Underage Users in Adult Public Chat Rooms

How do all these kids get in here?

There's been some discussion, debate and confusion over underage users in "Over 18" public chat rooms. I asked my young niece to open an account so that we could validate what we assumed to be correct. There is one room in particular that has been brought to my attention, so that particular room will be the center of focus for this post. These are the facts.

Point 1: Underage users do not see "Over 18" public chat rooms in chat room search results, and "Over 18" users do not see underage public chat rooms in a chat room search result.

Point 2: Underage users must either follow a friend into an "Over 18" public chat room or be directly invited into it.

Point 3: Underage users do not see "Over 18" users in a people search. And "Over 18" users do not see underage users.

Point 4: There isn't any issue, in IMVU's opinion, if an adult user (over 18) doesn't report his or her age correctly as long as his or her age is over 18 in their profile.

Point 5: There IS, however, a major issue in IMVU's opinion if an underage user signs up with an "Over 18" age for his or her account.

FINALLY, All underage/under 18  users MUST show their age on their profile popup card. There is no option their to hide their age.

I have screenies to show you how we went about validating this information:

A underage account search for an Adult (over 18) user shows no rooms.
This adult user has one public room.

This shows the search for an underage room with the underage account.
I've blocked out a portion of the ids of the underage users for their privacy and security.

Searched for the same underage account from within the adult account. 

No adult ages will be in the age field for a people search on an underage account.

No under 18 choices will be in the age field for a "People Search" on an adult account.

From a forum post, straight from the horse's mouth.

IMVU'S M.MOBLE APP ALLOWS SEVERAL DIFFERENT AVATARS!

I was playing around with IMVU's http://m.imvu.com/ login, and found it's possible to obtain several...in fact, many, different avatar outfits when first signing up using the mobile app.

What I did was open http://m.imvu.com/ inside chrome, and then once I filled in all the sign up information, I went into a chat room using the mobile application.

Immediately thereafter, I logged into the IMVU chat client (get it here if you don't already have it installed:  http://www.imvu.com/signup/download/ ) and I logged in with the new account. I went into the exact same chat room that I was in with the mobile app ( If the room doesn't show up in the rooms list you will need to search the chat rooms for the room owner's id to find the room again). It is possible to be logged in on both the mobile app AND the IMVU client at the same time.

Once logged in, I proceeded to try on the already saved...but hidden from the closet... outfits that were there. I saved each outfit (just click on the "put on" link as usual).

As you can see, they are there in the closet now, but still the hidden outfits remain at the end of the closet.

Upon coming back on the next login, I found the outfits were all still there. I had male and female avatars, and a bunch of items to choose from. It would seem these items will be a permanent part of my inventory giving me gobs of choices right from the start. 

NO MORE FREE PUBLIC ROOM FOR NEW USERS

IMVU seems to love taking things from users, the newest featuring removed being the free public room that was granted to each new user account. IMVU does consider this a testing phase in their newest program update.

There are posts in the forum from members that love this idea. The consensus being that new users were creating an account simply to make an UNFIT public room thereby using this new alternate account (alt account) to avoid putting their main account at risk or making numerous new accounts each having the main account holder's id as a moderator (mod) in all rooms (so what if they do?).

I loved the free room idea, but I do understand the mass glut of public rooms slowing things down for everyone... however... as for a user creating mass guest accounts only to open unfit public chat rooms, this is a possibility although the user of said room must be diligent in logging in each account every 30 days or the room automatically closes. I think it's 30 days. Maybe it's longer, but in any case room owners have to be active members or the room will close and the user must login to the chat client to reopen it.

Creating in IMVU without VIP

People who signed up for the Content Creator program prior to May 10 2012 can create without the necessity of being a VIP.  As of May 10 2012 New Content Creators must be VIP in order to create and submit virtual goods to catalog.

There is one way people are getting around this VIP snag: Buy a Grandfathered account. Yup, I wrote "buy". Buying an account is a good idea only if you don't want to pay for VIP each month. Buying might be a good idea if you want an account that was opened earlier…maybe to feel like you're less of a newbie.

Where to find a Grandfathered IMVU account

These GF accounts can be found for sale on eBay, but as selling an account is against imvu's terms of service, this type of listing can be construed as a copywrite violation, and eBay will take it down…if the listing is reported. eBay itself doesn’t scout for listing violations, eBay relies on its users to do that for them.

