Anybody Using/Accepting MetaCard?

I am also a MetaCard Merchant. I have a few thousand Lindens in MetaCards sales this month already. The vendor scripts work great too. When you click, the hover text pops up informing the customer they can pay with MetaCard or right click and choose Pay to use Lindens. Most of customers are accustomed to right clicking and choosing Pay... and never see the message concerning the MetaCard.

First Meta also holds events for MetaCard merchants only such as the fashion show last month. Only MetaCard merchants could participate. I know there was also a Valentine's celebration, a Chinese New Year celebration and in January, if I'm not mistaken, a homebuilder's showcase. They set aside land on their SIMS for displays for MetaCard Merchants.

The MetaCard Basic with a $5,000 credit limit does NOT require security with a RL Credit card. This could be useful for something expecting a salary this week.. but would like to get those new shoes now

FirstMeta has complied with all of Linden Labs requirement concerning banking as well.

Check our their website for more information if you like. There is no scam here. They have won numerous awards.. and even a startup grant in the amount of $50,000.

the mouse over tool tip? do you mean when you mouse over it and the info that comes up?

If so that is just the info that the creator of the object puts in there so maybe the creator put in to touch to buy...

mine just has the name of the product and the price...

*shrug*

Thanks claari well said

I am not so well versed so mainly just kinda put my view out there heh

I am sorry I am bit jaded.
I won't believe unless someone like high ranking Linden says these are the recognized banks in SL.

LOL.......Second Life - full of wonderful things to buy. New luxury skybox by Printesa Nina? 27,000L. Red Armani suit? 10,000L. 75m Luxury Yacht by Blaze Nielson? 150,000L. Having your hair and shoes stuck up your av's ass????? Priceless. For the priceless moment, you only need a bad rez. For everything else....there's the Second Life MetaCard.

they are not a bank

bank as defined by SL, is something that gives you interest on something you deposit

you do not get interest if you have a "savings" account

check out the website for more info.

remain jaded, that is ok
doesn't mean all of us will be

If your script picks up certain events, it showed in the mouseover tooltip - I don't remember if it is touch or money events. I also used them with hovertips off since I can't stand when words float through walls. A couple of the stores/booths I was renting at the time didn't allow hovertext on their sites.

I hung around the fair I was in for a while and saw a couple groups of people complain after touching one of the vendors. *shrug* YMMV and all that.

Could be related to the product audiences. I get the same sales in furry areas whether I use a button-laden choice filled scripted vendor or an unscripted prim. My neko products are very sensitive to what I use to vend. I was more than a little confused by this until I went on a shopping binge with a bunch of neko friends and started paying attention to what other content creators were using as vendors. My friends also mentioned that they like being able to look and see what the items and permissions are on things they're considering buying, something you can't do with a scripted vendor.

If MC set up a sideline running themed fairs every so often, I'd happily put a few $L in for a spot now and then. Themed fairs are great for both shoppers and sellers, and they go better with an experienced crew organizing them.

Well today I set up a few vendors with MetaCard, so people can use their cards in my shop. Wether the card itself is of additional value I do not know, the fact that it is still out there would mean people are using it. So why not providing a service to them to accept it?

Greetings Marcel

That is okay I don't expect everyone too...just with all the finical scams that happen here I am personally bit suspicious and I personally just don't believe in credit cards.
That just me.

Because I don't want to promote a service which is designed mostly to seperate avatars from their lindens, by charging them for a non-service. It's just against my code of ethics.

Hi James,

True enough. I've been in SL for quite a while and Angel is my main account. The forums used to be a really rough place. I was and for the most part still am a lightweight when it comes to debate. I read the forums regularly for years, but rarely every commented. I didn't even realize I had my online status hidden in the forums until last month. I likely set my forum status to invisible when I first began posting and promptly forgot.

Once LL closed the general discussion area I only frequented the new products threads. I had no idea there was still an active forum in Resident Answers, even if most posts are off-topic! *chuckles*
I post infrequently primarily because I don't care to get into disagreements with some of the more argumentative posters. It's just not my personality to duel over issues.

I do, however, enjoy being a forum voyeur!

Angel

Not sure how you get your money then Rhaorth. Maybe you opened it before they started insisting on a deposit account. You must get paid directly.

This is an extract from the T&C's 'When your customer makes a purchase with his MetaCard™, the revenue (minus the transaction fee) is immediately credited to your free MetaSavings™ account and available for withdrawal at any of our many ATMs in-world.'

So, I read that as Firstmeta keep your cash on account until you physicaly go and withdraw it. They are unregulated and have no RL FI affiliation. To me, that appears to be a contravention of TOS on SL banks which was introduced after the fiasco of WSE. Genko and all the others.

My issue with this is that you are effectively giving your cash to someone on a street corner to look after it for you. People who have been in SL for awhile will make their own judgement as to if the risks outweigh the advantages but it does concern me and I asked for clarification on this from LL.

If people believe that they are violating the rules about banks, then I think they are free to file an AR about to and let LL decide. No point debating it here, because it won't get read by the people that can make a difference.

Its everywhere you want to be.

