Linden Labs main office is in the UK?

I made a new alt account last night. Entered my credit card info to have valid payment info on file. The card remained pending, and would not verify all evening, even after re-entering the info.

This morning at 7:30am I was awakened by a call from my credit card company fraud division. They wanted to confirm a $1 authorization attempt. The automated message said it was from a drug store / pharmacy in the UK. Huh? I spoke to a service rep who told me it was from Linden Labs in the UK. I told them Linden Labs is in California. He said it was showing up to them that the main company was in the UK, and they wanted me to verify the transaction before they would proceed.

What a pain in the neck. And they woke me up, too. It seems like every other time I try to use my credit card with Linden Lab, my cc company flags the transaction as possible fraud.

And last I checked, LL is not headquartered in the UK. If they have outsourced this process, I wish they would let us know. Made it very confusing to be told someone was trying to use my card in the UK at a drug store.

Princess Ivory

Apparently they are outsourcing to a UK drug store. The poor pharmacist must be doing authorizations with one hand while filling prescriptions with the other.

or that the credit card company assumed "lab" would be some sort of drug store

With some of the ideas they come up with maybe "Meth Lab" would be more accurate.

LL is in the USA, but their payments are dealt with by a UK bank.. perhaps where the confusion has come from... it is not unusual for CC checks to include making a random purchase of £1 or in your case 1$, to gain verification of the CC validity as being not stolen and current, this is normally refunded straight away if the payment is accepted.

Hehe, then no charges would go through at all, lol.

Seriously, though, I get this every single time I make a substantial transaction with LL -- charges get bounced, my CC gets turned off, I get phone calls in the middle of the night to verify charges, etc. ... what an ordeal. My CC issuer *hates* LL.

I think I would hate my CC issuer instead. Seriousy, I called my CC and explained the situation and complained about turning off the CC to verify and they set up my account so all my LL charges go through now. Much better, I can sleep all night now, (that is when I am not up all night on SL).

The last time I used my credit card to create a new alt, the L$1 charge was just listed as "Computers and Computer Store", according to the automated voicemail from my bank And it was from LL's offshore money processing firm in the UK. Time and date precisely matched my attempt to create the alt, so I OK'ed it.

US Company, UK bank.

They also have an office in the UK, so maybe that office is now dealing with the payments?

hmm wonders when that would be.

Every time I push that buy Linden's button it scares me. I would have to slap my c/c company on the rump if they declined me. I wonder if they are in to that.

Oh, I know. I figured that was what was going on. But all night last night I couldn't add verified payment info, and then I was awakened at 7:30 am by my cc company. And guess what? It is now 3:30 pm, and my credit card is STILL "pending," which means I can't even use the forums with that alt, let alone make any other financial transactions. I'm afraid if I try to re-enter it again, it will just set off all the alarm flags all over again, and I'll get ANOTHER early morning call. I was giving LL a chance this morning, due to the time zone differences, to catch up. But it's been 8 hours since the call, and more like 16 hours since the initial entry of the info on my account page with LL. Whey can't they pull this company together? I'd jump ship in a heartbeat if they had a competitor that could provide a similar product with better and more consistent service.

And I've been using this very same card to make LL transactions (including several thousand US dollars of land purchases), since January. So why am I still having a problem using it? Are there that many instances of cc fraud that the credit card companies just flag every transaction with LL as potential fraud? This could have really been a problem if I was trying to make a big land purchase yesterday or today.

Princess Ivory

If it's any consolation, we in the UK still get shafted aswell due to all transactions being converted to US$ and therefore having a) a really piss-poor rate of conversion and b) a currency conversion charge. So we're all in the same boat I'm afraid.

I swear this must be about the 10th post I have read concerning this UK thing and CC fraud alerts. I would think that LL would have the decency to send e-mails out, or something, to notify its user base of what is going on. No, actually, I wouldn`t think that, but one can hope.

In all fairness the CC Company are only doing their job, that is to prevent fraud.

And after Linden Labs database was hacked last year, which resulted in many of us having to renew cards, I personally do not blame the CC Companies caution, although let us hope Linden have taken action which will prevent such an action EVER happening again

With the exchange rate the way it is, I'm more than happy to pay those associated fees, it's still a bargain!

If your worried about fee's (and from the UK) there is one option that might work. The UK post office do a debit card, intended for holiday makers, which is in USD. In theory ( and Paypal I know does accept it) you might be able to use that to pay LL ( and thus no fees as the Post Office doesn't charge for putting cash on it ).

Sadly the head office is not in the UK and I am not heading up Customer Service ... I do keep offering!

so.... which Linden is in charge of washing the laundry?

It's called the Sterling Card, and as it's a Mastercard, you'd have no problem whatsoever paying LL with it. Nice idea Katier.

True, true.

I might check that one out - fed up of it taking 10 working days for money to get from my bank to LL.

MsMop Linden of course...

When I bought my last camera, the test payments for that and some batteries at another online store (£1 each) triggered the anti-fraud and I had to contact my card issuer. I did. It was fixed. Shrug.

Well, even after telling my cc company that it was ok to allow LL charges, my Linden account status continued to be pending for another full day. I ended up re-entering the cc info for the third time before it FINALLY verified.

What a pain. My husband and I use this same card with 3 other accounts, and between them have charged several thousand dollars since January. For every large land purchase, my cc fraud dept calls me, and I keep telling them that LL charges on this card are ok, and to please allow them.

I'm just glad the account finally got verified.

Thanks for your comments, everyone.

Princess Ivory

I just got hit by that. Odd thing is that some of the transactions are London, some are Berkshire and some say Second Life and some say Linden Lab.

Longish process to fix.