How is this legal?

To be truthful, I think your friend might better be served by going out and taking a walk or something rather than another game.

My nightly update...



She got them from a mutual friend of ours in the Hayao sim/group. She almost got them from me, I was about to give her them myself that night. This friend of ours, who's never had any account issues at all as far as I can tell in about three years as an active member of SL, was disconcerted at her disappearance, but has not been blocked herself, nor have I (I got a sub-thousand amount of Lindens from her to pay for a new hair she couldn't buy me as a gift).



Makes perfect sense, really, though she's been insistent that she's never purchased any lindens except through her PayPal account. I *think* that the idea of them believing she's a link in a chain in a laundering scheme makes more sense, though as I recall her saying, the first e-mail mentioned she received 'in excess of 5000' L$, and her new avatar was blocked after receiving L$2000. L$7000 seems a little small in real-world money to be dealing with her in so harshly a way, but I will refer her to that part of the Knowledge Base as well as hit it myself -- maybe it's a zero-tolerance thing.



Amen to that... and considering my time as the village pharmacist in the MMO Sociolotron was marred with many examples of less than strict enforcement of the TOS set out, in other circumstances I'd find it refreshing that they actually act.
As for your IP-logging comments, that does make sense in some cases, including this, though I do hope they realize that someone who was an active participant in a scam wouldn't wait 8 days to continue it.
And as for PayPal, I have no idea whether or not the original mess was fixed, but I swear, I knew there's a reason I don't use it.



If she's too stressed to hear anything else from this tonight, I'll still share this. Though seriously, I should talk.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

Paypal doesn't sell lindens. She bought them from someone else. Typically this is on eBay or some other third party site that doesn't use the Risk API. She may have used Paypal to pay for it, but that doesn't mean that the L are clean.

Yes, exactly. It's probably more of a case of where she bought The Lindens from, and not what she used to pay for them.

My thoughts exactly!

She cannot log in to speak for herself. Thus Phoenix is here.

Mine too. I believe in members helping members.
Whether it's us helping Phoenix or Phoenix helping the friend, it's all about being there for eachother.

As said before we can only speculate if we don't have more informations...

Fair enough, there wasn't enough info, but they could have asked for more. I agree with Pleasure, isn't that what the forums are for.

I have some dumb questions I'd love to ask, but there are people here who seem to enjoy being patronizing, so I'll work things out for myself eventually.

Having siad that, there are also some very help people who are tolerant of neebie questions.

Another issue, they keep closing her support tickets. Every single one, without comment. I have to find out how she's filling out the ticket, though.
She says she first used her credit card, then her PayPal, to pay for the Lindens in-world by clicking the Purchase icon. And that the only lindens from her that weren't acquired in that way were given to her by other people for her designs.

EDIT -- she's doing the tickets right, I'm trying to see if she can reopen the ticket.

Is she Basic or Premium? Basic members can only submit certain types of tickets without them being closed automatically...if she's choosing the wrong type, no one is even seeing them. If she IS Basic, she'd probably need to use 'Special Questions - Basic account or Guest Login > Account issues > The system says my account is Disabled or Suspended' ticket type. And, if they close it, she should reopen it, rather than continuing to submit new ones and basically spamming the system with them.

It's possible that someone else acquired the L$ they used to pay her fraudulently...LL follows the chain all the way down when they investigate to be sure it isn't a 'laundering' scheme. They also reclaim the L$ from everyone, as well as up to a 50% fee depending on what they determine from the investigation.

She's constantly re-opening the ticket, after I told her what the more-than-helpful (relatively) guy on the billing line said, that spamming won't help ... but I have to find out ... I think only one of her accounts is Premium.
And this is the first and best thing I've heard regarding an explanation, Thanks.

Edit: She's saying her tickets have primarily been for her second, Basic account, Valerie, which is where her main amount of lindys are for, but that for those, she stepped through the Basic Account menu... also for her other avatars, including the Premium one, Micheille, though with her earlier issue she did it the Premium way for that account, and only that account.

