Is this a scam, or extortion, or for real?

Honestly, "Basic Membership" from before 2006ish, is a special case, since you've been paying for it. And had to pay for a Basic account back then anyways.

I would pick up a telephone and call up Linden Labs billing support. I would START by mentioning your join date, and that you pay tier. And start asking questions like "what is this email about". A lot of us here have no clue what might be going on with your account. People with accounts before 2006 are a mystery to me, and thei rules that apply to them are different than those of us who joined after "Basic" became "free".

Welcome back Molecular, sounds like there was some goof up but there so much that that has happen since then it is easy to like to get lost too.
I got so lost I lost my first account for years.
My first guy got his land pretty for free in beta in 2003, no clue what happen to it due to fact I lost everything when it went public and was ill, confused and pretty lost everything but was only able to re-activate my old account years later.
Yes at one point we didn't have to pay anything, then they started charging for prim tax, which confused the hell out of me.
I left before the lifetime memberships.
I could never figure it out a lot of things back nor did I keep with how it evolved to membership dues and tier but I don't remember when that occurred because I was fast asleep in invalid realm..
I agree with Winter just call them and talk to billing support.
I had to do that few times and they were always very helpful in fact help me get my first alt from 2003 back.

One thing I discovered when I took a two year old alt premium recently, is that account gets 500L per week stipend (the amount in effect when the account was created). So if you fall in that category you actually make a profit by being premium:

Annual membership: US $72

Stipends paid @ 500L$ per week x 52.18 weeks average per year = 26,089L$

Sell lindens @ limit sell 264/$ = US $ 98.82

Minus cash out to paypal fee = US $ 97.72

Profit = 35.8%

So, you might want to go premium for one month, and see what you get with stipends, and if its good enough, go annual.

Oh, you're crazy.. we're all quite mad here.

See, when I came into the game, you had to pay the 9.95 USD once to create a basic account, got the L$50 (my husband's main still gets it when he logs her in,) and had to be premium to own land, so I'd assume this change happened in late 2004/early 2005. I assumed that with the exception of the Lifetime accounts, you always had to be premium to own land. I don't think there was any record of it being different.. because they were much better at updating the website back then.

You get 300L a week now.

Ever since I joined SL--only a few months after you--it has been the case that you had to be a premium member to own land.

I posted somewhere in this thread about a friend of mine owning 5000sqm on a basic account. Well he received the same mail as the OP did yesterday so guess they are making changes rather than a random mistake.

He's going to sell up and rent. Paid about L$1.5 per sqm in 2004 so least he will get a nice return.

Blimey.. hope I don't end up as grumpy as these old gits in another three years when I've grown up

A basic account holder, if he or she tries to buy mainland today, gets a message that they have to go premium first.

imogen

Might avoid the whole problem by making a 2 member group and deeding the land to that.

By the way, welcome back sir. I remember you well.

Has that ever stopped us before?

(Like Osprey said: welcome, Molecular. Best of luck in getti' it all sorted out!)

/me raises hand.


WB Molecular.

Yes, if you make a new account and go premium, that's correct.

What I had was an alt that was basic for two years, then recently went premium. To my surprise, I started getting 500L a week stipend, and still get it as of last Tuesday.

So, apparently you will get a stipend based on when the account was born, NOT the date you go premium.

Anyone who has an old account might therefore want to consider going premium, because the weekly stipend alone is worth more than the premium account fee.

I assume they are updating their database. I got a similar e-mail about my account. It was a billing clarification, I am premium. But they also changed the database in the member sales and cash records as well. That just happened a few days ago. Perhaps they are just cleaning up a bit and the original poster slipped under the radar for a while. Oddly I think the info they asked me for refers to a request I put in about 6 months ago.