lack of support and REFUSAL of service

ok this situation is appalling, I am a customer who called in for so called "support" from the lindens something that I find to be overwhelmingly lacking. I get a hold of Michael the operator or whatever he is spota do around there, we discuss an issue and he is unable to resolve my problem, then I request to speak to a supervisor / manager and get the response NO. I was told no that i was not allowed to speak to anyone else that I had to take what he told me as final word. as a customer I am entitled support and I am entitled to talk to a manager of an employee I do no feel is servicing me, I wasn’t offered an email my number want taken I was simply told no, to submit my request in writing to speak to someone of actual authority, and that is bull sh*t! Michael is by far the worse customer support linden I have ever had the displeasure of speaking to. He seemed to enjoy refusing my call.

I don’t think i am the only one who has been stiff-armed this way, he seemed all to familiar with being un-cooperative, and had no sign of support. Anyone who has had an experience with Michael please post it here I am going to submit a formal complaint on him but feel it will be trashed, he likely gets the mail!! Anyone who has had trouble please report it. If we stay silent bulldog tactics like his will win!

The issue was the fact that I purchase a substantial amount of land on Saturday (after they closed) and called them Monday (first day billing was there to take my call) to arrange payment

I know most of this seems / is a rant, but please anyone with issues getting support especially when it comes to YOUR money please post!

All I am asking it to charge part to another card,… come on! I called in a reasonable time that’s a simple request (that I have done in the past), where is my support?

Michael shame on you!
Least favorite person I hope to run across on the street? MICHAEL!!

first off.. breathe!!

Next, have a glass of whiskey, wine, or water.. whatever your poison may be.

Michael has always been a great Linden to me, but I'm not 100% certain he is a liasion. I could be wrong though. And I understand your frustration, but one part of your post confuses me:



In the quote above you state that you are entitled to talk to someone of authority. Also in the quote above, you state that you were told how to speak to someone of authority.

So I am a tad confused as to why you are upset with this method of action?

Um from my experience I have NEVER received a response (other than auto response) form emailing linden labs support (an email that goes to Michael BTW) second a phone call is better then email, it is less ambiguity and less time / trouble. The issue is the fact that I was REFUSED by someone who wasn’t the person I even needed to be talking to, to be able to talk to the correct person, that’s worthless and against the entire concept of customer support! Also emailing wouldn’t solve the situation as fast as I would prefer and like I said leaves a lot of room for misunderstandings i don’t wish to incur. There isn’t support for multiple characters to pay for an auction, nor for any single person to enter 2 cards into their profile for charging, this means you are required to call and talk to them. Which I was refused how am I able to jump threw the hoops if the building is locked!

All I am saying is I am loosing faith in SL all together, many might say then quit, but that doesn’t solve anything nor help me in any way, quitting is as helpful to me as Michael

I am happy for you and your experience, just don’t expect much, I obviously cant even expect him to transfer my calls…..

Putting a payment over two cards isn't something all companies are exactly equipped to be albe to do, depending on how their software is. It's not exactly something encountered often(in my own experiences) and could take tinkering with invoices to make it work (if possible)

Also, perhaps there is noone else there who is able to help you, in which case I would have said no as well (I do tech support for a living). It amazes me the number of people who demand to talk to someone else, no matter how many times I tell them there is noone else, especially when I'm the only one currently in. On Sunday I actually had a customer demanding that I give him the phone number to a supervisor's home, or he would have the papers write a nasty story on us (common threat, never works). Sorry, I like not being fired. It's not that we don't want to help, it's that we can't!

edit: and yes, for some requests, we do indeed ask you to send an email.

Tikki - playing support's advocate

I used to do tech support. Tough job. I have to wonder if we are getting the full story here.

Do you need a boss to tell you 'no' as well? After that, do you want the owner to do the same? He said no for a reason. Do you know what it is? Perhaps you should find out!

I don't know of any web site that lets you pay for anything with two cards. For fraud prevention alone this is probably verbotten, secondly their accounts and ecommerce system may simply not be able to handle it.. (because no one ever does it, because it's forbidden).

Some people just don't like an honest customer rep

Seriously, I'd suggest just asking them why they can't help.

PC

There's a decent chance he told you "no" because the answer to your question is "no." How many times would you have demanded to hear it before it was 'official'?

The time to arrange for dual card payment of something, or to find out if it's even possible, is before you make the purchase, not after.

I've never had a bad experience with Michael and do no think he is at fault here.

LL is a very small company, there may not even be anyone else in the office who would even know how to handle something like that. And regardless, some things companies just can't/won't do, no matter if you speak to god himself.

Hm, I wonder if we'll see another whole sim back up for auction then....

If you can't afford a land payment on the credit card you signed up with, then don't try to purchase land. Simple as that.

Was it the fact that you weren't able to speak to a supervisor or the fact that they won't split your payment up that upsets you?

You realize the formal complaint would be by email, right? So... you're going to email about not wanting to email?