Sometimes you may find users stating their account is for sale either in their tagline or in their interests…very risky.

There is a site that sells them, and has sold dozens of avatars successfully. There is only one avatar for sale now on this site, and current reports indicate that there is a shortage of accounts for sale through that site..as of today anyway. The site

This is a site that was found through  www.youtube.com. I have not personally used this particular site, and I cannot verify the integrity of the site owner/operator, but it's out there if one is so inclined to try it.  The other site.

IMVU PROGRAM SPYWARE? YES! WARNING! Devicefingerprint.exe

It has been known for some time that the imvu chat client software contains an insidious program residing within, namely, devicefingerprint.exe.

What this program does is track and maintain your machine device's id, and more.

Wikipedia details this:

A device fingerprint or machine fingerprint or browser fingerprint is information collected about a remote computing device for the purpose of identification. Fingerprints can be used to fully or partially identify individual users or devices even when cookies are turned off.

Basic web browser configuration information has long been collected by web analytics services in an effort to accurately measure real human web traffic and discount various forms of click fraud. With the assistance of client-side scripting languages, collection of much more esoteric parameters is possible.[1][2] Assimilation of such information into a single string comprises a device fingerprint.

Recently such fingerprints have proven useful in the detection and prevention of online identity theft and credit card fraud.

While detection and prevention of fraud is a noble and worthy cause for this type of program we are not given the oportunity to opt out of this, and if we remove this program we are tampering with the software, which, in itself, is a breach of imvu's terms of service.

However...

I despise being spied on regardless of the nobel reasons behind it. BlueCava, the software company behind imvu's tracking activities, stores our personally identifiable information in their servers. This information is complied by BlueCava, and ....This information is for sale. There is an opt out page at BlueCava's website, and I suggest you all opt out. http://bluecava.com/opt-out/

But first, I suggest running this handy browser helper object: Ghostery. https://www.ghostery.com/en/

Ghostery blocks the cookies that try to load on your webpage. It runs in Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. No BHO is available for Windows IE. Yet.

I found an awesome mass opt out website via a Facebook email I received, it loads dozens of cookies, all of which can be blocked and remembered by Ghostery: http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

Keep in mind Ghostery only blocks the tracking done on the webpages you vist, not inside the imvu chat client itself. For this reason I suggest the following to protect yourself from spying robots.


Seeing it was impossible for me to simply change the program's name to ...oh, say..._devicefingerprint.exe, and stop this program from running, I had to go into the files properties.

I have inserted screenies showing the steps to take to block permissions that allow this devicefingerprint.exe program to run. I am running Windows 7.

Note: If you cannot find the AppData File in your Users folder in C drive then it is hidden and your system will have to changed to "Show Hidden Files and Folders" to view it.

 

Click on your user id, I'm T (see below).

 

Once you have located the devicefingerprint.exe program file you will need to right click it and select
"Properties".

From the Security tab click on the Advanced Button at the bottom.

 

Be sure to deselect Include inheritable permissions...blah blah blah.   I had to do this several times before the permissions were actually set to "Deny".

 

Just click the top "Deny" Selection box and the rest will also become selected.

After changing the permissions I was presented with this Critical Halt Error Message. I clicked NO, and continued.  

I will say the chat client loaded 50% faster after denying devicefingerprint.exe to run. I hope this helps you all from having your online usage tracked. 

Regards!!

Note**

The method to rename the devicefingerprint.exe file in the imvu client folder is a possibility, but this program locks out any changes to the .exe file. I used a little program called unlocker to rename this file. I merely ran unlocker, typed in an underscore at the beginning of the file and unlocker renamed it without a hitch. Now the program cannot be found by the imvu startup routine and fails to load it. I get the same message as with changing the permissions and I simply click the 'no' response to the error.

You can find the unlocker program here: http://download.cnet.com/windows/empty-loop/3260-20_4-6270844-1.html

MORE Changes to VIP

So, IMVU giveth and IMVU taketh away....

A recent forum post details the changes in effect as of January 2014....wait...JANUARY?? Why am I just learning of this now? As one poster put it, there was no BIG BOLD announcement. Very interesting how IMVU keeps these sort of changes under wraps until it's sprung upon their users.

