Account Cancelled: Inventory Purged

The blind leading the blind

I think it's important that you try this idea sooner rather than later. I think I read that your assets over there are updated once a month maybe? I'm going by memory so I could be wrong.

this was non-judicial punishment.

LOL You can't compete with stupidity.

You paid your FIRST tier in advance and will always be in advance month to month from the time WHEN YOU FIRST BOUGHT LAND. When I purchased land on the mainland not only did I pay for the land, I had to pay the first months tier immediately ($US) and you don't have much time to do this either or else your land purchase will reverse.

THIS MEANS THAT THE FEES WILL ALWAYS IN ADVANCE PERIOD!

What you are talking about is what happens if you purchase additional land during a particular month and only if it affects the tier levels. Linden Lab cannot charge you in the current month (time of purchase of additional land) because of the fact that YOU HAVE ALREADY PAYED FOR THE CURRENT MONTH IN ADVANCE. Linden Labs can only charge you for this in the following month based on peak usage of the previous month.

This does not make your total land fee go into arrears.

Are you Irish?

The Land Use Fee (also known as a Tier Fee) is a monthly charge in addition to membership fees (i.e., US$9.95/month Premium Membership). Land use fees are billed based on the peak amount of land held during your previous 30 day billing cycle.

In an attempt to pinpoint the date when exactly the account went into arrears, I went back and reviewed the email account on file and associated with my account. I received one email from LL on 3/12 stating that it could not charge my credit card. I'll copy it below (minues my email address)

Nothing else.


No second warning email or no emails stating that my account was suspended, or closed, or even subject to deletion.

Interesting to note, LL was still replying to land support tickets in April which I put in to the system during March, I guess they could not see that my account was suspended/cancelled.

And I couldn't either why? Let me call to everyone's attention since I am willing to bet that no one has experienced this.....

When your account goes into suspension/cancelled or whatever status LL calls it....they BLOCK you from accessing your account information account VIA THE SL WEBSITE. The only indications that you as a user has that something is wrong with your account is via these two methods: 1) Upon login to main grid....access denied please call support, etc. and 2) at the website login when you try to access the account status page (or any other account related page) it states that LL is having difficulty accessing your account, please call support. Which is what I did and was how I found out about all this in June.

I understand locking peeps out of the grid....but the website, where you can even CHECK the status of what happened to the account? I wonder does this happen to basic subs? prem subs or both?






Sent on March 12, 2009

Dear Ravenmyst Twine,

This email is notification that we were unable to bill your Second Life account on March 12, 2009. Please review your Second Life membership and billing information, and make sure everything is up-to-date. Some of the more common mistakes are:

* Your credit card may have been declined for insufficient funds.
* Your credit card may be expired.
* You may have entered an incorrect expiration date for your credit card.
* Your billing address may not match the address on your credit card.

Additionally, your bank or credit card company may have flagged the charges for review. If none of the above are true and you suspect this to be the case, please contact them to authorize the charges from Linden Lab.


If you are using Paypal, check your Paypal account's verification and backing. Your Paypal account must be verified and backed by a funding source other than a credit card. (We are unable to accept Paypal accounts backed by credit cards.) Make sure the Merchant Agreement with Linden Lab is current, and make sure you haven't exceeded your Paypal transfer limits.

If everything looks correct, you may want to contact your credit card issuer (or Paypal as appropriate) to identify the problem.

Don't worry; this billing failure will not prevent you from logging on with your Second Life account. We will simply try to bill your overdue balance again the next day. If we are unable to collect the amount due within seven (7) days, your account will be suspended pending payment for an additional thirty (30) days. During that time, you will not be able to log in to Second Life. Alt accounts may be placed into administrative hold and you may be logged out of active sessions during this time as well. Failure to resolve this billing issue by the end of the probation period may result in the cancellation of your account. If you have verified the accuracy of your billing information, and are not aware of other outstanding issues that would prevent billing, please contact us through the support portal (https://secondlife.com/support ) as soon as possible.

