with links to their websites, mainstores and marketplace stores.  Most Full Perm sellers have started using water marks on the vendor ads which say the name of the avatar that is supposed to be selling it.  The illegal sellers are still using those ads, even with the watermark.  So it is important to look at the name of the creator on the watermark, and if it isn’t that person selling it, don’t buy it.  Try to find a way to report these items, either to Linden Lab by flagging the listing or to the original creator of the items. 

Here are a few examples of illegal full perm sellers on marketplace that have already been DMCA’d several times: Sorriso Camino (now empty), merwish, hanstoff and Pollyana Jansma.  These are the kinds of stores you want to avoid. 

Please share this post with all your friends and family and on your social networks to create more awareness for this problem that full perm creators are facing.  Remember to inform yourself and do your research before purchasing any items from these kinds of stores. 

I have created a “Scams” category on my blog to inform you guys about different issues going on in the Second Life community.  If you know of any issues or scams going on right now that you’d like me to blog about, please email me all of the information and I will look into it. 

The scam I blogged about last year: GiftBot Discount Scam in Second Life still continues to be a major problem for content creators across the grid.  Please re-read and share that one as well. 

Thank you! 

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