Update as of 4/15/2014:

Recently we launched the Shop Together feature where VIPs get to invite anyone to shop together with them. We hope you are enjoying this added perk. As stated below, we are monitoring your suggestions and continuing to explore ways to make the VIP program more beneficial to its members.

Thank you

Being a VIP on IMVU means access to exclusive perks like monthly Credit awards, 5% catalog discount, VIP-exclusive sales, and access to VIP-only rooms. Plus, we keep adding features that are available to only our VIP members - room access controls, whisper chatting, action blocking, custom lists for your closet - just to name a few.

Complete list of VIP benefits is available here. http://nl.imvu.com/vip_club/

One benefit that our VIPs currently enjoy is a monthly gift of a fully furnished room. Based on the overwhelming feedback we have received, effective January 1, 2014, we will no longer award this monthly gift. Instead, we will explore other ways to make the VIP program even more special for our elite community members like you. We welcome your suggestions for this!

If you are a current VIP member, you will continue to receive the gift till your subscription runs out. However, for anyone who joins or renews their VIP membership after January 1, 2014, Credits will be awarded every month as part of the perks but not the room.

A message to this effect is being sent to all VIP members.

Thank you.
_________________
Varsha - Director, Community Experience & User Safety


Some Comments:


Funny we didn't get some BIG BOLD announcement in our inbox about this feature being taken away, similar to all those other BIG BOLD announcements I get on a continuing and seemingly non-stop basis. 

Quote:

This is messed up I've been a vip for over 2 years and the only thing I liked about it was the free room I recieved every month I mean why am I paying $10 a month now. For 7400 credits when I can get 20k creds for that same money from 1 of the many re-sellers you all need to seriously re-evaluate this decision cause this totally sucks and if this is the best you can do i will be cancelling my VIP come january

Quote:

I am a VIP member so how many VIP members did you survey about VIP features because I did not get a survey about VIP I would of said I liked the free furnished rooms I gotten for being in VIP plus you jumped the gun because you didnt mention how your replacing this VIP benefit.

In agreement with the above. A shop together feature is Nice, but really, not valuable to those who don't use it. Same can be said for the bundled room gifts, but I did use some of the furniture that came WITH the rooms. I'm amazed by these changes. Change is inevitable, and how these changes benefit us and affect the bottom line is really at issue. If imvu takes more and more away, and VIP becomes less valuable to me personally then I, too, will not renew.

***VIP since 2009***



Here is a screenie showing the current VIP benefits as of today. NOTICE!! These benefits can and WILL change at any time without prior notice!

 

http://www.imvu.com/catalog/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpbb2&file=viewtopic.php&t=490700&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc

IMVU and VIP - Purchasing TIps

Please note, while the following is true as of today, IMVU can (and most likely will) change their policies regarding prepaid cards.

I have purchased VIP over the years in a number of ways for a number of different accounts. This, so far, is what I've learned:

IMVU will store both your Credit Card info and your PayPal Info. Go to your Account Page and look at the links on the left to find out what info IMVU has stored on your account:

Manage Subscriptions
Manage Credits Buy Now

Find out what you've purchased so far under the View Order History link.


Credit Card

I have no useful information here, I've only used PayPal or Prepaid Cards... -grin-


Prepaid Cards

If you plan to use a prepaid card, be sure you don't already HAVE VIP, my experience has shown when I use one while already possessing VIP then IMVU doesn't offer me the choice between credits or a VIP subscription.  It just gives me the credits, and then I have to contact IMVU with a help ticket to get it all resolved...such a hassle! The best thing to do when using a PC (Prepaid Card) is to wait until it lapses/expires. Then you try using one to buy VIP again you will see both the credit and VIP options.

This is also true for the first day 24 hour VIP trial that IMVU currently offers new users. Wait until this trial expires before using your card.


The $50 Prepaid Card

WAIT until IMVU offers the 1 Year of VIP special! IMVU periodically runs this special. You can redeem a $50 PC for a year of VIP (or 100K credits). This is a fantastic deal. VIP only costs roughly $4 per month as opposed to the standard $10! There was one Wal-Mart promotion where Wal-Mart was selling the $50 PC for $40. Fantastic value there!


