Purchases Not Showing Up

Have purchased an item which does not show in my inventory.
Have also Im'd and Notecarded the shop owner several times.
Have received NO response at all from them.
I am out 2000L and do not have the skin i wanted.
What is my next step?

Hi Elijah and welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear about your problem.
How long ago was this purchase?

Welcome to the forums, Elijah...

Do another search in your inventory and calm down... Give the owner time to reply. If it continues like this you could always report them or ask for help to the lindens...

1) search inventory
2)contact owner
3)contact a linden.

One thing others forgot to mention try going into preferences then network and click the clear cache button then restart sl this somtimes this helps with missing items .

Getting no responses from shop owners is the norm in sl. Some either sell crappy items and/or over priced ones then when you try to get an exchange or as in your case you didn't get it at all you won't hear from them again.

Read some of their profiles where they tell you outright they don't want to be bothered to go to their websites or to use another route to them which is usually another dead end.

Yeah, yeah excuses they didn't get your notecard or they're IM's are capped are a dime a dozen. When you spend money in sl you're gambling. Plain and simple.

Check your transactions to make sure you actually brought it.

Ouch, forgot that!! It usually works... Do you have some other items missing, Elijah?

Going to transactions could work too... sometimes purchases didn't work because of lag or some SL probs, so make sure you "bought" it.

Check your mute list to make sure you haven't muted them.

When an object gives you a notecard, do NOT press the "mute" button. People are doing this without thinking. When you enter a shop, very often a landmark or notecard giver will welcome you to the shop. Problem is, if you press "mute".. you don't mute the object, you mute the object's OWNER!!!!

So, once you've muted the shop owner, you can dump hundreds, even thousands into their vendors, and their vendors seem to be working properly, but time after time, you will "autodecline" the items because SL treats the shop owner like a muted griefer.

Worse yet.. you can IM the shop owner for weeks, sending them notecards begging, even demanding that they do something.. but you'll NEVER hear their responses.. never hear their offers to fix the problem, and never receive their repeated attempts to revend to you.

Why? You muted them.

When you check your account to be sure you actually made the purchase, note the statistics: there's a transaction number, date, and a specific time. Include this info when contacting the seller.

When you relog after clearing cache, it's a good idea to go to a low-lag sim, such a Cyclops. Open your inventory, type something in the inventory search field, and wait for your inventory to load. This will take longer immediately after clearing your cache than it normally does. While it loads, don't do anything else in SL (no IMing, creating notecards, changing clothes, etc.); this is when I go make a cup of RL coffee.

Lovely how positive you are towards Second Life, always good to hear someone liking the system. New residents really must get the feeling they can have fun and buy things by reading postings like this.

Seriously, I spent thousands and thousands of linden, never had any problem. And when I had a question about a product, I always got a reply, wether I bought it already, or didn't yet make the purchase.
So either you shop at different items as I do, or you make one or two bad experiences sound like the whole of SL is crap.

The tip about the mute is very sensible though. And give the merchant a few days, they might enjoy a few days off. Some really do have a first life beside their SL.

If you are part of a group you are in, you may see when their last online time was as well, which might help you.

Your very last resource is posting your experience on iether SLX or here, without naming the merchant, but with enough hints that lead people to know But BE CAREFUL with the latter. Don't ruin a name because you did not look well into your inventory, or because a merchant enjoyed a few days off. You MUST be sure that you are ignored with your complaint before doing a thing like that.

Finally: No merchant likes a bad name, so i am sure most try to give good service. Hell, one of the places I often shop, even has a customer service employee who is there almost each time I arrive. Bad name results in loss of income, simple as that. Or you must specialize in BIABS, then you might not want ppl to return

Good luck, Marcel

Since June, I've spent close to $1000USD on SL, between land purchases, rents, and dressing/skinning me, my hubby, the kid and the assorted alts.

In all that time, there has only been one time that I've been burned, and it was only for $200L, although that one still pisses me off.

I've had people replace items that they were under NO obligation to replace, simply because I contacted them nicely and asked.

Yes, it's irritating when a vendor blows you off, but they're usually in the minority.

This is a HUGE one. This happens to me occasionally and it's nearly impossible for me to talk to the customer. I can't send them the outfit, I can't IM them; usually the last resort is for them to teleport me, and I have a big box with the words "YOU HAVE MUTED ME. UNMUTE ME PLEASE" that I rez right in front of the customer. Of course that only works when a) we can teleport each other and b) we're in a rez-zone. Sometimes I'll call in a friend to talk to the customer and explain muting.

