Linden Double-Billing Parcel Ownership Flaw

Posted official guidelines regarding levels of land ownership state that a person is automatically billed for the highest level of SQM parcel ownership during the previous month. At face value you say, well fine, fair enough.

But this policy results in what I personally consider to be a totally unfair billing practice that results many times in Linden securing Double-Billing real dollars from people they are truly NOT entitled to.

Two specific cases in point. Cases that must happen with FREQUENCY at SL, resulting in the Linden Corp securing healthy levels of income they are truly NOT ENTITLED to.

CASE A:

Two people decide to SWAP, even for $1.00 each, their 10,000 SQM parcels. If I elect to be the FIRST person to buy the other's land, and then turn around and IMMEDIATELY sell my own parcel to the other person, I will be STILL BE CHARGED that month for possession of 20,000 SQMs of land, even though that level of ownership lasted MERE MOMENTS.

If you are a "buyer beware" devious type, you hide this fact from the other party to the transaction, and ask them to purchase your property first, so that no incremental property shows on your account, and you let them bite the bullet on the "hidden double-billing charges" they are unaware of. OR you elect to be Sammy Straight-Arrow, and volunteer to be the first to purchase, biting the bullet to accept double-billing charges for owning twice as much land than you actually do, or will, only moments later.

Either way, it is a seriously flawed, unfair billing practice! And the simple declaration of a policy, does not justify the existence of such a policy, even though residents accept the TOA. I can guarantee you, very few actually realize the "hidden" consequences of such a policy.

CASE B:

I have my eye on a new 10,000 SQM of property, which I naively elect to purchase, BEFORE selling off my CURRENT 10,000 SQM parcel. Under current billing practices, even if i SELL off my CURRENT parcel, WITHIN MOMENTS AFTER the purchase of the NEW parcel, I will still be billed that month for a peak possession of 20,000 SQMs of land.

SUMMARY AND PROPOSAL:

We already know there can be up to a 24 hour delay in processing time for Group transactions. Why not a policy that permits NO CHARGE RATE ADJUSTMENTS ON PARCEL OWNERSHIP FOR 24 HOURS FROM THE TIME OF THE TRANSACTION. Or make it 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours, or even a 1 HOUR GRACE PERIOD from the time of a transaction before new rate charges are assessed, to permit a party to re-align their new parcel ownership position.

Am I missing something here? Comments please?

A 24 hour grace would provide a way for people to sell quick land with no real overhead. Lets look at your scenerio a little differently. What is to keep a person from claiming the 10,000m and immediately selling it to someone else at a huge profit? It cost them absolutely nothing to hold the extra 10,000m and sell it. Why would this be permitted?

An alternative might be a once a year trade option. A one time 15 minute time grace annually, so that legitimate trades could happen. This type of deal is rare among those that want to swap plots, so once a year is fair and would keep land dealers from abusing a loophole.

When you purchase land over your tier level you are given 24 hours to 'claim' it. If person A purchases the land from person B, but doesn't tier up to 'claim' it then person B purchases land from person A and claims it immediately. Then person A logs into their account on the Second Life website and claims their land without having to tier up because the tier up page will say you can claim the land without having to tier up, now that you have tier free. So this is not an issue.

Person A cant sell land that is (pending) and not approved. If they fail to tier up, the land goes to Linden. Person B cant buy from Person A unless A approves the new tier. If this is happening, its a bug.

*edit. I read what you said again Rathe, I see what you mean. I wonder how often this happens.

In fact, you are missing something.

There is already a grace period built in to the system. You don't have to accept a new purchase right away.

If you want to swap land, transfer land from your group to you, or buy new land and sell your old land off quickly, just do it. Don't accept the new tier until after you've transferred your old land out of your name. When you go to the web site to accept your tier, you only need to then accept the tier for what you actually own.

Likewise, if selling land that belongs to your group: set the land to sell to you for L$0. Then buy the land. You'll get told that you have to accept the purchase on the web site. Don't do it yet. Instead, go to land management in your group and set your contribution low enough so that you can hold the land you just "bought". Now go set your teir on the web site. You will be able to leave it where it was and just click the button to accept the change.


I have seen this done more than once, and it works just fine. The only catch is that if you hold the extra land for too long, you'll lose it if you don't accept the tier during the grace period.

If u are permitted 24 hours to fess up to a new land purchase, at the penalty of losing both land and monies expended, why not Linden offering a buyer 24 hours to settle their intended actual holdings and declare also to the same fess up location that they have also sold away land that in effect keeps them at the same tier level. Fess up can cut both ways.