Linden Lab is a small company and employees are very web savvy. Many read emails even after hours. You probably would get a very swift response via email, and it's extremely likely that Michael's boss was in a meeting, busy, or otherwise unable to speak to you.

It amazes me how many people come out of the woodwork to defend when LL is "theoretically) attacked".

I don't have anything against LL that I don't have against any other company whose policies and practices I don't agree with at the time I am upset. But the seemingly-blind "loyalty" and penchant for leaping to LL's defense that some people on this forum have truly floors me.

Look, I don't think the original rant was the full story. Even if it was, I am not sure the Linden mentioned did anything wrong. OTOH, if I reread the posts here in response, it almost seems that the expectation is for the thread originator to go along to get along, regardless of what actually happened.

I'm sitting here shaking my head trying to figure this out. LL ain't perfect, people. Some of their choices have proven just how human they are/can be. So, why is it that a huge majority of the posts in response are essentially leaps into the firey furnace to defend against what is obviously a rant? Don't you guys and galls think that LL can defend itself if it needs to?

At the risk of repeating myself, people, LL ain't perfect. But it is what we (I) have to deal with.. so we/I will. But I won't defend it. Not my job.

Part of it is that it's so much fun to rip someone up one side and down the other when they make it so easy.

This is a valid question, and I've thought about that myself.

In this case it's obvious: the poster asked for player feedback on Michael, feedback was given.

Is that so hard to understand?

Yep.. figures.. you didn't READ THE FRIGGIN POST! He did not ask for feedback on Michael.

My post stands tho the other response, suggesting people just like to flame, is probably the only one that may have any validity.

Korg, yup he/she did, in the opening post on this thread:

If this tech support guy "Michael" is the same guy as "Michael linden" in world. All i have to say is that he is one of the best employees second life holds. He always answers ims when he is needed, if he doesnt know the answer he doesnt try to bs you he says hold on let me try to get the answer for you..not im going to send you through a quest to find your own answer. I know i have badgered this guy i do not know how many times for help and he has always been there and with a good attitude ontop of that. This guy in my opinion is a model employee. Infact i once requested the address of linden labs to send him a thank you card (thats how impressed with his service i am) There are a hand full of lindens that are the same way he is. Yes others are lacking in the friendlyness category but this guy surely is not. If i called linden labs and i was told no (already knowing to submit billing iquirys to [email]billing@secondlife.com[/email] and also knowing that colin linden (inworld name) would be the one to handle it) i would have trusted michael and kept stepping. If this isnt the same michael as michael linden then just please disregard my post. All i can say is GOOD JOB MICHAEL,RHEYA,CHAR,HAMLET! some of the best lindens linden labs has!!

Nice one, Korg.

OWNED

I personaly simply state my experience. I've never had issues with support. I do and have disagreed with some things LL has done (*cough*banishmentwithoutclearexplination*cough*).

Simply stating things as I see them.

If LL wants to defend themselves, no ones stopping them, and they have spoken up about things in the past also, but obviously the poster did ask if anyone else had issues, and so far it seems not many (if any at all) have.

I have no comment on the original posters case. But, since he asked for feedback on Linden customer support. My experiences have been at least 75% terrible. Unanswered emails, unreturned IMs, a constant "Just Bug It" attitude - even when it is obviously not a bug, a couple "I am really busy, can you Just Bug It" responses. And I have only contacted them probably 10 times in a year. The few positive experiences have been from Char. Anyways, yes - young growing company, few employees, blah blah blah - all that doesn't make up for just a piss poor customer service attitude. But, that is what you get when you make engineers/programmers do customer service.

lindens have always responded to my emails and ims. when i say "always," i mean every single time. now, david (remember david?), haney, micheal, pheonix and robin have all handed me a big fat NO on occassion. i was most cross with them of course. but they were always either right, or dictating company policy that left them no choice. well, i guess robin has a choice, but she's way too nice to be angry with. all in all, i've found them to be as helpful as they can be.

i take that back; haney was wrong once. but then the whole building fell through the frame and is lost somewhere deep under the grid forever so i guess that's a moot point now.

The issue is not one of poor support, or Michael's unwillingness to help. The problem is that our system is set up for one credit card per account. We do this for a variety of reasons, but the reality is that currently we can't split a payment across two credit cards (although we could do it across two accounts, which would have meant in this case trying to then divide up the land so it could be claimed by two accounts).

It's our general policy to be as creative as we can in coming up with solutions to accommodate people's various billing issues. Sometimes we're more successful than others.

You want to know what I find great about this thread?

You are entitled to NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!!!

YOU are PRIVILEGED to be playing second life, read the constitution, it is not your RIGHT to play second life and recieve support.

I expect the next whine from you to be something there is a basis for.

Trifen could you not afford it? If you are close to your limit or something and want to split it up between a few cards i might help you out buddy.. just im me and let me know what you need and i *might* be able to lend you a hand.