OK Ricardo seems to have a rather dim view of sellers in SL.

Its quite annoying to me when people assume sellers here are dishonest, when an item is not delivered its not an evil plan by the seller to rip you off, do you really think its of any advantage to a seller to do that??

SL very often has issues with delivery, Id love it if SL didnt have these problems, also with the best will in the world a seller cannot be in SL 24/7, also there are different time zones, Ill often come down in the morning to 10 IMs from the same person, the first will be polite, number 10 will be abusive because he hasnt had an answer yet, if they come at a time Im awake I answer them as quick as I can, but people do have to sleep!

In more recent times when I answer these IMs, the person is online but they do not answer, these are presumably either camp chair fans or people who "go AFK for the night", quite why they dont log out of SL if they are not there I dont know.
What happens in these cases is they shut off SL without even looking at your answer and IM you 4 days later angry that "you didnt answer me", when you did answer them, they were online and didnt read the answer.

A very frequent one is the "I BOUGHT THIS AND DIDNT GET I AM VERY ANGRY", a quick check in account history shows they didnt buy the item at all, they just thought they did, you direct them to their account history page, they find they didnt buy it and all is fine, sometimes however they swear blind they bought it and their history and your history is wrong and you "stole their money"

And yes some direct you to a website, this is because we are asked the same group of questions every day like "where is your shop", if a person has a question and you are not online, surely its a lot better to provide a page with an answer to these questions so the person can find out without having to wait for you to be online.

I have an FAQ page, I still get asked the same questions on it several times a day, I dont get upset with the people for asking them and I answer them, if the answer is very long or they want an indepth explanation i direct them to this page which I personally spent a very long time writing, this is not me "dodging the issue", this is me trying to speed up the process so I can answer the next IM waiting for which there may not be a ready-made answer for.

In the case of IMs when I am online I answer EVERY one, in the case of offlines I answer every one but the mall flyers and the "hello" ones.

Incidently a notecard is not foolproof for getting attention because if the IMs of the seller are already capped then they wont get the offer dialog, it will go into their notecards folder without them knowing and might be a few days before they discover it.

A notecard is a good way of telling if the seller has been online though because you should get a "has accepted your inventory offer" message.

Yes there are unfriendly sellers the same as their are unfriendly buyers, I try very hard to make sure people who buy from me are happy, and over my years here any other seller I ever had to deal with was very helpful and polite. I dont think bad service is the "norm" at all

I didn't say all, I said some. I've dealt with you and I've never encountered a problem so I can't say all shop owners are like this.

I wouldn't consider this "the norm" at all. I've had a couple problems in the past, and every time....EVERY TIME, the vendor I notified helped me out. I'm sure there are a few content sellers in SL who aren't very customer service oriented, but honestly, I don't think they last all that long. The best way to build business in SL, in my opinion, is word-of-mouth and good customer service. Ricardo, dude, stop being so negative.....smile and as the song says "don't worry, be happy"
To the OP, give the vendor some time. I had a question for a vendor one time, and it took him a couple of days to respond. I'm sure he has a RL, and maybe even other problems in line before mine to deal with. When he responded, he was very kind and helpful, and in the meantime, until he did, my Second Life didn't end, nor did the world because he didn't respond immediately.
Also, be polite when you contact a vendor. If you start off angry, or insulting, you may just cause them to become defensive and hostile, and not want to help you. For some, that's just human nature. If you want to be treated with respect, the first step is to treat others with respect.

Also, don't make purchases while in Busy mode, or they'll be auto-declined. Sometimes those purchases still wind up in Lost and Found or the Trash, so check there too.

So what I said regarding getting no responses, being shortchanged, buying terribly made products then not being able to get a response or an exchange by sellers, this doesn't actually exist?

You see the problem the op is having right now. This also isn't happening?

Some merchants, like Jesse Murdock or Julia Hathor lead the pack (actually the few) in being courteous, responsive and helping out customers who have problems. While on the other hand you have those who I won't name but I can tell you about who don't care or won't do anything long as they already have your money. The many who have on their profiles "don't bother me." This also doesn't exist?

If it's going to be called it then it should be called down the middle. (Talking in general) Regardless, it is what it is no matter how nice a picture some people want to paint it.

Keep it real.

Just as I was guilty of a generalization recently in the forums, I fear you are, also, Ricardo.


I've spent many, many many lindens in world, and not been "burned or taken yet. That may happen someday, but I'm careful with my purchases.