When LL announced the new banking policies, First Meta went directly to them to get the information they needed in order to comply. They didn't wait for the Lindens to approach them... they did not wait until they were AR'd... they were proactive in adapting their policies in order to be compliant so I'm certain they will withstand any ARs submitted.

FirstMeta is a RL company, backed by real money. Before the new banking policy, they did pay interest on their Savings accounts... now they offer Reward points instead of interest in order to comply with the new rules.

True, merchant income in held in a Savings Account until the merchant withdraws it from an ATM... I have one on my property. But this is NO different than SLExchange or OnRez.com. Your earnings are held in an account until you initiate some sort of transfer to your SL avatar or to your RL bank account. If anyone is nervous, dont let it sit in the account.... go to the ATM once you reach a certain level and withdraw it.



You actually are not GIVING them anything. A customer comes to your store and makes a purchase with MetaCard. FirstMeta IMMEDIATELY deposits that money minus the fee into your First Meta account. You have immediate access to it. So.. FirstMeta is GIVING you their money.... trusting that person that purchased your product will pay it back.

Claari, if this is the case, then I applaud them. Do you have a reference that we can use, for future use? I mean something other than one person's word that they went through this process? Not saying that I doubt you, just that it's going to take a bit more than one person posting on a forum to put people's minds at ease.

strange I never considered that as a savings account, I usually withdraw any sales within a day or two so I can keep my lindens on my account to be able to cash out for tier

but never had to give any RL credit card info

This still doesn't explain the question of why they are charging people interest on loans of US$40. It seems distinctly that they are trying to take advantage of the "scaling" of L$ compared to US$, so that L$10000 "looks like" a lot of money. They list a "daily periodic rate" of 0.11% which is equivalent to a traditional interest rate of 40.15%!

I dont expect anyone to take my word for it. I was a MetaCard merchant before Linden Lab announced the new banking policy. Within an hour or so of the announcement the FirstMeta group in SL received a notice that they had already contacted Linden Lab to get the specific requirements for compliance. Within a day or so (dont remember exactly) but they released their new policies that aligned with the LL banking policy. (I can go find those notices and copy them here if necessary.)

Here is a link to their press release:
http://www.firstmeta.com/main/press_releases/metapoints

and a Quote from their website:


I fear I'm beginning to sound like their Press Manager but I'm not affiliated with FirstMeta beyond accepting the MetaCard in my store. I defend them because in light of all the scandals in SL since I became a resident... I am very impressed with how FirstMeta handles their business.

Yumi as far as the interest rate... even RL credit cards charge interest on even a $5 purchase. FirstMeta is not charging you 11% on $40US dollars.... they are charging you 11% on the Daily Average of your account. So if your balance on your card is $10,000L for the entire month..... your interest would be $10,000 X .11 = $1100.... roughly the equivalent of less than $4US. So I'm not sure where you are getting the 40% interest. There is no capitalization on the exchange rate that I can see. You borrow Lindens, you are charged interest on those Lindens... and you pay them back in Lindens.. or the US equivalent of those Lindens.

I'm just pointing out what I know to be true... I dont expect anyone to take my word for it. I've just been there, done the research, read their website forwards and backwards.. and spoken with members of their team. If anyone feels uneasy about doing business with FirstMeta or Metacard, then I urge you not to do it. They've just made me feel very comfortable in doing so.

Well it does definitely sounds less like a scam.

More like something you don't really need.

The usual way of showing exchange rates is APR (Annual Percentage Rate). FirstMeta show the DPR (Daily Periodic Rate). So if you pay 0.11% interest every day for a year, you get 40%.

yeah that is how I see it, not a scam, but something you do not really need, but some ppl want

why they want to use it is their own business and I will not try to guess as to why.

as for the info claari wrote, I agree

I am very impressed with the way they handled themselves through the whole thing, and how they kept the users informed.

Two problems for me: (1) I find myself spending L$500 a month with the card just to avoid the L$300 a month if I don't spend at least L$500 on items I don't really need or even want. (2) No information on how to cancel the Metacard that I can see anywhere on their website or in the information notecards in the "Metacard Consumer Pack".

It really is something you don't need. More something you want that becomes something of a millstone around one's neck!

And again:

For some reason I don't recall at the moment, I was directed to them back earlier last year. I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I teleported over to their FirstMeta region and looked around. Fairly nice build for their main office building, and they had a mall there where all the merchants took their card. The place was a ghost town; the merchants selling stuff that looked to be more than a year old at the time. Beside one other person who tped in and left within a few minutes, my bud and I were the only ones there for a couple hours whilst we explored. We went to their adjacent region where they had a half-constructed mock-up of some convention center in Singapore. The place was completely deserted.

Not a very convincing indication of their popularity or continued presence as a business in SL. I note now that their regions are completely gone from the grid.

I guess the gimmick didn't appeal as much as they hoped it would. Since it is a charge card, there's not much of an issue with losing money, unless they are a racket for collecting credit card / PI info, and I remember not being particularly impressed with their security or privacy policies.

All in all, I decided from what I saw that I wasn't interested in their services for my business.