How do I Buy Linden Dollars?

Hi, I am new to the game. I just started today. I want to buy some money but the screen says that my payment information is incorrect. What does this mean? I have never given any payment information. Should I enter my credit card number somewhere? And why do I have to keep logging in to see every page?

Thank you very much!
Edith Shelman

Welcome, Edith!

You can update your payment info here: http://www.secondlife.com/account/billing.php?

Once you get that sorted out, you can buy or sell L$ on the LindeX (http://www.secondlife.com/currency/?). You can also buy L$ in-world, as you saw, or on SlExchange. DO NOT BUY L$ ON EBAY!!! Seriously.

Also, since you're new you're limited to how much money you can spend - it's a fraud-prevention thing. See http://www.secondlife.com/currency/describe-limits.php for details.

Thank you Meade!

That was fast!

I was reading your link on the LindeX Exchange. It says that I am charged $.30 for each transaction? Does this mean that I would be smart to buy more lindens at one time? Or does the market change that often? What is a good amount to buy?

I have another question. Should I start another thread for it? I walk like a dork. I like my avatar very much. She has a pink dress and a ponytail. But she walks like her knees don't bend. I saw other people in a shop just now and they didn't walk like me/her.

Edith...

Yes, it pays to buy larger amounts of lindens at a time. The exchange rate is quite stable, and seldom fluctuates more than 3-4 L.

You can also buy lindens on third party websites. There are some that are fly-by-night; use those that employ the LL "Risk Management API". I like http://www.slexchange.com.

One of the nice things about SL Exchange is that you can deposit money there from PayPal using PayPal's "Mass Pay" feature... if you have a verified PayPal merchant account. It only costs me $1 to transfer $100 from PayPal to SL Exchange. Then I can buy linden dollars there and send them to my avatar's account in SL.

On the other topic, walks: You need a "sexy walk" animation. Some shoes have this built in. Or you can find a freebie gadget that you wear. Or, you can get an animation override, or AO. An AO replaces ALL the default animations and poses (walk, fly, swim, crouch, sits, ground sits, and stands). You can find free "empty" AOs (I like the ZHAO II by Ziggy Puff), and add your own animations. Or you can buy a fully-populated AO from various vendors. Vista, Abranimations, Reel Motion, and SEMotion all spring to mind. Many of them can be seen in one place, Animation Island.

You're right in noticing that you'll lose money by making a lot of small transactions due to the transactions fee.

However, being new, I wouldn't recommend you start out buying a lot of Lindens.

For one thing, there are so many ways that your money gets burned in Second Life, due to ease of rip-off, or things you just don't understand yet about the Second Life economy. Don't spend a lot of money if you're new. Play for a while so that you see what is worthwhile to buy.

For another thing, I don't think it's a great idea to have a ton of unused Lindens sitting in your account forever. Not that I've heard a lot of stories about Lindens suddenly disappearing from accounts due to Linden Lab error. But if one of the database problems does happen to wipe out your account one day, you'll never recover it from Linden Lab.

Play for a while before you decide what's worth buying. After that, you'll figure out what might be a suitable budget for you to have in Second Life. You can then plan your Linden purchases accordingly.

And to the OP, this provides a good example of why you should play a little before buying a lot.

You might find what you want in an AO for free.

An AO comes in two parts. One is the script (and possibly HUD) to apply the animations of the AO over the default ones. The others are the animations themselves.

As for the script and HUD of the AO, many are for sale. However, ZHAO II is free and very good. There's probably very little reason to pay for something else.

As to the animations that go in the AO, you can find some for free.

You can buy a package of AO animations that cover all of the standard animations (walking, sitting, running, turning, flying). You could pay maybe L$ 500 to L$ 1000 for a complete package.

Or you can buy the animations individually, at some places for L$ 25 to L$ 100 each. For me personally, I only really need one walk override and five standing overrides. I bought them for L$ 25 to L$ 50 each (at some of the places that Lindal mentioned). I'm fully customized to my tastes, and didn't spend a lot.

If it sounds confusing, then take that as a sign that you have a lot to learn to be un-confused so you can spend your money wisely and not pay too much.

Thanks Lindal and Amity!

I will wait to buy lindens. I am looking at free stores now. I just got my own free submarine!

Another quesiton (sorry!) I swear and then I'll stop. I did the tutorial on the welcome place. I think I understand most of it. When I click the Search and choose the All tab. The Top Classifieds (Paid Ads) on the first page; are those the best stores in the game? For when I do buy money?

