Two avatars appeared today, both impersonating our Asset Manager whose name is Meeroos Resident (Many of you know her, she is, in fact, multiple people, sometimes even me!)

Well, the two avatars impersonating her, named appropriately:

Meer00s Resident and Meero0s Resident.

managed to come to the store where the build permission is off, and they built invisible mock vendors to place over the authentic ones in order to intercept payments made to them. At this point, we have no idea how they managed to build an object on a no build sim. We are investigating it.

Fortunately, we caught the individual in both instances and were able to stop them before too many people were affected. The mock vendors which covered the real ones and accepted payments were only in place for about 20 minutes. When the female avatar came back with a new name we actually caught her hiding in the corner rezzing the mock vendors once again on Roo. They individual was banned and reported immediately.

So, the rule is to NEVER make a purchase unless the food object is owned by Meeroos Resident - no fancy lettering, no 0's in the name. Simply Meeroos Resident. When you purchase food the payment goes to Meeroos Resident because she is the one who validates your transactions when you have a lost item and she returns it to you.

For the regard store items, you're paying MeerooRegard Resident. Again, no numbers of odd characters in the name.

We expected retaliation due to the bannings we had to place as a result of the exploitation, and sadly there are people now who will deliberately work hard to sabotage you and your Meeroos, to steal your money or clone objects like food and try to pass them off as real. There is no question some will begin spreading misinformation and duping as many things as they can in order to confuse or steal from players who are still in the game.

Simply stay diligent and keep watchful eyes on the products when you buy from the store. I don't want to see anyone in our community further victimized by this virtual crime ring.

I appreciate your time, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Catherine