A few days ago, I spent a lot of time searching for land to rent or buy. I was looking for an affordable land in a private estate where I can move my fishing area, shop and chickens. Most of the private land I visited has very strict covenant which will not allow most of the things I have (specially the chickens). I was about to give up searching for the perfect private land that will cater to my use when I was contacted by Silver Colman of Silver Real Estate. I happened to visit a private land he had for sale at that time and he then later contacted me to ask if I was looking to rent or buy.
The land I purchased at Silver City...
I was able to meet with him in-world where we were able to talked about my land needs. He was a very nice and accommodating person and during our conversation I asked him if he allows chickens on his sim. He was not familiar with them so I teleported him to where I was keeping my chickens (so he can see them). He even showed me a new trick with the Advance Menu but eventually he said YES to allowing chickens on his sim. During this pre-sales talk, he did not mention anything about the number of chickens I can have on the land or any other restrictions. He said that they were okay (the chickens).
I thought long and hard but did finally decide on purchasing the land for 3,000L$ (purchase prize includes 1 week rent which is 1,500L$ per week). Now, while I was terraforming the land to my preference he came by and asked if I can rez a chicken which I did. Afterwards, he said I can only have 8 chickens on the land and if I want to have more then I must buy a bigger land from him. The problem here is, he told me this after I bought the land from him. He should have told me this limit before and not after because if I have known beforehand that I can only have 8 chickens then I would have not purchased it. He seems to be a nice person since his groups has hundreds of members but, I’m not sure if he knows it, he just pulled a classic bait and switch scam on me. T_T
It was a bait and switch scam because he waited until I purchased the land from him before imposing a limit or restriction on land use. I don’t know if it was intentional or if it just happened but one thing is sure though I purchased a land which I can not use as I intended to. The 8 chicken limit should have been a deal breaker and I would have never purchased the land if he had told me about it earlier.
By the way, the land is still under my name but I did not continue building on it (I placed a few objects and 3 chickens on it but that was it). Instead of spending time building on that land, I spent it on building on my current place. Also, since I will not get any refunds from that purchase I decided to just let this week’s rent expire.
Anyway, I never realized that looking for a good private land with a good land lord could be this difficult until now. I have always thought that it would be as easy as renting land on mainland but I guess I was wrong. It is pretty darn hard!
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Tags: bait and switch, chickens, land, mainland, private estate, private island, scam, silver
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