I am, in all modesty, a reasonably intelligent person. But it has taken some serious digging and probing on my part to clarify exactly what happens in these situations. And people can point to all kinds of official "full disclosure" poop that justifies the current policies. But I don't buy that approach. In these matters, when the policies do not track with what people intuitively expect and understand, then those policies and practices need to be changed. We are not talking here about how to throw down a prim and edit it. We are talking about taking real dollars from people's credit cards. And to me, clear, intuitively functioning practices and procedures should be the numero uno priority of the corporation.

Preventing potential abuse by land grabbers does not justify, in turn, abusing the average resident in order to do so. If land-grabbing brokers abuse this privilege, won't it show in their declared sale of land for an exorbitant price to an unsuspecting buyer? A simple declaration and implementation of policies here would correct that in a heartbeat. Any land-grabber exploiting the loophole, loses both land and cash acquired on the deal. Simple as that.

It's a current practice of Linden's for all people who don't fess up to their purchases in time to suffer grave consequences. Why not a similar policy for exploitive Brokers? Are they some rare breed of cat immune from prosecution or penalty or what?

There are many residents here who just want to enjoy their time here, and expect the policies and practices to be very intuitive and fair, and not require in-depth research to understand or execute. They are not "street-smart" and are not functioning in a "buyer beware" mode. Nor do I expect SL wants them to start functioning in these modes.

I don't know a single person I have discussed this issue with that has said: "Yup, I knew that." Their response has, to a man-woman been: "No chit! That can't be right! Are u sure about this?"

Which takes me to a related topic, that of the weasel-worded statement there is no monthly service charge for owning your first 512 SQM parcel. There shure as chit is a monthly charge! The monthly Premium Account charge of $10 USD monthly for owning 512 SQMs of land.

If you look at all the official published charts on Landfee charges you will find every one of them shows NO monthly service charges for the first 512 SQMs. When in FACT you are paying $10 USDs per month for that privilege, though it is couched as the basic charge for Premium Account Membership.

Correspondingly, every subsequent entry on the "official" Landfee charges charts show a USD dollar value that is $10 USDs SHORT of the actual amount a person pays for that amount of land. If I own 1024 SQMs of land, I do not pay $5 USDs for that in monthly charges. I pay $15 USDs per month to own at that level.

The assignment of the first $10 USDs monthly charge as a Premium Membership Fee and NOT a LAND MAINTENANCE FEE is pure marketing spin-doctoring and weasel-wording to "hide" the fact that yes you do indeed PAY FOR, ON A MONTHLY BASIS, $10 USDs to own that first 512 SQM parcel.

If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then chances are it IS A DUCK.

Kapeesh?

Doc?

Thank you for what is clearly an intelligent and articulate and clear response to my issue.

But when you review the protocols you have to follow, and the pitfalls you need to avoid to pull this off successfully, as you have so accurately outlined, can the average resident be expected to know this intuitively? I suggest not. I suggest that if they haven't read the contents of this thread, most of them will be flying blind. And that Linden will remain happily gobbling up their nickels.

I love this place. And have found the people who inhabit its realm to be an unusually high cut of cloth, and that includes the Linden employees themselves. They are class people, all around the horn.

But I have been in Advertising and Marketing all my adult life, working globally recognized national accounts. And I know to recognize marketing spin-doctoring and weasel-wording when I see it. And I see it here. Unequivocally. On issues related to the expenditures of REAL MONEY. Where the OBVIOUS is NOT DECLARED AS OBVIOUS, but HIDDEN in carefully constructed policy statements and verbeage designed more to cloud the truth, than make it apparent.

Jean, I'm sorry you're so upset by such a simple thing.

There's nothing terribly complex about Linden's land use policy: it's actually very simple. When you tier up, you pay more money. If you don't want to pay more money, don't tier.

ANY policy would entail a small amount of confusion: your confusion is just that you didn't understand that you don't have to pay the tier for up to 24 hours. This may not be obvious to everyone up front, but I honestly can't think of a system that is simpler than the way it works now.

I felt a little dumb the first time I realized that I didn't need to pay extra tier when I was going to overlap my land ownership by a matter of a few minutes, but it only happened once.

As far as Linden "disguising" land ownership fees.... I'm afraid that you're reading maliciousness where there is in fact none. The fact that premium accounts have a variable price structure, based on whether you pay monthly, quarterly, or annually, makes it difficult to say "it's $10 a month for 512m".

Also, I view basic accounts as a "$10 a month discount", rather than Premium accounts as a "$10 a month upgrade". Land ownership is only one area where basic and premium accounts differ. Basic accounts also have a smaller stipend and have to log in at least once a week to get their stipend. In addition, basic accounts expire if you don't log in for a certain period of time.

