Linden Dollar Traders on the Internet - NEWBIE GUIDE

Hi,

I started on SL a few weeks ago, and after exploring, decided to upgrade to Premium membership and then to buy some land and build a house. To do this, I needed Linden $, and plenty of them (well, at least they way I wanted to build...)

Due to monthly trading limits for new SL accounts, I went onto the Internet and short-listed 3 companies:

1. Gameim - Linden $10000 + $1000 bonus for USD$39.99 = L$275.07 per USD
2. Favorgame - Linden $10000 + $200 bonus for USD$40.00 = L$255.00 per USD
3. Tradelindens - Linden $10000 for USD$40.00 = L$250.00 per USD

All promised excellent customer service and quick delivery, so.... I opted for Gameim due to price. Big mistake! 17 days later, after over 15 online support chat sessions, lots of emails and even a PayPal dispute (doesn't work on virtual goods). I kept asking either for the L$ or a PayPal refund, but they kept saying "go and make a cup of coffee, we will get the gold soon". I eventually received an email asking if they could deliver less now as the price had gone up. On refusing, I eventually was given L$10001 for my USD$39.99, which therefore put them into joint 3rd. I'm still disputing the remaining L$999, but hold no hope of getting it.

In between this, I used Favorgame. They had excellent and really friendly customer service. After 24 hours it became obvious that they could not deliver, completely unprompted they refunded my full PayPal payment with a really nice apology.

Finally, Tradelindens. Not the cheapest, but 15 minutes after clicking on "pay", the L$ arrived with my character. Now that's worth the extra any day.

Hope this helps anybody else who is new and might want some extra L$ to play with. Unfortunately, I would say avoid Gameim at all costs. Check with Favorgame if they have stock before ordering, or just use Tradelindens for first class service.

There is also huge risk you can lose the cash and the Lindens if you buy from riskier places.

I know that using Lindex and, most likely, SLX to exchange L$ for USD is ok. I also know that using some of the shade tree outfits may get your account blocked.

I'm not aware of a hard and fast rule, though. Sending newbies to less secure outfits is bound to be somewhat dangerous for them.

Personally, I always use Lindex. They may not offer the best overall price, but the assurance of no follow-on problems is worth it, at least to me.

I would trust SLX or Anshe Chung for big amounts but my purchases are not significant enough, only 1k every now and then, so I stick with Lindex.

X2

Nothing would turn a new person off SL faster than losing money to a scammer or being auto-suspended by LL's risk-model algorithm.

Please people you don't have to do this, just call Linden Labs support and request to have your limit increased. Mine went from US$10 to US$2500

My first month I was quite happy with living within the limits of allowable purchases, I wasn't ready to buy land or anything so involved, but admittedly it was a bit different, Waaaaay back in January. I got my sign up bonus right away I believe, and it was per gambling ban, and I had a couple of good Sploder wins. I bought Lindens once from a 3rd party site through ebay, and while I had no issues, once hearing of people getting suspended and having their Lindens conficated, I buy strictly through the Lindex now. The prospect of saving a dollar or two just isn't worth the risk.

You can get suspended by buying Linden $ from SLX or Anshe Chung? *blinks*

Do you think there might be a reason that those limits are there? What possible commercial (i.e. Greedy) reason could LL have for those limits?

I caution anybody new to SL against putting a lot of money into the world too quickly - if you decide it's not right for you, you will have one hell of a time getting it back. You can do soooo much without money. Even if your goal is to start up a business you will need a network - doing the in-world research on building that network doesn't cost you a penny.

Trusting a third party with either your login info or your money is a big risk, and this falls fairly and squarely into the second of those.

i think the limits are in place as fraud prevention and to combat money laundering activities.

SLX is the noobies best bet. they use the risk api, are ll approved, and havent screwed people over in the years they have been around. SLX even beats out lindex imo as i never have any problems getting paypal or my cc to work with them. on lindex it fails more often than not.

no. she was talking about buying through some random on ebay.

The limits are there I believe to try and prevent the L$'s value from changing too much in a single day, but also to make it harder to move a lot of illegal funds into SL alts and then try to cash it out through other accounts.

There have been a few cases of stolen credit-cards being used which is a bit pants.

I made a ton of dough from trading Lindens about 8 month ago. I flipped several million Lindens over the course of a few months and all was good.

