DO NOT use SL to buy anything using your bank account, mine got cleared out

/me thinks Chaos' pic is on LL's "Wall of people to hate".

P i f f l e !

As long as you don't piff on me.

OK, I admit it...not only do I cause Jimmy's computer to crash, I also sic'd LL on Chaos.

damn you and your piffles lol.

Is it still going on from this morning?

Chaos please tell me you were not using an offshore virtual bank based in Brazil.

One of the first "real" jobs I had, years ago was with an attorney. My job was, essentially, lifter of heavy boxes, filer of endless paperwork and sitting next to him in trial with my mouth shut looking like I might be some sort of secret weapon. He was a great mentor and someone I'll remember fondly for the rest of my life. The first trial I sat through was U-G-L-Y. Just hateful and awful. More so than most. After it was over, he rolled over (wheelchair) to the other attorney and his clients, smiled warmly and genuinely said, "No matter how this all comes out, I want to wish you the best in everything. Good luck." Then rolled away.

I asked him about it afterwards, because after that, I sincerely wanted to punch everyone on the other side right square in the mouth. "Trout" he said (maybe not Trout, but me) "There's one of two situations here. Either they are nice, kind people who just got caught up in a bad situation and are in pain emotionally, in which case, me being nice to them helped them feel a little better about their situation and hopefully eased their pain somewhat, or..." he shot me a grin and his eyes twinkled, "they are complete assholes, in which case, me being nice to them just pissed them off far more than my being mean to them ever would. Either way it made me feel good."

I miss him terribly. He was a wiser man than I.

As Kitty and others have suggested, L$ buys charged to SL make it look like Chaos' password has been acquired by someone who has logged in to his account and transferred L$.

Do I not recall a post - last week maybe? - where Chaos said he was logging in from an Internet Cafe...?

Is the default setting on the SL Login Screen not "Remember Password"...?


Hmmmm....

Count me among the people who've seen enough of this threads to look on it with a heavy dose of skepticism whenever the boy named Chaos cries wolf.

If my bank account was emptied by LL, I'd be too busy on the phone with LL and my bank to come here to the forums and rant about it.

I don't recall if the clickybox was ticked, but I do recall when I tinkered with SL on macs at a local Apple store, the username and password remained in place after logging out. Obviously, if one did accidently keep their password on it, or used a computer equipped with (like so many others have said) a keylogger well... there ya go.

If anything, this would be the first thign to consider: if LL was deliberately, fraudelently draining users' bank accounts, I'm sure we'd hear about it from a great many sources, not just him.

Mari

Actually, LL accidentally draining his bank account is the best thing that could happen to him. He could expect all his money back, a profuse apology, and maybe a free premium account for the next year or some nice LL swag.

Internet cafe? We may have found the culprit. My experience has been that if you uninstall SL from your computer, then reinstall it, it remembers the info from the previous version. So, if you go to an internet cafe, DL and install SL, don't unclick "remember password", then uninstall when you leave, the next person to install SL on that machine has instant access to your account.

This seems a fairly clear case of internet fraud. Banks, certainly in this country, are sensitive about this sort of thing - they have an interest in maintaining customer confidence in internet transactions, it saves them a lot of money - and determinedly saying "I did not authorise this payment" should result in them dealing with it.

I personally would approach the bank first, and only approaching LL if the bank has actually identified them as being the recipients of the money - even in that case, concentrating efforts on the bank.

Forgive me if I've just missed a relevant post in this thread, and I'm asking a question that has already been answered.

The charge to the OP's bank account had something to do with a purchase of Lindens using his account, right?

The time of the purchase of Lindens should show up in the transactions listing on the user's account page. That should give a clue as to whether someone else was using the account (did it happen at a time in which the user was not logged in?)

If it was a purchase of Lindens, the Lindens should still be in the user's account. The user can just sell them back, and lose a $0.30 transaction fee. And there is a loss of time in which the money could not be accessed, but at least the 450 pounds isn't completely gone; it's recoverable.

If the Lindens are not still in the users account, then again, the transaction history should show how they were spent, and give evidence as to what happened to them. Were they just gifted to another user's account?

Finally, though Linden Labs is paid in real money for the purchase of Lindens, it's my understanding that it's not a clear profit. Lindens aren't necessarily produced out of thin air, and Linden Labs doesn't just pocket the money forever. All Linden Labs actually keeps from a purchase of Lindens is the $0.30 transaction fee, isn't it? Lindens are actually exchanged between users. That real money that Linden Labs collects from a purchase of Lindens actually goes to pay for someone else's cash-out of Lindens. If Linden Labs is trying to steal money from the OP, then its going to a heck of a lot of trouble just to steal $0.30.