We are, when we can be. As if it isn't clear from later posts! I'm not going to have a guilt trip for expressing that this is not something we can help with, no matter who said it. And the point is, everything we get is hearsay, and we are shooting blindly without all the information. And that doesn't help.

As I said before, she needs to be on the phone with them. This is the most effective way to deal with billing. Tickets are easily ignored, a phone call is not.

She does get a serious runaround on the phone, she says, and she seems to have a genuine anxiety problem... but I think she does need to subject herself to that, if only to confirm that they have not permanently suspended her account, like she thinks they have from the ticket closings.

If she has a Premium account, she should log into that and talk to someone over Live Chat. The discussion while be recorded in the 'My History' area of the Support page, so she'll at least have documentation of what gets said.

Well, if she can...I don't know how suspension affect that.

Now that, she seems to be able to enter into, though she's not entirely sure about that -- her previous issues with billing, she hasn't gotten much help from that, so she's been a little reluctant to try. But previously, she was.
However, I suggested a targeted approach to the phone -- just asking if the investigation is still proceeding and if her account isn't banned outright (she's really worried about that, seriously) during proper business hours, and she thought that sounded like a good idea anyway. So we'll see.

Have her organize what she wants to chat about ahead of time, so she is more easily understood by the live help person.

If she confuses them as the situation has seemed to confuse people here it won't help.

Exactly. (Which is my cue to let this thread take its course for 8 hours or so, at least.)

There's lots of good advice here. To pull it all together: your friend has made matters significantly worse for herself. Here's some of the "concrete":

As far as LL is concerned, this entity has a *history* of suspicious behavior, dating back to the event a month ago if not before. (mega red flag)

This entity has numerous accounts of mixed premium/standard levels (yellow flag)

This entity has purchased/acquired $L thru potentially untraceable means (a yellow flag in and of itself, instantly bumped to red-flag by the other events).

THEN she has been caught creating a fresh basic account out of the same IP addr post-investigation?!? that's like a black-flag or something. I would be highly surprised if her collective accounts are NOT all perma-banned.

*disgruntled* persons often spam LL thru any means available including the basic support portal. LL has had no choice but to install anti-DOS. In other words, your friends support tickets most likely ARE being blocked before reaching a human.



SO...phone or Live Help are likely her only options left. The idea of being *organized* ahead of time cannot be stressed enough. She also needs to be calm, patient...and *exceedingly* pleasant no matter what. She should *expect* to be met with skepticism and possibly outright accusations. She is most definitely under investigation herself. LL is a guilty until proven innocent system.

She needs a list of ALL avs she has ever created or used going back minimum the one month, preferably forever. She should identify herself as whichever account is the premium one. The fact she's paid money into LL's coffer is about the only point in her favor against a big stack of negatives.

She should know the credit card number or paypal account which is the billing info on file for said premium account. They won't check that for money transactions, it is a method of verifying her identity with them over the phone (live chat) so they know she is who she claims to be. This is standard operating procedure.

She should have the details of the event from a month ago *prepared* ahead of time. However, do not volunteer any info about that, nor bring it up unnecessarily. Answer any questions they ask about it promptly, but only if asked. Just on the off chance they have forgotten about it, best to leave it that way.

ANY info she can recall about *exactly* how she has gotten $L, who from, and also anyone she's given $L to, Pheonix included, should similarly be prepared if needed.

(btw, Pheonix, you have said she has given you $L in the past. You should be aware moving forward your own account is most likely on a "yellow" threat level already, so be very carefully of any trades you make. Especially any "mutual friends" you don't know well -- or even those you think you do. If someone is asking you to "hold onto" some tier money or whutevar, it should raise a red flag in your mind!)

She should be ready to explain the recent account creation was based on advice thru "Resident Answers". The support rep will be all too happy to blame those "idiots" over on the forumz. Could actually work to her favor dependent on the rep. The waterworx about how much she "luvs this game!" could also be employed with caution depending on the rep at hand. Don't over sell. Hysterics are bad. Generally people skills will go along way, I hope she has some. But the bottom line is she will need to take responsibility and be proactive to correct this herself. You cannot call for her.