To review or modify your account details, or to change or cancel your Second Life membership, visit https://secondlife.com/account.

Best Wishes,

Linden Lab and the Second Life Team
http://www.secondlife.com
Linden Lab
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111



So from what I gather, March 12 plus 7 day grace, then 30 day suspension brings my account to April 19th....ish.

Now check out this time formula from support:


Solved:
(11/6/2009 11:39 AM PDT)

This account has been disabled for quite some time now. An email was sent to notify you that payment had failed. There was the standard 7 days' grace before the account was disabled, then 30 days more to settle the balance. 60 days after that, the account was terminated and the inventory, L$, etc. purged. [I don't see any support tickets or chats from you in all that time.]

I'm afraid we have no way of restoring your inventory. Your avatar's saved shapes, clothes, and other objects it possessed will be gone when you next log in. Any objects owned by your account that are already rezzed inworld will still be there, and you may modify them or take them into inventory safely.

Regards,
Emerson Linden


97 days....is what he is indicating....

Please keep in mind my SL account was reactivated on June 6th...well within the 97 day window. It may have been close....but within that window regardless.


EDIT: I should point out that I asked him to clarify his statement that the account has been closed for some time....I am assuming that he is referring to 3/12 but I have yet to hear back from him. However, even then on 3/12 the account wasn't technically closed or even on 3/19 since that was the auto suspension date. The 'closed' status is where it gets murky.

April 9th was the account lockdown. June 9th was reactivation. Talk about trying to use the system to your advantage...

Edit: Sorry, misread that - April 09, not April 9th.

Are you Irish?

Phil: when I tiered up from my initial 512 to my current 2560, I had to pay the first month's tier on that extra 2048 right then. My month-to-month tier started at that point. If I tier down and they charge me for that 2048 after I tier down they will have billed me for an extra month.

That is, I paid tier for the first month when I bought the land. I paid tier for the second month at the start of the second month. If I tiered down during that first month you're saying that they would have charged me two months tier total, even though I had the land for less than a month?

Now this was in late 2005 or early 2006, so who knows what they have done since, but I am absolutely certain that I started out paying for my 2048 in ADVANCE, not ARREARS.

I hardly dare step into the arrears/advance billing fray, but as I'm thinking of buying land soon, it raises some questions for me:

(1) when I buy land, will I pay tier immediately on purchase?
(2) when/if I sell the land, will I have to pay back tier for the previous month?

If the answer to both those questions is yes, then, frankly, it sounds like LL is billing people coming and going.

Aha. You interpreted "60 days" as "60 days after the grace period", not "60 days after the account being cancelled". I suspect you had 30 fewer days than you thought.

i dont see any ambiguity in his statement to me.

Aha. You interpreted "60 days" as "60 days after the grace period", not "60 days after the account being cancelled". I suspect you had 30 fewer days than you thought.

I think it's important that you try this idea sooner rather than later. I think I read that your assets over there are updated once a month maybe? I'm going by memory so I could be wrong.

"After expiration, we'll put your account into hibernation for 60 days.

We'll hold on to all of your in-world stuff for awhile, so if you
reactivate within 30 days, everything will be pretty much where you left
it. We'll keep your inventory and avatar a bit longer, so if you return
within 60 days you'll still be you!"

too late, there was a test grid refresh a couple of weeks ago.

I was just counting days. I may be off a few days either way. Let's do the math again:

He got a notice that his account was overdue on March 12. According to policy he has 7 days from that point (Mar 19) before his account was suspended, 30 days later (Apr 1 his account was canceled. 60 days after the suspension on Mar 19 is May 17. That was the deadline. June 9 is within 90 days after his account was overdue (March 12), but that 90 days is meaningless.



There's no "60 + 30" there. It's also talking about "expiration" not "cancellation", whether that means anything I have no idea.

Was there? I thought Dante Linden was saying it didn't happen.