Problem with Linden Dollars

Hello. New here, had a look but couldnt find a thread about this so here goes...

Im trying to buy Lindon Dollars, ive got $25 US in my account, but when I try and buy Linden Dollars, it says...

" We are unable to complete your request.
• This transaction would exceed your daily billing limit by US$9.7. You have already billed US$25.00 of your daily billing limit US$25.00.
• Couldn't reserve order.
• The system encountered an error while processing your order, please try again."

There's 0L$ in my account.

Anyone know whats going on? It's getting quite annoying, its probably my stupidity, but I have found buying linden dollars quite difficult, feels like theres a million different proccesses to go through!

Hope everyones ok, and thanks in advance!.

Hi, Arlon!

Welcome to the forums (a great place to hang out, if you can't be in world) and to the world of Linden Labs' financial maze (not such a fun place to hang out).

When you first use your payment method to buy something (like a Premium membership), LL puts a restriction on your transaction limits. This is annoying, but understandable...they do it to keep people from buying L$ with stolen credit cards and hawking them on eBay.

They also count your membership transaction, and your depositing $US in your account, against those transaction limits...which in my view is idiotic. It basically means you can't DO anything.

These limits will be lifted in a few days, if you're patient. If you are NOT patient, you can run over to the third party website, SL Exchange http://www.slexchange.com and open an account there. Deposit money with them by PayPal or credit card, exchange it for L$ on their currency exchange, then transfer it to your avatar in world either from their website or via an in-world SLX ATM kiosk.

You bought a US$ balance instead of buying linden dollars directly. I've heard of people making this mistake before - thinking they have to buy them in US$ first then transfer into L$. Actually all you need to do is click on your balance in world and buy them

If you now want to transfer from your US balance to your L$, I don't know how else to do it but contact support..

Thankyou both for your help.

I think I'll head over to Slexchange now and get some dollars while I wait for the rest to go through.

Thanks again, its a massive relief to know its not my own doing in doing something wrong!

Hope to see you in SL!

Good grief, it's much easier than that.

Just go to the Buy L$ page on the support portal, http://secondlife.com/currency/buy.php, and place your order there. It will take the money out of your US $ balance. Indeed, if you place a limit order (the best way to buy), you must first have the money in your US$ balance.

Don't do that.

If you hadn't already put dollars into your account with LL, then I would say ok. I don't think SLexchange is the best for the quantities you're talking about, but it wouldn't be terrible.

But you already have the money sitting in your LL US$ account. In order to buy L$ at SLexchange, you first have to get money to them - and they charge a 2% transaction fee for that, before you even get to buying the L$ (in most cases).

At current rates, a limit order to buy at 275, with a total cost of $25, will get you 6793 L$ on the Lindex ($25 - 0.30 fee, times 275). A limit order on SLexchange at 276.4, with a total cost of $25, will get you 6772 L$ ($25 - 0.50 fee, times 276.4).

I'm curious now though - What is the purpose of the LL US$ balance? Is it for paying tier? I've never, ever used it, that I remember, have always just bought L$ in world directly, and only found out recently that it was even an option to have a balance in US$.

It doesn't work like that with the initial purchase. You'd think that it would, but the way they have it set up, once you put the 25USD on, the system views it as having hit your limit and, if you try to make a L$ purchase, it thinks you've exceeded that limit...it won't let you 'convert' to L$.

Once the limit increases then, yes, any purchases you make will come out of the USD balance first.

Yeah, you can deposit USD or convert L$ to USD and leave it in your account for tier and membership fees. I know a lot of business owners will convert L$ rather than paying from credit card or PayPal. Some people also use it for budgeting...they'll deposit their SL-alloted 'fun money' for the month or whatever so they don't accidentally go over with random L$ purchases.

that's actually quite a good idea then

Even if you make a limit purchase, instead of market? Or perhaps it's because limit orders usually take a few days to fill, so the trading limit will have reset by then. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to test this (short of creating a new alt for that purpose - which seems silly).