Why foreign currency charge for buying Lindens?

Why, when I buy lindens with my Visa through the secondlife.com Web site do I see an additional fee for "foreign currency" surcharge?

Cause Linden Lab's bank is located in England.

yeah - neat huh?

I have been billed from London and I don't see surcharges of this kind. What is causing this charge?

Some banks charge a fee for this. Mine doesn't.

Think its the CC company placing the charge. Could be wrong though.

Yep. Like Brenda's, my CC company does not pass this charge along to me.

I think this is something that should be prominently displayed when you are about to approve a transaction, e.g., NOTE: LINDEN LABS USES A UNITED KINGDOM BANK AND CURRENCY CONVERSION CHARGES MAY APPLY.

I mean, thanks for the notice and everything.

HURRAH!!

No seriously, I really do sympathise with you all.

Well I get charged for paying in US dollars anyway.

So they're getting paid in pounds sterling. See, there are some things where LL is taking care of making things stable...

There are about 200 nations in the UN. In about 199 of them, you are a foreigner.

In the official blog when they moved the billing department to UK they explained the charge was the banks doing. I had actually called to complain prior to that because payments weren't showing up in my bank for weeks and then I was getting additional fees. The Linden told me they had moved their billing department to the UK and things were slower then usual. Eventually things improved. Which yet I wish we had gotten some warning before hand. I had talk to my bank said it was Linden Lab's doing. Now I am charged .01 cent for each dollar spent. I orginally didn't know they were doing that and hadn't budgeted for that and it messed up my RL account majorly.
I have stopped buying Lindens for this reason.
For most 1 penny per dollar isn't much but for me it is especially if you have several transactions it does add up and affect my budget negatively.

And what is this supposed to mean? Linden Labs is located in San Francisco. What reason is there to foresee that when I engage in a transaction with them, I might not be engaging in a purely domestic transaction?

Your bank don't have to charge you the fee.

The fee is not always being originated by the bank and the bank is not going to not pass that fee on to the person that incurred the fee.

When the fee first showed up on my bank statement, i went to my bank. While I was sitting at the "Customer Service" desk, the representative made some inquiries and found out it was the credit card company that was charging the fee and they weren't able to stop it.

She tried to call the 800 number that was associated w/the transaction to find out the reason for the fee and after 5 minutes of waiting the call was disconnected.

She then tried to call Linden Lab and after being on hold for 10 minutes, I told her to not to continue holding, thanked her for her time and left.

I then changed my billing information to my verified Paypal account.

I find it unconscionable that an American citizen should have to pay foreign transaction fees for paying an American company located in America.

I think it is great if the reason for the British bank was because they wanted a European banking presence for their European customers, but they should have kept a bank in their home country for their American customers.

The moving of their total banking to a foreign country, in a what can only be classified as a stealthy manner, makes one wonder what kind of financial secrets they are hiding. Same reason why people open a numbered Swiss bank account or a Caymen Island bank account, to hide assets?

All this came about when their new CFO was hired. I seem to remember a thread that there was a rumor about him being involved in some kind of real estate scam in Seattle, Washington.

Food for thought...

But, since nothing is likely to change, just add my post to the other pointless posts here.

If you read through this whole thread you will find that there are American customers who do not get charged this fee. Linden Labs do not charge this fee I know a lot of Americans are annoyed by this but maybe if people were to question why some accounts get charged the fee and others don't it might help all bank customers.

Read my post again VERY, VERY carefully.

I read the whole thread and yes some banks may not be charging the fee, but then, not all banks in this country are created equal.

No where in that post did I say that Linden Lab charged this fee.

I very clearly said that my credit card company was charging the fee. My bank was passing thru the fee from the credit card company.

I have no problem with companies moving part of their operations to another country to accommodate their international customers, but you don't reduce the service to or cause increased expenses for your domestic customers when you make such a move, as did Linden Lab.

I did not have a problem with and nor did I complain because I had to pay extra fees when I was playing a mmorpg that was headquarted in Europe. It was my choice to play that game and I stopped playing for reasons other than being charged foreign transaction fees.

It is my choice to play Second Life, but since it is an American company and that is where I live, I have a problem paying those fees. If I could not have changed my billing to Paypal, I would have left SL.

I you are not happy with having to pay conversion fees, then you have the same option to play or not, as does anyone in any country.

Now this point is sort of contradicted by your next point.



It's your credit card company you should be complaining about. When other people don't have these charges incurred and you don't see this happening via paypal, then the people making the extra charge are your credit card company. Ask them why they charge you for this and paypal don't.

There was no contradiction, the move that LL made was the direct cause for the increased expense irregardless of where the extra expense originated.

and... oh never mind...