The $25 Prepaid Card

Not only do you receive the VIP benefits (credits, extra rooms, room packages, special actions, shop discount) you receive a name registration, meaning you are no longer a guest!  The guest prefix is permanently removed too, this is not true if you buy VIP with a credit card or PayPal. The guest prefix will reappear once your VIP has expired. This is valuable because only the $25 and $50 PC's offer this. The $25 and $50 PC may also offer you special gifts. The gift depends upon where you've purchased the PC. There has also been the one-time bonus 4th month added when using the $25 PC, but IMVU is not currently offering that any longer.


The $10 Prepaid Card

This is useful only if you need to buy one month of VIP. I had to do this one time because once your VIP expires, you lose all control over editing your additional rooms beyond the free one that you once had with VIP. IMVU would have helped me delete the room, but only if I allowed them to enter my account to do it. Rather than have them poking around in my inventory, I just used a $10 PC for one month of VIP. -frown-

IMVU is currently offering the $50 PC special as I write this.

Direct link to download any version of IMVU .exe

I had someone mention they weren't able to run imvu in two Sandboxie windows because the imvu installation was corrupted. I suggested she try downloading the actual exe file, rather than the client download manager file, but as youtube doesn't allow us to post links there, I offered to post the link here in my blog.

If you ever need a specific imvu version, this link can be edited to download whichever version you're interested in:

http://static-akm.imvu.com/imvufiles/installers/InstallIMVU_498.0.exe 

Simply change the version "487.0" in the above link to the version you are looking for. Be aware imvu disables versions that are a certain age or older. 

IMVU Creator Submissions OFFLINE

Sunday December 1, 2013 IMVU had to suspend new item submissions. Creators were no longer able to edit products currently in the catalog. It took several days, as usual, to find and fix the problem.

Forum Post Here

 

Product submissions were open again as of 4 P.M. Central time December 4, 2013.

 

This is just one of those things that IMVU and Creators/Developers have to deal with on an ongoing basis. It seems like every few months product submission goes offline. Creators bemoan the loss of income, and are instructed by IMVU and other users alike to work on texturing or 3d modeling while IMVU works on fixing the issue. Users were able to derive items and such, just not upload them to the catalog.

 

One man wrote as a tagline: "I wish IMVU would spend as much time on their program instabilities as they do searching out and banning pixel penises and the like." I have to agree with him here.

There was also a MUSIC MIX error going on simultaneously. See that thread Here.



Shard 5 Database Failure

 

Sunday, November 24th 2013 IMVU had a database failure. Those who had accounts stored on this Shard were surprised with missing inventory, friends, chat rooms and possibly their entire avatar. Some were given this message when attempting to login:

 

 

 

 

On November 28th Brett sent out this message to users who were directly affected:

 

I had one such alternate account that was affected. I only received 200 credits and one t-shirt although I did login daily, as directed in Brett's message. Ahhhh, such is IMVU.

The IMVU Forum has numerous threads dealing with users actual issues, including creator errors, and finally the apology itself from Brett. Brett is the VP of Engineering at IMVU where he leads the engineering and technical operations teams and was responsible for the operations infrastructure that successfully scaled from two machines to over 700 servers.

THEMED ACCOUNT SIGNUP LINKS

I was shopping on eBay today and noticed a link at the bottom for IMVU. I clicked it and found this really cool set of starter avatars. Fairies, mermaids, several different fantasy themed avatars. See these cool new ideas for yourself:

Fantasy Themed IMVU Avatars 

 Vampire Themed Link Here

 

Furry Themed Link Here

Each browser can bring up different sign-up pages too:

Internet Explorer

(Bubbles Theme)

Firefox

Chrome

Opera
(Default Sign-up Choices)

New! June 2014....This link will load an IMVU page that houses a new interface wherein you can chose from multiple themes from the top tabs. Simply click on chose your free avatar. It pretty much only will load the mashup if you have all your cookies cleared so imvu cannot remember you were ever there, and don't have the toolbar loaded.

http://www.imvu.com/landing_page/page/themed_mashup/?affid=cd6&subid1=GOOGA07C01&imvu_creative=29028399508&imvu_placement=&imvu_keyword=imvu.&imvu_target=



BEWARE IMVU CREDIT HACK SCAMS

I feel a need to warn users of IMVU credit hacks. They ALL are scams. They want to gain access to your id and password. Once you use their sign in form or applet you send your login data to them via an email. It all happens in the background meaning you don't know it's happening, but it is happening.