I've also earned many, many lindens in world with my business, and every customer who has contacted me has been helped as soon as I could physically get in world. I don't *think* I've burned anyone....nor have I told customers not to contact me or anything else. I've dealt with EVERY customer who has contacted me in a courtous, helpful manner, and given each one a remedy to their situation as much as I could.

Yes, there are bad merchants, apathetic merchants, greedy merchants, hermet merchants, and even angry merchants in SL....same as Real Life. I think saying that they are the norm is unfair to everyone. Obviously, you've never been a customer of mine with a question or problem with my items.

Yes, those situations do exist. But it's not fair to call it the "norm" or even "call it down the middle." Nearly all of the SL merchants I've dealt with have been fair, courteous, honest, and helpful. A number of them have gone out of their way to replace items, fix items, or explain how the item is supposed to work when I've had a question.

My view is that your average SL merchant is better at customer relations than your average RL merchant. How often do you get to talk directly to the head of Sony, or IBM?

This isn't Sony or IBM or SOB this is a game, not even rl either so comparing the two isn't even in the same category.

Just read another new thread about the same thing the op wrote about in this one, unresponsive vendors and losing their cash to them. But wait, what am I saying? This sort of thing doesn't happen in sl. Must of been daydreaming again.

Ricardo by your statement you are giving all shop owners a bad name. I especially have a problem with you making it seem like the excuses of why we didnt get IM's and note cards are all untrue. We are not in control of the way SL runs. IM's do get capped and we dont always get notecards just like people dont get the objects they bought.

We all have to deal with a sucky buggy system. Yes there may be some that won't respond to the customer needs but I believe the majority of us do and will if we know there is a problem, fix what we can.

People for some reason dont think about others maybe arent in SL 16 to 20 hours a day like they are and maybe dont make it in game but once or twice a week. That if they dont get a response within a couple hours then we must not care about them as a customer. We will get back to them when we get back in game. And if after a few days you have not heard anything send another notecard.

I have logged in and as soon as I ding* have crashed and lost all ims, notcards and other messages. When I log back I get nothing so you know sh_t* happens and thats just the way of SL.

I do have alot of issues with the way some people scam others and how much more rude people seem to be but as a shop owner I still see the glass as half full. At least mine is and yes my profile says send a notecard cause my Im's often get capped I assure you customer service is very important to me and most the shop owners I know.

*applauds* And I am thinking of adding that if you don't get a response within 24 hours, (I usually respond as soon as I get an email saying "I got IM or email" from SL, if I'm not gone from home or sleeping) to feel free to drop a note card again.

I WANT customers! I want to HELP customers! It's part of the job and I try to my job to the best of my ability.

Last night, my JEVN decided to lock up server side (thankfully, I'd just gotten the updated version that fixes that). I had a wonderful customer send me a note card about delivery issues and I dropped from the team I was on in City of Heroes to answer it. I resolved the customer's part of the issue and then spent at least 30 minutes stripping the server and putting a new one down to load. Would have only taken me 15 minutes, but SL was being a whining baby and didn't want to let me put objects into the server.

I rarely have issues with other vendors. Most that I know have the same philosophy about customer service and a simple, polite note card gets an almost magical response from them.

I felt compelled to second Craig's earlier post.

Recently, I was bombarded with notecards and im's angry that I was not helping a citizen with a product she paid for, yet did not receive. Finally, I concluded after trying my best to have an actual conversation with her while we both were online, that she couldn't hear me. I made up a notecard and asked a friend to pass it to the citizen. She of course had stormed offline, only to receive it the next day. Sure enough, she had managed to mute me and had not saw two weeks worth of notecards I had sent to her. BTW, she also found the object in her inventory once we spoke.

This is *not* uncommon. Neither is a client claiming to have purchased something when they did not, upon the examination of my Transaction Report.

Also, ims are capped frequently, and many business owners request in their profiles that notecards be sent. But once in a blue moon, I am confronted with a citizen who has messaged me for a couple of days and who is not hot, and whose messages I never received.

I do look through my notecards upon arrival into SL, because if notecards and items as well as ims are being capped, I want to address them first.

As for those who have deleted their homes, or unlinked them, or retextured the entire place, admittedly I don't always help. This is due to sl time constraints however.

There *are* two sides to every story. I think many owners out there try their best to accommodate the citizens. Most of my friends are those that I have met on my sims. I pride myself in the fact that so much of my business makes up repeat clients. I love my clients. I can't imagine myself or any other business owner who stays in SL, not wishing to accommodate them.

Lastly, contridary to what many may believe, I do not actually live 24/7 in my home on Valinor. *smiles*

Merry Christmas!