/me screams and runs from the thread!!

edit: well.. It depends on how you define 'best'. For classifieds, people who pay more for the ad will show up in better spots on the search list. I guess you could argue that if they have more money, they're more successful. Or maybe it's money laundering. I dunno.

Short answer is that smart shoppers spend a lot of time going to different places. The 'best' places are the ones with stuff you really like at a decent price.

Classifieds are classifieds; just paid advertisements. They don't respresent any sort of quality checking. They only represent that the merchants have spent some money for advertising.

There are no great ways, in my opinion, to find great information about quality of products or merchants before buying.

Mostly, as you make friends in Second Life, they can tell you about the things they bought and liked, and things they didn't.

Or, if you see some random person wearing something you like, say howdy and ask them where they found it.

For objects lying around in-world, you can tell who made them by right-clicking on them then clicking More (and maybe More once more, IIRC) then finally doing Inspect. That will pop up a window showing you who made the pieces in the object. Selecting the top one then clicking the Creator Profile button will show you the profile of who made it. From there, check out their profiles Picks and/or Classifies tabs to see if they have a store. (this may sound like a difficult process but it's just a few seconds.. it's easy once you get used to the interface. )

You CAN'T buy a lot of L$ right off the bat. The initial limit is 10USD and will increase over the course of the month to an amount ridiculous for the casual user. This is based on your first purchase date, NOT the day you started SL, so it won't increase until you've bought some L$ or paid for a membership.

Make sure you actually use the 'Buy L$' link and not the 'Increase Your Credit' one. If it says you can't add less than 25USD, you're in the wrong place. Increasing your credit by that amount will make you unable to buy L$ until your limit increases in a few days. You can also purchase in-world once your payment information has been entered and accepted.

The limits and scheduled increases are here:

https:www.secondlife.com/currency/describe-limits.php

Do remember that your first purchase day is day 0, not day one, so it actually takes about 48 hours until the next increase.

This is good advice. In Second Life, saying to a stranger, "Hi, I like how _____ looks, where did you get it?" is not just generally accepted polite discourse, but perhaps one of the top ice-breakers to start conversation.

Not to mention that a LOT of the regular posters here are real fashion plates.

Hey, how long has it been since we had a Forum Shopping Trip? Far too long, I'm sure...

/me is the epitome of hedgehog vogue, BTW.

I always did prefer Tiggy to Twiggy.

Wow, a lot of comments! Thanks everyone, for the advice. I get the feeling that I should just sort of explore around before I do anything big.

I am very glad that this forum is here. The Help is sort of...unorganized? Well it's confusing anyway. Thanks everyone!

Welcome to the Forums, Edith. We're not organized, either...but we are a lot more helpful.

If you like the group of regular posters here, there's an in-world group you can join. Search Groups for "The Forum Cartel." Warning: We are just as chatty in world as we are here.

Exploring around is an EXCELLENT idea. There are lots of freebies out there...and there are some people who package them up and resell them to the unwary.

OK so I was just at the Shelter, and got a bunch of free clothes and hair from a really nice person. Now I'm back at my home infohub. And when I went through the tutorial, I could change my body. Now I want to change my makeup, but it says that I can't change the skin. And I can't change my eyebrows. I haven't done anything different and I still have the same body that I did in the Tutorial. I didn't try to change them before, in the tutorial. Was that my only chance to change? Am I stuck like this?

Sorry for all the questions!

Most skins won't allow you to modify them. The permissions should be in parentheses after the item name.

Eyebrows are painted on the skin, so you can't change color or thickness, but you should be able to change the height and, to a degree, shape of them.

Those aren't necessarily the best stores. They just paid the most money for their advertisement. Shop around and look for what YOU like the best, style wise. There are millions of shops in SL. Have fun out there!

[Edit: Sent you a Sexy Walk to just "wear." You don't need a full AO for that.]

keep in mind you have a limited amount of Lcash you can buy for a while.

Edith,

The default avatar skin (or if you select "new skin" will let you edit the skin tone and makeup. However, most commercial skins are painted on templates using Photoshop and are NOT editable with the Appearance sliders. A few skins (such as Celestial Studios' "Charmed" line) are partially transparent, allowing you a limited amount of variation using the Appearance sliders. But mostly, if you find a skin you like, you will buy it in several different makeups, and change your look by swapping skins.

Eyebrows are not a part of the skin, but actually a part of the hair...not the prim hair "wig" that you'll usually wear, but the "bald head" item that goes with it. Some of these are No Mod, but most will let you edit the eyebrow size and shape. Use the Appearance sliders, and click the Hair tab, then the Eyebrows button.

You can't take skin off, you have to replace it with the new skin. Select it in your inventory and choose 'wear' from the drop down menu.