Some time ago a friend made a video and I put it up on my YouTube account. I can only guess that one of the scammers themselves reported the video because this particular post showed how to avoid credit hack scams. Seeing YouTube had it within their power to remove the video AND warn me of a violation, I've shared a similar one here. 

I found it strange that even after I appealed the removal of that particular video YouTube maintained their decision. That just goes to show YouTube staff is automated, I don't believe an actual human would have removed it. Or, if it was removed by an actual human, they didn't really view the video.

The following videos show a particular scam, and shows the steps to perform to login. Also shown are the actual areas of danger regarding account hacking and loss of an IMVU account. 

If you do fall prey to this type of scam all you need to do to get your account back is submit a help ticket with the email address you signed up with, and also, they may ask for the name you gave when you signed up.

MISSING BADGES

IMVU BADGES

It was the summer of 2013 when IMVU was having severe connection issues. In response to their downtime they gifted their VIP users two badge tiles for the VIP users to design and pass out to friends and homepage visitors.

There was a very large uproar by a substantial amount of users. Partly because non-VIP users were also inconvenienced by the service outage, and partly because those very few users who had invested tons of credits on badges that were bought prior to the outage felt their badges had become less valuable. The non-VIP users felt snubbed, while the "very few" users proceeded to remove the images from their badge tiles thus leaving a grainy, pink box in place of the badge. You may have seen these pink boxes in badge trays yourself.

Now, months later, I haven't heard a thing from the non-VIP users in regards to the perceived snub by IMVU. However, I see that one or more of the "Elite" users (I will refer to them as elite simply because they put themselves in a class above those that didn't own badges) have not replaced the badge tile images that were removed. It's petty in my opinion.

Say no to the elitists. Grab the badge tiles here.

IMVU Creator Development: Web shop redesign and Paid Advertising.

I've been reading the IMVU forums about the newest 
Creator Development: Web shop redesign and Paid Advertising.

"...The main goal of this form of marketing is to simply get your name and brand out there by purchasing one of five available product spots on Shop’s main page. Each advertising spot will be a product from your catalog that represents that category. For example, if you have a beautiful necklace, you could submit that product to be chosen for the Accessories category. Creators may not have more than 1 product per category."

Rolled out on September 25th, there are gobs of forum pages, and it's clear the users would like IMVU to nail down their policies with a more defined hammer. The shady area being the actual duration of the ads. IMVU states it will be "about" a week.

"...generally speaking, we will advertise products for 7 days, but there might be instances where one phase runs for extra days. For example, if we start a phase on a Friday, we may not be able to update it until the Monday after the next Friday, making that phase 9 days instead of 7. This is to ensure our team has enough time to organize the next phase, including design work."

The cost of the ad: 8K credits or 1K developers tokens.

"...a nice idea , but a bit costly (8k for 1 week per product) i got a message to day saying developers that participated have seen a increase in sales , which is good . but is it worth the out lay of 8k per product and how many do actually go to the web store?"

It's being touted as a "Marketing Opportunity", but many posters are concerned IMVU will show favoritism toward certain creators/developers as they have in the past.

"...I'm very interested to see how this tests out, and how it prices out. The last time there was a 'pay for advert' it seemed priced for wealthy devs only.

I think the layout looks nice. The page is definitely more attractive now. I'm glad to see the web catalog being presented better, but fixing the catalog as a whole would be awesome, too, you know? "

The fall themed areas included in this redesign are:

• Shoes: male and female
• Tops: male and female
• Accessories: male and female
•  Furniture 
•  Rooms 

My thoughts:

IMVU has a thriving economy. At first glance my gut reaction was IMVU wants to pull back some credits into its Credit Federal Reserve. With so many 3rd party (discounted) sellers it would seem IMVU is trying to re-harness credits. And yes, some people do still buy credits from IMVU at Full Price! The kicker for the developers is this: Many people are buying these Advertised items with Promo Credits. The net for the developer =  a Loss.

 "...And if anyone is still interessed:
I submitted a dress and paid 1000 DT's
So far the dress has sold 22 times, 10 of which were promo-sales.
For me the return has been 10 DT's and 2160 credits, if I had paid with real credits I would be at a loss of -5840 credits."

http://www.imvu.com/catalog/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpbb2&file=viewtopic.php&t=478809&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0