(Edit: Actually, I guess the other way that Linden Labs profits from the purchase of Lindens is that it can collect interest on the real money before they have to pay it out to someone cashing in their Lindens. I suspect, however, that the $0.30 transaction fee is probably more valuable than the little bit of interest that Linden Labs would get by holding on to 450 pounds for a short while.)

So what did the transaction logs show, to shed light on the mystery of the missing money?

Oh dear.

.

I have a solution for anyone who is worried about giving LL thier CC info or people stealing thier passwords and draining thier accounts.

Just send me your money and let ME take care of those pesky $L. Then you will be able to relax and enjoy the full SL expirience with no worries that your money is safe, sound and available for whatever you need.

Cash, checks, money orders, gold, diamonds, pie, sex, anything of monetary value is accepted and all will be stored in a new ultra high tech security facility.

Note to US RESIDENTS: CHECK YOUR BANK ACCOUNT TO MAKE SURE YOU AREN"T BEING CHARGED INTERNATIONAL CHARGES DEBITED FROM YOUR ACCOUNT WHEN YOU PAY YOUR LAND FEE OR PURCHASE LINDENS!!!! I'm sure my account was not singled out.

I pulled up my online bank statement and noticed that when my land fee was debited and also other minor debits for the purchase of lindens, that I am being charged and International Fee. I live in the US. WTH?

I contacted the Lindens and was told "for some reason my money is being routed through their bank in Ireland" instead of the one in the US. They asked me to send in a copy of my bank statement showing the extra debits. I attached it to the support ticket They said upon receipt of this information it would be handled the next business day. GUEss WHAT? A week later and it's still not fixed. SHOCKED? I"m not!!

I called one number and she couldn't help me. Her database was down..HMMM...Go figure....A linden database down?....All too familiar. I was then given another number to call. The gentleman there said he couldn't help me either. The billing specialist was gone for the day. Do they only have 1 person to help on this?

I am very frustrated with how things are progressing in SL. I have been in game going on 2 years. I have an island which I have lost money on since they devalued the land. I can't build on it half the time because of the lag and other quirky things since introducing the new viewer. I came up with 8000 items missing from my inventory but luckily got that back....And now they are ripping me off extra money on top of all that.

I've about had it and once this is corrected I am thinking seriously of selling my island for what I can get out of it and downgrading to a basic account...ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and my patience has run quite thin. And come to think of it, this is FRAUD!!! - them debiting money from my account which I have not agreed to and have not been notified of. If it is not corrrected soon, I may seek a legal remedy for this.

Exactly. And then he is wondering where his money went???

Your bank is charging those fees, not LL. If the payments were being processed in the US, it wouldn't happen, but LL is not actually getting the money from it.

But the fee wouldn't be charged by the bank if the money was processed in the US like it's supposed to be, is the point she was making. That is LL's fault.

LL has no control over YOUR banks fees and charges. if your bank is in a different country, and has different banking laws, you cannot hold LL accountable for it. take it up with your bank.

I think you missed it somehow. The person is in the U.S., where I assume her bank is. LL is in the U.S., and the transaction should not have been routed through Ireland. It's LL's responsibility.

Now this doesn't surprise me. And you may indeed have a legal remedy, when you are getting charged hidden fees of which you have no notice. Though whether the problem is Linden Labs, or your bank, you'll have to do more investigation of that "some reason."

This does not, however, make the OP's accusations seem any more plausible to me.

It sounded to me like she thought LL was going to reimburse her, which they likely wouldn't do since they're not the ones charging the fees.

I actually had this problem last year and their solution was 'use a different payment method.'

Darwin strikes again.

Who knows who is getting the money for it. All i know it is being taken from me and yes, it is a screw up on the Linden's part. It just started happening on 4/11 and has been going on since that time. My bank won't charge back on a debit. I have no clue what bank in Ireland is taking the money for the fee. Since it is the Linden's bank and the Lindens are the ones responsible for my payment being routed to the wrong place. My point is that if not for the Lindens taking money from my account I would not be charged the international chages for which I was not notified of or did I agree to. It is not my bank's fault.

After the last post, I'll agree.

It is your bank, Gracey.. some banks actually charge a fee for foreign transactions, which means YOUR bank is getting the money, not LL. Now, it is LL's fault in that they routed the debit through the Ireland bank, but don't expect them to refund the fees, since they didn't receive the money from those fees.