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A number of Second Lifers have been getting emails that purport to be from Linden Lab (one is reproduced below the fold). They may well be (and I believe they are) official Linden Lab communications, but a lot of folks believe that they are scam or phishing emails for several reasons.

First, the emails come from vresp.com, whom many users will not have heard of. The vresp.com website is very simple and resembles the websites used by some unsolicited or phishing emails. When you attempt to access more information on their policies, non-javascript users (that’s all of you who are practising safe-surfing) will get a File Not Found error. If you were to look around the Second Life or Linden Lab websites, you wouldn’t find anything stating that official Linden Lab communications might come via vresp.com.

Second, there are minor discrepancies. Users are being asked to select the “upgrade payment method” link; the actual link is “update payment method” … sure it’s a small thing, but that’s the sort of thing that sets of people’s fraud detectors.

Third, these are being received by people with free accounts, and threatening termination of the account if sums due are not paid.

Fourth, the receiver can opt out! The email says you’re an opt-in subscriber, which (obviously) you aren’t. One little click and all of these official communications theoretically cease to exist.

Below is one of the emails being sent:

From: Linden Lab <Linden_Lab@mail.vresp.com>
Subject: Important Billing Update from Linden Lab
To: [elided]

An upgrade of our billing system recently revealed minor discrepancies
in your billing information. To get everyone back on track we are
asking that you update your payment method via the website as soon as
possible. If you have a balance due it will be billed to your account
within 24 hours of your update. If you do not update your information
and you have a balance due when we bill, your account will go
delinquent. As always with delinquencies, you will then have 7 days to
pay your balance. After 7 days the account will go on hold and you
will not be able to login without clearing your balance. After 30 days
your account will go defunct and you will lose any inventory, land and
L$ associated with the account.
To upgrade your payment information:
1) Go to secondlife dot com
2) Login to your account
3) Click upgrade payment method
4) Upgrade with either credit card or Paypal, your choice
5) Follow instructions
6) You’re done!

If you have any questions regarding your account status, or have
difficulty making changes to your account, please contact billing
through the support portal:
[A link to the VRESP.COM website]

Thank you!
Linden Lab

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this
message with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line or simply click on the
following link:
[A link to the VRESP.COM website]

This message was sent by Linden Lab
LindenLab
1100 Sansome Street
San Francisco, California 94111

Most Second Life users would be forgiven for consigning these straight to the spam folder. In fact many apparently are caught and junked automatically.

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