your ethical question for the day

I was going to cover another product of Grim's today, and I'll do that when I get back to the keys after dinner, but--someone hit me with an interesting question. First, what I got:

The object 'CasperLet' has sent you a message from Second Life:
{{sim I've been banned from}}.
Your rental has less than a week remaining.

= CasperLet is owned by {{sim owner}}
= {{sim I've been banned from}}

Now, I was going to let this go. I mentioned it in passing among friends because I found it morbidly amusing:

[5:15 PM] Emilly: Well, gosh, I'd go clear that right up, but, uh, I'm banned.

But then it was suggested that I ask for a refund. And AR the sim owner if I don't get one. Again, I figured, I only had a month left, let them have it, but--at least six other people had also paid rent to them, that were also banned (this wasn't a griefing incident, it really comes down to sim owner instability, unfortunately?). But their sim, their rules, they don't want a lot of us there, fine. Save...they kept the rent.

And there's the issue.

Thinking on it now, that's a rather unique way of shoring up resources. And I was pretty much only paying a month or two in advance--one other fellow who was also banned recently got an eviction notice, because his rent had expired--but neither of us have the option to catch up on our rent, even if we wished to. We are banned from going on the sim.

What about the six or so people, if not more, also banned along with us, who had paid months in advance? What, we were all naughty so they keep our funds? Is that fair? More importantly, is that worth an abuse report to the Lindens?

I had been thinking not, but reconsidering it, it's not just about me. Even worse, even had things resolved equably (which there was litle chance of, sadly), the night before they banned all of us they went through the sim in a fit of rage and deleted a lot of the structures that had been rented.

Childish of them.

But is it abuse?

Now I'm wondering.