My last trade flagged me. It must have been around the same time that Risk Api was starting to be enforced big time. I had to do the Linden shuffle. The story is the same. "you've been flagged with fraudulent lindens.' I did some fast talking and was re-instated within an hour.

Before the gambling ban, trading these things rocked. Casino owners were the source of third party lindens and you could get them cheap. Trading anything under 100,000L does not make any sense. For 10000, you're better off on the Lindex or SLexchange.

This is a horrible idea. If LL determines at any point that the L$ were fraudulently attained - not necessarily by the OP, but by the people she purchased from - they will suspend her account while they decide whether she was complicit and, even if they reinstate her, deduct 150% of the funds she acquired from her L$ balance.

This happens fairly often with eBay purchasers, and I don't imagine these other companies are using LL's Risk API either. SLX does, which makes it pretty safe.

Most of these guys that we are discussing are the very bots that are infecting the camping community. They have these camp farms set up where they may run 40-50 computers in one room handling up to 6 bots on each computer. Plus, they are running this scam on other games like WOW also. But when demand exceeds supply, the talons come out and so do the fake credit cards.

There are a couple of sites that are topnotch and have been trading virtual goods since Ascherons call. But they can't be competitive enough now that the Casinos are gone. So you will find their prices close to if not higher than the Lindex.

Was fun while it lasted....Won't even attempt again.

A fairly standard computer can handle a lot more than 6 bots, all you'd have to do is take out the rendering engine, and stop it from requesting assets and it becomes a lot less demanding, as no graphics, and no downloads would speed it up considerably.

...I didn't know any of this.... that'll teach me.

There are several reliable SL linden sellers on ebay, I've used 2 and my money was posted to my account with 5 minutes! If you need references to who they are I will gladly give.

I am past my limits now, but I will tell you even though you pay alot more than on LL its the only way to get past the limit...

Hahaha. Are they gold-farming? They must be the same people who run gold-farming operations on other games. Most are based in China...hence the nickname chinese gold farmers. These guys don't really think about the game at all, they don't care about the socializing, the experience, the enjoyment, they see a program that money can be squeezed out of and nothing less. You want to fund an operation that does nothing more than that? To screw you and all the other people who play SL?

I'm sorry Tarina, but this is BAD advice. You are fortunate that you haven't had a bad experience yet, but so many people buying through eBay haven't been so lucky.

The thing is, there ARE low-risk alternatives to buy lindens when you've gone over your Lindex limits. As mentioned above, SLX is an excellent choice. Anshe Chung is also an option... she's not risky, but you won't get a good exchange rate from her.

Lorna, you can't be expected to know all the ins and outs- almost no one does. I appreciate you going to the effort of summarizing those services.

A note about the trading limits though- depending on how long ago you first bought Lindens on LindeX, the limits might be lifted by now. That $10 USD limit is only for your first 2 days, and it gets more flexible until a month after your first purchase, at which point you'll be able to buy up to $2,500 USD per month. Remember, though, your limits clock only starts ticking after you've made your first purchase.
http://secondlife.com/currency/describe-limits.php

Even though I know there are some legitimate folks trading Lindens on eBay, this is a REALLY dangerous time to be using unofficial channels. I personally know several people whose accounts were frozen because of financial transactions they made that simply LOOKED suspicious. And it's true; if the person you buy Lindens from stole them or used a hack to obtain them, YOU run the risk of losing money and having your account frozen.

As far as I know, the safest place to purchase Lindens outside of LindeX is SLExchange.

I wish I had read this when I first started on SL way back in June this year. Using another avatar name, not the one I have now. I bought Lindens from a third party, I had no idea that this was against the rules. Just thought I was getting a good deal! I bought from www.Mmodo.com which appeared to be a recognised and well used gaming site.

How wrong could I have been, not only did I get told to go and make a cup of tea, but SL froze my account. I have not been able to use my original avatar since June. Five support tickets later and I am still none the wiser. They keep sending me links to 'solutions', but then when I log into support to see them access is denied.

I am really very sad, as I liked my original avatar and I feel very disillusioned with it all. Don't care if they take all the fraudulent lindens away from me, but just give me my avatar back. : (

I recently (very naively) purchased $5000 from Secondlife-linden.com. Since doing so my account was disabled and the lindens were found to be stolen. I have lost the lindens and the money I paid for them. I will be sticking to Lindex from now on. I strongly advise others to be cautious in buying lindens elsewhere. You never know where they are coming from.