Downgrading to basic...

I joined SL a year ago on 5th December 2006. I was instantly hooked and created a premium account on 10th December 2006 so I could buy a small peice of land. I was extremely lucky to find 512sqm under the old 'First Land' scheme and spent every waking minute logged-in to SL, exploring, building, making friends...having fun!

One year on, having experienced just about every high & low imaginable, I have decided to downgrade my account. I found a great parcel of land on a private estate and cannot find a single reason to subscribe for another year. So, the day before my annual subscription is due for renewal I visit the SL website, downgrade my account to basic and leave my Premium status for good...or so I thought.

Today, 11th December 2007, I check my account only to find I'm still a premium account holder, although my status is still 'Downgrading to basic'. They haven't taken any money from me yet, however, I have just recieved my L$300 weekly stipend.

My question to Resident Answers is, just how long does it take to downgrade to basic? If I am still recieving stipends, am I still premium?

If you get stipedns then yep, you're premie.. the downgrade takes effect once your paid period is up, I believe.

As Okiphia pointed out, you're premium for the entire time you paid for. It isn't too unusual for LL to be late with "billing" either, so you should just revert to basic any day now.

Do keep an eye out on your US$ account history though in case someone has to manually revert your account and billing happens anyway.

Also, unless they (hopefully) fixed it, you won't be able to buy any private sim land until you revert to basic.

I guess it depends on the stipend. If your stipend pretty much covers your premium fee why worry about it ... this tends to be the case with older avies.

I like my freedom to own mainland personally.

I think somoen posted htat at current stipend, paying per year gets paid back.. lesse.. wait no.. per year is like 70 USD? The 300 L$ stipend is only 52 a year (approx) either way not bad =P

Monday 10th December 2007 was my last day of premium - I downgraded before my subscription nenewal was due. I'm concerned that I've started recieving 'next years' stipend today(11th). I assume they'll take back the L$300 when they finish downgrading me...

Annual is now $72+17.5% VAT (UK) so it isn't really worth it & I don't want to buy land on the mainland. I just buy L$ when I need them

(1) If you do nothing but cash out your stipend:

Annual Membership = $72
One year's stipend @ 300L/week = 15,600L
conversion to dollars on lindex @ 285L/$ (includes lindex 3.5% fee for selling)
= $54.73
Cost to paypal funds out = $1

Net cost of annual membership = $18.27

(2) If Purchase a 512 parcel and open a small store, or rent it out as living space, or simply contribute your land allowance to a group without buying land.

Assumed income $100L/week = 5200L

After selling lindens and paypal fee, you get $71.98

Net cost then is $0.02, about what this post is worth

Downgrading to basic takes a few days, depending on how busy the Lindens in charge are atm. If you're concerned about them charging you for another year, you could go into your account information page and delete form of payment. If they try to charge you, you'll get a negative amount. You could then dispute that charge with billing, but you wouldn't be $72 short.

What happens if you're in my boat? You decide you want to buy on a private estate instead of the mainland, so you downgrade. Then you find out you can't buy on private land because your account is in the process on downgrading?

My premium doesn't end until Jan 31 2008. Will I be unable to buy anything on a private island until that date? I can't even cancel the downgrade. Either their sytem is really half-assed, or I'm using it in a half-assed manor.

You can always buy private land whether premium or not, my friend.

Yep, that's what I had thought, but that's apparently not the case. When I try to buy the land, I get an error in the buy land window, telling me that I am in the process of downgrading, so it will not enable the Purchase button. It's a private island, but my premium account being in the process of downgrading is preventing me from buying it.

O.O thats crazy... if you're able to, use chat support.. dunno if you can while downgrading =(

if not ill do it for you =P

A solution may be to buy for group... but that sounds like an error in the land sales schematic. It shouldn't matter whether or not you're downgrading.

I can still open support tickets, which I've done. It's like I'm an outcast now for downgrading, even though my premium is still paid till the end of Jan

try chat support.. if you can open tickets whould be able to

keep hitting 'my answer is not here' in the solution finder till you get to it...they can actually help

*points to the last paragraph in post #3*

That's been a bug for well over a year now, one they apparantly can't be bothered to fix.

The easiest solution is to ask to cancel the downgrade, restoring your full premium, and manually keep track of when it'll expire and only cancel a few days before.

It only lets me submit tickets, I think the live chat is for consierge? Anyways they did reply to my ticket, but closed it because they thought I was trying to buy an entire island. Oh well, I reopened it and will get it worked out eventually.

I did ask them if the downgrade could be canceled by them as well. I just wanted to do it early so I wouldn't forget when it came up for renewal. That's what I get for being proactive!

live chat is for everyone premium, i've used it... well thats poo

You can't buy ANY type of land while you're downgrading. You should have waited til just before your current year expires. You may call them and get them to cancel your downgrade.

Do I understand this correctly? PREMIUM Members are not allowed to buy Private Sim Land ????

No. If you downgrade from premium to basic, a glitch in the system prevents you from buying private land until the downgrade is complete.

Nope, that's ot what Kitty meant. I think she meant that you won't be able to buy any land while you're account is in the process of downgrading.

*bump* What Sally said .

A lot of people fall into that trap, and kind of discouraging to see they haven't actually fixed it in all that time yet .

That made me blush a little it's usually the other way around