Payment System Got My Card Declined & Flagged

Is anyone else experiencing the same thing that just happened to me last night?

I was paying for items at about 12 midnight today and got 15K Lindens to make the purchases with no problems. About 20 minutes later I needed another 2K, so I tried to get 5K instead to have some extra in my account and it said my payment source would not go through. I tried it again, same thing. And again.

Then I went to the website and tried to re-enter my payment info. It claimed the verification transaction could not be authorized. Tried that again. Same thing. Just to make sure I went and tried to add the same card to my PayPal account. Declined now.

This card is brand new and was activated on Saturday. I used the previous card the entire time I've been here with no problems. When I called my bank, they said my card and account are A-OK, but that Visa flagged the transactions as "suspicious". They said there's no way to override and that these flags usually take 24 hours to go away.

Then finally, we get this message on the front page of the website that the third party verifier LL uses "was down" as of 5am SLT. Related? I tried again just a few minutes ago and I'm still declined even though the site says everything is fixed.

My account payment status has read "update pending" for 11 hours now, and I can't get to the forums from home anymore. I don't have my user/pass saved on my home machine and it keeps dumping me back at the login screen. I can get on from work though. Is this because there's no payment info on file now?

Just want to know if others are with me or if I'm the designated freak of nature today. Good thing I already paid tier, cause now I'm broke.

It's not your card.

"Our third party payment provider has let us know that as of 5.13am SL Time their payment processing system is down. Engineers are investigating. This will affect LindeX purchases and may also affect other credit card transactions until such time as they can get the problems resolved."

has now been resolved


http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/09/12/payment-issues-engineers-investigating/

VISA flags these transactions if their system detects a large purchase from overseas (Linden transactions are made through a bank in the UK), followed by subsequent attempts for more charges. You'll have to wait their waiting period. Once that time is past, you will have to re-enter your payment information again.
In the meantime, if you're desperate for Lindens, you can buy Lindens at SLExchange.

well it was bound to happen ....... mine got flagged this time ..... i logged in to see red ... , changed payment method to paypal then it was ok.

But I only have this card for online transactions. That means I'm assed out and broke until the waiting period expires, doesn't it? I mean, if it's being flagged, then won't it be flagged at SLExchange too?

Ya I tried that as well, but when I tried to add the same card, it was denied at Paypal as well.

I only use this card. I don't have another one that I can use for online, so this messes me up big time. Now I must go-a-begging. 18K meter beachfront estate, two high performance sports cars, a helicopter, a rooftop dancefloor, and all kinds of diamonds and flashy clothes, and I'm panhandling.

I feel like Mortimer from that movie Trading Places. Brother can you spare a dime?

I got a notice around the first of the month that Linden Labs that my bank wouldn't allow a withdrawal towards my tier.
I called my bank and check my balance. I still had money, nothing had been rejected on their side.
Then I called Linden Labs and talked to a representive she said to delete and re-enter my bank card number.
The representive said she start issue tracker and Lindens would check it out.
Still was in negative. Even after I did what she said. Checked to see if I still had a issue number following day was there.
Friend suggested to prepay my tier and membership dues and told me how.
Things went in postive after that. Checked to see if issue number was still there it had "poofed'
I can't say if same thing would help you but you could always call their 1-800 number between times the office is open.
Personally I think it was major, major mistake for them to switch to 3rd party the service and the speed of transactions has went down hill.

Ya, things would be different for me if I had another credit card, but I don't, which means everything has to wait on this card getting unflagged. I don't know what it was about the transaction that messed me up (what the 3rd party verifier did to make themselves look like crooks), but the first transaction was for $54 and the second for $19. I have done transactions for more than $150 multiple times in the past without incident (like when I was buying my land), so this is extremely annoying.

What is worse is that my transactions get flagged, but I just got $490 stolen from me on my last card from Mexico and the card worked for the crooks no problema. Of course, that was POS and they must have gotten my pin while I was vacationing there in April (this happened in May), but the irony is maddening.

As is the difficulty in getting Visa to correct this problem, if it's even possible. I should be able to contact someone and tell them that these charges are legitimate. They should not be able to play God like this.

Kascha,

This has happened to me several times. The 3 different credit card companies I used all were very helpful. They verified my identity with security information, removed the block immediately, flagged future purchases from Second Life as "okay," apologized for the inconvenience, and asked if I needed anything else. All 3! I really think you need to switch banks if they just blow you off and tell you to wait 24 hours. I guess it's okay to name company names in a positive light, so they are: Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, and Barclay's.

-Avion

Really? So the bank actually can override this flag?

I had two separate guys tell me that Visa had done this directly and they were powerless to override it. Then later they tell me that if LL contacts them with an exact transaction amount they can issue a transaction ID to accept the transaction. I'm like, "so that means you can override it".

Something sounded fishy about this. I can't imagine that an issuing bank can have things happen to transactions with cards they own that they can do absolutely nothing about. They couldn't even guarantee me that this wouldn't happen again the very next time I try to use the card after the flag "wears off".

Yet with continued use supposedly, the system will "learn to recognize transactions with this vendor as legitimate". How is that supposed to happen when every time one is attempted the card is re-flagged?

I'm sorry this happened to you. I recently went premium after finding a great spot of land I wanted. The combination of paying for that, adding lindens, etc. caused several overseas transactions (stupid California company using a London pharmacy to process transactions) that raised a flag at my bank. I wish there was a direct number to the fraud place, and I wish the computer menu had an option to call them (after hearing the options I just randomly hit a number and told the person that answered my situation, he transferred me to the right people; actually to a woman, who then transferred me). Point being, I'm not buying lindens anytime soon from LL directly.

Again, sorry you had this happen to you. Once the flag is lifted, get lindens from that other allowed linden exchange, and when need money to pay tier, convert linden to cash, but keep it on the website ("credit". They are supposed to take the money from lindens available, I think, but I am not certain.

Hi sweetie! And thanks! To everyone who is trying to help!

SLExchange is a totally separate business to Linden Labs and their transactions are domestic. You need to create a profile to Buy/Sell Lindens.
http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Currency

Kascha,

In all my dealings with this, the banks never tried to offload the responsibility onto Visa as some separate entity. They had implemented the block themselves, and cleared it as soon as they got the authorization from me. In each case, the initial person had to transfer me to some sort of "Anti-theft anti-fraud" department. But the whole transaction took less then 5 minutes, and the card was unblocked immediately.

I don't know if your bank is in the United States, or if that makes any difference. Possibly banks in other countries could operate differently. The fact that these transactions were being paid to a London bank didn't seem to be a big deal.

-Avion

So just to update everyone on how this went:

I ended up going to the bank and having the bank manager call the people who actually flagged the card. Apparently the bank uses some system called Falcon fraud detection system which makes up its own mind about whether or not a transaction is suspicious and can decline it based on that. A lot of banks use this.

They said that my card ws never officially "flagged", as in gathering and watching my card number specifically. That seems like a lie because how would it know to decline further attempts from the same merchant if it did not know the history of the card's use with that merchant. Anyways, they said wait 24 hours and try again.

The last time I tried was at around 11am SLT on Wednesday. I tried again at about 11pm Thurday (yesterday) to change my payment info on the SL website account section and it went through. The "update pending" message is gone now for the first time in almost 36 hours.

Now we'll try purchasing Lindens and see if there's any reflagging. They say there shouldn't be because the card technically isn't new anymore and now has a history of successful authorized transactions with LL. We'll see.

Thanks to everyone who helped me understand this