I've read about 100 of these types of posts or more between here and slex too, but remember Thumper

I have too had my account suspended for workings via paypal to LL. The process is a complete jumble, and the simple changing (or should be simple) from one payment method to another is a complete hassle and often gets botched on LLs end. I also had to log in via alts to get things straightened out, and had to get in touch with someone who offered me to get concierge help after I had tried calling support about 30 times with no answer and one time with an answer and a HUGE run around. The support tickets if you use a premium account vary from a quick response to no response. These have been long standing problems. Now, I am not certain, but if your friend did buy lindens from a 3rd party site, that is, as has been said before a flag that goes up. However I got the impression from reading the post that it was more based on payment method. And yes, you can buy lindens using paypal. just select it as your payment method, transfer the money for the lindens over, and then you can convert it to L$. Anyway, at this point, the best course of action is to have her try to get on the phone again and again. Deffinately organize what she wants to talk about, point by point. Deffinatly make sure that she gives all the alts names, and deffinately don't go into how much she loves the game and all that. It will come off like manipulation instead of facts. Basically what Vampaerus Wysznik says Best of luck!

First -- Eep.
Second -- I am, again, fairly certain that she only ever purchased L$ through the Purchase button in-game, but again, she's been given L$ for her work, and those L$ could be suspicious. Also, the original issue with PayPal was a double-charging accusation from her, which effectively means that she told them that she had less money than she should've. So that might be the same colored flag, so to speak.
Third -- you do mean post-notification-of-investigation, right? Because she's received no word as to the results of any investigation.
Fourth, I'll be forwarding this entire message to her via e-mail.
Fifth, thank you.

She should have resolved the double-charging issue before making numerous alts with the same payment info on file. She should try resolving that first, since it is the apparent root of her payment issues.

Some of the customer service reps are better - or at least more knowledgeable - than others, so it may take a few tries before she gets someone who can actually help. If she gets the "I don't know nuthin" type of response, it would be in her interest to wait a few hours and try again with someone new. And yes, organizing her thoughts ahead of time is a good idea...she should also do everything she can to remain calm and civil, regardless of the CSR's response. Hysterics and/or rudeness will only make them less inclined to look into it for her.

if she is *positive* she only used paypal thru the in-world LL interface then she needs to tell them that so they can look more closely at other options. If someone under suspicion purchased an item from her in what would appear a legitimate purchase to her, that will absolve some concerne. But she needs to be both sure, and clear. LL wants to *investigate*, the more info she can provide the better. She will not save face in the long run providing them mis-leading info.

--

No LL does not ever notify people of an investigation. It would give the actual fraudulent people too much info (if they know they are being investigated they would stop). So usually the "this account is suspended please contact us" is the first and only indication. She created a new account after that time which the system identified as coming from a banned IP. The automated system will immediately flag that highest risk category and likely ban the account before a human is even involved. LL tries to implement things on a "better safe than sorry" mentality (on this subject).

Just calling them is the first and biggest step in proving legitimacy. A genuinely fraudulent person wouldn't. They just create new accounts and repeat.

Quite likely, unless someone who was in a dirty L$ laundering scheme bought an item from her... and she doesn't have a very large group of people she does work for, or I miss my guess. But claiming that she has half the Lindens she's supposed to off of a transacton, then dropping that issue purely because she doesn't want to stay away (which -- come on, walk away from money you think is due you? Who does that, unless they're looking to get much more?) and then getting more than ten dollars US from a dodgy source ... well, it does smell a little fishy.
Though as historians may note, the original Fish Story (or Fisch Story, actually, regarding the Lindbergh baby), was actually true, and I believe her in this case -- shoot, she her most recent transfer, causing her most recent situation, was when she wanted to buy a skin, because 'she didn't look like herself'. Not her RL self, her SL self, Valerie. Does that sound like the actions of a cold-hearted money-launderer?
I agree that she shouldn't go on about this in Live Support, or on the phone, but dear lord, does she love this game. Enough to need psychiatric help, almost, but like I've said, I'm one to talk.