Alt Account Help

I actually have a few questions on this subject that haven't been cleared up yet and they happen to be driving my bf and I crazy. I've scoured the whole site and have submitted tickets and read the support pages, perhaps I'm overlooking but I haven't had any success. My first question is regarding the cost of creating an alt. It says that it costs a one time fee of $10 to create an alt. I actually created my first alt last night, but it never said anything about costing any money, it just took me through the regular process and then *yay* new character. How do I know if I was charged for this? Shouldn't there have been a little more warning or something? I'm not saying that I'm not responsible for my own actions, but I didn't see where it said that it costs money to create an account anywhere. Second question is.. I created an account for my bf today for him to try out sl, I used all his info and his own email address. Turned out the name didn't work out so I cancelled it (its pending atm) and went over some names with him to create a new character. We went through the whole process again and when we got to the end it came up with something about how the account wasn't allowed anymore characters or something like that (forgot the exact message sorry) and that we should wait and try again. That led me to searching through the knowledge base where I found out about the alt charges. I also read that you can only make 2 accounts per 24 hours. I assumed that this is what's causing the problem, but I don't see why his account should be based on mine. His isn't an alt of mine...It's his own independent account and character. I was also then curious if I was charged for his character being created, seeing as how it's considered an alt. Ugh, sorry for such a long post but this really has me frazzled and he's really irritated and I don't want to find out that I spent $30 today by just trying to show him sl and what it's about, when he may not even like it... And just in case you cant decipher what I was asking:

Q1: Is there a way of telling if you have been charged for making an "alt"?
Q2: Was I charged for making an account for him even though I used all of his info, including his own seperate email address?
Q3: If I am going to be charged, does cancelling the account prevent that?
Q4: Why can't I make him an account (2 per 24 hours, but they are seperate accounts, not alts)

Thanks for your time everyone, again sorry for such a long post. Hopefully you all can help me understand this

alts are free....
atm you can make as many as you want and not pay for them, one of the reasons why we have so many people online and greifers

not sure about the bf's accoutn thing.. maybe it was done from ur Ip addy or something?

My understanding is you should not be charged unless you chose to make that account a premium account. I have quite a few alts that i use and never has there been a charge. If you were to get charged you should normally know upfront and not be taken by surprise. Your ip address may be locked to allow 2 avies in a 24 hour period would be the only thing i can think of to prevent the other sign up.

*Hates greifers with a passion* I can understand that, and I respect that they try to limit them. As for the IP address, that may be it. That hadn't even occurred to me! Guess if anything I will just have to wait 24 hours Thank you Sara

At least according to a Linden I talked to in-world, they're not currently charging for alts, although they may start charging to create them in the future. Sometimes the knowledge base is a tad out of date.

If you used a separate email address, there shouldn't be any problem.

If you have any questions about account charges:

Click "resident login" on the main page, login in, then click account history on the right.

Thank Goodness! I was so worried about shelling out that much for something that may not even be used. In the future I'll just keep a closer eye on what they have to say so I don't get these kinds of scares again. That is a shame about the IP address if it's the case, I had today off and wanted to use it to show him around Thanks for the help Draku

Q1: At one time LL charged for alts, but not for months and months. It is really bizarre that they leave the Knowledge Base page up that says alts cost 10$, it causes a LOT of confusion.

That said, you can see all transactions relating to your accounts in the My Account section of this website. Go to the Community page (see blue menubar at the top of this screen), you should see My Account pretty far down in the menu on the far left. Then, on the right, "Account History" is all your US$ interactions (which an alt fee would be), and "Transactions History" is all your L$ interactions.

Q2: No. Doesn't matter what account info you use, no fee.

Q3: see above

Q4: no idea, others will answer I'm sure Lately, account creations using hotmail addresses have had some problems.

We DID use seperate email addresses still to no avail! He had an older one from his school that he still uses and we even tried that, it still won't work for us. (<-- staying away from the knowledge base when it comes to money from now on)

Hello Sienna

Yes, I made an alt yesterday (say hello to DeepCave Troglodite - he only has me for a friend!) for crash testing dummy purposes, and I wasn't charged. The situation with your BF seems odd, and I would guess is linked to your IP address somehow. There my technological knowledge ends, I'm afraid

(Off topic - anyone know of a suitable skin for a CTD?)
Inc

Love how you set your answers up Nika, hehe. Ty for the clarification on where to find my transaction history, I didn't do premium until last week so I really had no need for it. I'll be checking up on it every now and then though with purchasing lindens and such. If I get really desperate I'll just have to make him yet another email. It's strange that they state that yahoo and hotmail has issues though, my primary email is at yahoo and has always worked fine for me. Maybe it's an unlucky night, or his email is unluck lol Thank you for the help though Nika, much appreciated.

I was preventeded from creating an alt, even though everything about the info was different. I concluded that the IP address must have been used.

Cute name lol, we noticed that last name and had a laugh about it earlier as we both used to play World of Warcraft, and of course we have some of our own not so beloved trogs on there.

Same here. I am unable to create an alt. I've tried changing my email address, and all other info and still wont allow me. I figured it must be the IP address as well.

I'm starting to hate IP addresses now, causing so much hassle. It has been 5 hours now since we first tried making his account. Unless someone in the forums is good with the technical kind of thing and comes across this post, we're just looking at creating an account tomorrow.

Depending on your ISP, you may be able to turn your computer and modem off. Then reboot and have a different IP address. Unless you know you can't do that, try it - you won't be penalised for trying to create an alt again.

I'll try that! Thank you for the advice, anything is worth trying.

You also mentioned (perhaps I misunderstood) that you started trying to make an account, then stopped part-way through? Once you start to register a new name, that name is taken out of circulation for anyone but you. If you don't complete the process, the name is still -on hold- for you. But you have to contact Support to get them to send an e-mail to the address that you used when you started creating the account. That e-mail will contain a link that allows you to resume the process.

You may have also tried to use too many characters in forming the first name, or you may have had a space or some disallowed special character in the name.

I believe they did limit creating alts to no more than two attempts in a 24 hour period per IP address, simply to prevent griefers and bot runners from creating armies of alts for free.

Alts are technically free. I say technically, because LL reserves the right to make you pay that $9.95 USD fee for 'excessive numbers of alts' if they feel you are using lots of alts in an inappropriate manner. That allows them to tell a griefer that his 500 disposable alts will be banned unless he pays ten bucks each for the ones he wants to keep. Or to limit a person to 5 or some other number of alts. But if you don't get into trouble for how you use your alts, they are free.

You can have your ip changed if you contact your provider, normally they are only on a 24 hour lease period. If you are connected via a router you will have your 192. ip but the modem is still connected to your provider with the actual ip.