Mismatch: "Allowed" and "Cost"

I can't find this information anywhere in the Knowledge Base or even in an internet search, so maybe someone here will know:

Are there circumstances in which your "Allowed Holdings" square-meter amount WON'T match your "Total Monthly Cost" dollar amount, on your "Your Account" page?

I believed that the way it worked was, the minute you buy land that goes over your previous Tier limit, both numbers would change: the number of meters you are now 'allowed' at your new, higher Tier, and the dollar amount you'll be charged on your next bill date---the Total Monthly Cost.

In other words, if you have 1,500 square meters, your Your Account page would show "Allowed Holdings: 1,536m" and "Total Monthly Cost: US$8".

But then if you bought another 512m parcel, your Your Account page would now say "Allowed Holdings: 2,560m" (because you'd have bumped up to then next-higher Tier level when you went above 1,536m) and your "Total Monthly Cost" would now read "US$15".

And....all the way up until your Bill Date, you would still see those same numbers, assuming you didn't buy more land that would put you above 2,560m.


The reason I ask: I was at a certain tier level. But at almost exactly the half-way-through-my billing month point (14 days in), my "Total Monthly Cost" remained at the dollar amount I went to when I went up in tier----but my "Allowed Holdings" dropped down to the number of meters for the next LOWER tier.

I'm paying the higher tier, but can hold land only up to the lower tier.

It's as if you went up to the "2,560m, US$15" level on September 5, but then on September 19, mysteriously your Account page said "1,536m, US$15".

Am I missing something obvious here?



(in case someone skimmed---no, this isn't about the 'if you own over 1,536m for even a minute you have to pay the tier for 2,560m' rule---that's clear and understandable. This is about being at a certain dollar tier, but then halfway through the month, still having to pay that dollar tier, but being allowed only the meters for a lower level of tier.)

Probably a silly question, but: Did you donate tier to a group?

No, I haven't done that. I don't have any groups, so it's not due to anything anyone in a group has done.

(I appreciate the guess, though. I can't help feeling that this is probably something I should understand without having to ask....but I don't!)

To add a little clarity (maybe), in this example, your* Billing date is always the 4th of each month.

Thus the mysterious change in Allowed, so that it no longer matches Total Monthly Cost, happened 15 days after your last billing date.


*a hypothetical You, of course.

Still have that mismatch.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen, on their own Account page, an "Allowed Holdings" number that's lower than what their "Total Monthly Cost" figure corresponds to.

From the fact that 100 people have seen this post...I'm thinking it's not something any of them have seen.

Which doesn't prove it never happens, of course.

Still, it clearly can't be very common.


???

(it's been that way for five days, now.)

The group question was because you get a 10% bonus for tier donated to a group.

For example, if you've donated, say, 100m2 to a group, it only costs you 90m2 of tier.

Right, and also there might be more possibilities for software glitches that would result in a mismatch.

But I'm really wondering if anyone with no group has ever seen their Allowed Holdings not match their Total Monthly Cost (which is my situation since the middle of my billing month).

Turns out it WAS just a glitch (well, possibly human error--that may not be knowable).

I had to talk to LL on a separate matter, and when that was taken care of, asked about the Mismatch thing. And the person just fixed it.

So....no arcane, mysterious rule had kicked in.

Which is good. Arcane, mysterious rules never do inspire confidence in financial matters.

Thank you for posting the results - often people just post their problem, then nothing else whether there was a solution or not. Anyone in the same boat who is searching for information (perhaps at a much later date) will certainly benefit from your post.

I appreciate your saying this---and I agree. It's less helpful to others when no resolution is ever posted.

(Unfortunately the resolution of this little problem can't be as interesting as the 'they suspended my account' one that turned out to be because the person's RL name was Linden.......!!!!)

^_^

Wouldn't you know....the 'fix' didn't hold.

Three days ago I bought a parcel at auction, and my Allowed went right back down to the wrong number---the square meters allowed someone at the next LOWER tier.

But I'll still be billed for the higher tier on my next billing date.


My ticket is still unanswered.

This cost LL money today---several hundred US dollars. Because the parcel I wanted to buy would have been well under the Allowed limit for the tier I'm going to be paying on my billing date----but it is just over the False Allowed limit that appears on my Account page.

So sure as shootin', if I'd have bought it, I'd have been billed ANOTHER half-sim tier increment (US$97.50) EVEN THOUGH I HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR THE RIGHT TO OWN THAT MUCH LAND.

And I'd have had a long, long fight with LL over getting back the US$97.50 that I'd have been billed in error.


(They really did give up several hundred dollars because of this: if I had won the auction and paid them those several hundred dollars, the person who actually won because I didn't bid would have found some other large parcel to buy, and LL would have received my 'several hundred dollars' and the other 'several hundred dollars' from the other bidder, too.)

Nothing like throwing money away to keep a company's balance sheet healthy....



(((that was sarsasm)))

I should expand on this for clarity: my question about the mismatch is still unanswered.

However, I did get a response to the ticket: the person just assumed I was complaining about the 'if your holdings go above a tier limit even for one minute, you will be charged the next higher tier on your next billing date' policy.

(Notice that I tried to head off that assumption in my first post about this mismatch thing.)

So all the person did was cut and paste the boilerplate about the policy, with lots of boldings and italics.

And of course this is nothing whatsoever to do with the 'mismatch' issue. So it wasn't an answer.


(Who knows---I suppose the people who deal with tickets have a quota to get through, and so maybe just skim them, and this person saw the words 'tier' and 'billing' and just assumed that my ticket was yet another of the "what's up with this charging when I owned it for only one minute!!?!?!?" variety. I'm sure they get a lot of those, so it's kind of understandable. But still, annoying.)

I resubmitted, and hope that the ticket will actually get read, this time.