Yes, it's a bit like "free with purchase" offers or "the price is x, but only after a mail-in rebate" advertising, but if you're in the marketing business, you'd surely understand that LL's wording is generally a lot less tricky than some of what I've seen out there.

What's the real reason you're upset? Did you have to pay an extra fee this month because you bought some land? I'm sorry if that's the case, but we've all been there. If you're really that upset about it, call Linden Lab. I had an issue myself with something else, and they quite happily fixed the problem and refunded my money. Go ahead and call their customer service number. You might find that if you only overlapped your land ownership by a few hours, that they'll be happy to help.

I think you're overreacting to a very simple misunderstanding. Again, call Linden and just talk to them. You might be surprised.

Aurael, and I mean this sincerely, you must be a beautiful spirit to caste so benign an interpretation to this all. However, your own words bear out my point when you said ". . . we've all been there." If the landfee system were so simple and clear, then why should "any" have been put in that position, much less as you put it, "we've all been there."

I can assure you that "being there" involves being carefully watchful of charges placed to your credit card account, of then judging a billing "error" has been made, and then choosing to place a call to get the matter corrected, and then awaiting a subsequent credit to your credit card account for monies that should not have been taken in the first place.

I posed CASE A, the swap case above, to two Linden Live Help personnel who were simultaneously monitoring my request. Both official employees of Linden verified that what I said was true, and asked me to post my issue to the Forum. I heard not one word of disclaimer stating, "Oh no. It was never our intention to charge a resident under those circumstances." Nor did I hear, "Our billing server isolates these circumstances and does not bill residents for them."

What I am hearing is this. That there is a flaw in the system. That Linden recognizes this, and will be more than happy to refund your money under these circumstances, but only if you take the time and initiative to become a squeeky wheel and ask for it back.

I am thinking of the majority of people who never elect to take such initiatives, much less feel comfortable in contacting Live Help, who indeed are a wonderful crew of peeps. I am certain they are being charged, month after month, for just such transactions, being none the wiser for it.

I have presented this issue not because I have a personal ax to grind, but because I know in my heart there must be many, many peeps who do not monitor such things very closely, and who are, by their silence, being charged for just those types of transactions.

After the fact, gracious correction of a problem is light years different from taking steps to assure it doesn't happen at all.

The compliments I have paid to Live Help personnel for their attention and support easily exceeds a ten to one ratio against issues I have found heartburn with. Malicious intent on their part? Absolutely not. But the minor internal departmental choices that determine marketing strategies certainly have played a role here. Is it an accident that the highest amount you pay per month per Sim or Island is $195 USD, and not an over the top $200 minimum?

When I personally see a policy declaration that says "It is not the intention of LL to assess fees to transactions of this nature, and it is taking steps to correct this flaw in the system," will I be a happy camper.

Third party interpretations of intent, be they benign or prejudiced, both await an unequivocal statement of policy on the issue directly from LL itself.

It sounds to me like the dialog telling you to go accept the land needs to be changed.

Maybe add something like this:

If you are going to be transferring land out of your name, or if you are going to be changing your group land allotment, please do so before you accept this purchase on the web site. Remember, though: you only have 24 hours to do so.

Nods and agrees, Aurael.

Or more directly, in addition to reporting only purchases of land, the sale of land should also be reported to the same site. Then a clear statement of policy at the site can declare: "If this purchase places you into a new billing tier, to avoid additional new tier charges, you have 24 hours from the time of this land purchase to offset your new total SQM ownership by returning to this site to report the subsequent sale of land. Your billing rate will be determined by the net SQMs in your possession at the end of this 24 hour period."

Or even better, since the server has all this info, when a purchase is declared, the server announces first the tier charge category and billing rate for that category, followed then by the above disclaimer statement.

Upon declaration of the sale of property within the 24 hour window, the server announces the tier charge category and billing rate for the category, followed by one of two messages: "Your net holdings for this 24 hour period dictate the declaration of a new billing tier." Or: "Your net holdings for this 24 hour period leave your current tier billing rate of blah-blah unchanged. No further action is required."

Actually, in substance, if BOTH the purchase AND the sale of property is a required reporting item, the essence of this whole issue can be distilled into one automatic server function and corresponding policy: "You have 24 hours from the time of any land purchase to offset your total SQMs by reporting the sale of property."

And finally, since the system of immediate accounting of Lindens happens in virtually real time, why not a SECOND blue data field in the title block of the main window, next to the the green Lindens account field, which AUTOMATICALLY keeps track of the user's holdings, and simply declares the existing billing rate for the month, and upon any change in tier status, sends a flag to the user, giving them 24 hours to correct their net holdings before the new tier change billing goes into affect.

holy long posts, batman!