Contributing land to group, Dont get ripped off.

Hello new to posting here, i recently went through my bank account and realized LL was still charging me $75 for a 1/4 mainland sim i had sold over four months ago. I contacted LL's support and asked them why i was still being charged for this. I was told that i was being charged for it because i had the land contributed to group. I own a private sim, thinking since ive been charged for a 1/4 sim for four months now, i asked, does this give me any benifit, answer, no. In all they have been charging me this $75 a month extra just because of a number, set to a group, that i dont even use anymore, i gained no benifits, and basically i was told too bad. So if you have land contributed to group, be sure to set it to O after selling the land, though im not sure even that will stop them from charging you since the support person said. "We normally dont do this, but if youll set your contributions to 0 and let me know, i will make it so you are no longer charged for it" Im really starting to hate this game and its constant fleasing of its members. They charge more than any other online game in existance, the game processes slower than most online games, and the whole class 5 server is a joke, and the lindens, making millions off of us, dont listen to anything we have to say. Period.

It's not a game.

You probably need to set your contribution to 0 inworld, in your group information window, before making changes on your SL website land manager.

It sounds like you donated tier to the group, you need to either leave the group or change your tier donation to 0 (which you do on the group info Land and L$ tab, under group, just change the figure to 0)

Well I'm not exactly known as a defender of LL, but it is *your* job to know what you do when you do things like donating tier to a group. And it is *your* job to check your account regulary - if you had done this, you would have noticed the problem after one month, not after four.

QFT

How is LL supposed to know if the tier you donated to a group is actually used?

I think that what the support person meant that if you reduced to 0 donations, they would adjust billing so that you would not be billed in the current month. This was doing you US$75's worth of favour. They didn't have to do it.
Normally, you are billed for the maximum land + donation(s) that you have at any point during the billing month - even if that figure applied for only part of the month.

And you only noticed now? Sheesh.

Seriously, quit the rant. Your own fault for not looking up how stuff is done, especially in cases involving money.

And what's with the "they never listen"? They offered to cut the last month's payment, ffs. It's your own fault for not noticing earlier.

When you deeded the land to the group, you deeded it with tier, which you continued paying of course. They are seperate things and you checked 2 seperate checkboxes to do it. When you sold the land, the tier remained deeded to the group and it is right that you continue paying for it. There is no way for SL systems to automatically know that you want to remove the tier from the group unless you do something; i.e. remove the tier from the group. It's unfortunate that you didn't understand it, but you haven't been ripped off.

THIS !!!

It is not LL's job, or anyone's to babysit you on your finances. You are an adult and it is your job to 100% understand anything that impacts your finances.

And this is not a game.

This is a good warning for people to help them avoid spending money they were not counting on spending. A ripoff, though, it isn't. If you've donated $75 worth of tier to a group, whether it's being used or not, you are responsible for $75 a month in tier payments.

Yes, it's important to cut your contributed tier down to 0 if the group in question no longer owns the land you'd donated tier to the group to support. I echo this particular fact with extreme emphasis. Very good thing for everybody dealing with groups to know.

Also it's wise to check the website and see just what your tier level is. For example the $75 monthly tier charges noted above. Unless things have changed, once you are shoehorned into that particular tier level, you will always remain at that tier level even if you don't own any land and have not donated your tier to a group. When I first signed up that's how it worked, anyway. They would not automatically lower your bracket, you had to choose to do that yourself.

If they lower it automatically now that's good, but why take chances? Educate yourself. Don't expect Linden Lab to do anything to ensure things are the way you think they should be.

However, the ONLY thing that page affects is at what level you will get the Red X warning when you try to do anything that increases your tier past that level. It does NOT actually cause you to be billed at that rate if you are not actually donating the tier or using it to support your own land usage.

How do you calculate how much tier to reduce if you sell only part of group land?

I do think this should automatically be reduced when the amount of land actually held, is reduced. Seems a no-brainer.

If you mean how much tier to remove from the group, it's the same amount as the land you sold. It would be useful to have 'undeed' and 'undeed with tier' buttons though.

If you mean on the account page in the website, it doesn't need to be reduced from a billing point of view. You are only charged for land you had, inc. deeded tier, during the billing period. You are not charged according to the set tier level on the account page.

Thanks Phil.

That's what I thought.

Why was the OP charged for months for land that was sold?

Because he still had the tier deeded to the group. He was using the tier even though he didn't realise it. We actually pay for tier and not land. Thinking of tier as an item, rather than as rent, can make it clearer.

A group could have tier donated by a number of people. Predicting which if any of those people might or might not require to have their donations reduced automatically would not be a practical thing to try.
For instance, my main group had 5 individuals contributing tier at one stage. One of those was a Ninja renting tier to the group. When group land was reduced, it was the Ninja donation that was the first to be reduced.


It might be that very many groups are just a vehicle for a single individual to donate tier to and control land (and get the 10% bonus tier). I suspect that such was not on the design radar when group land was introduced.

If donations are reduced to keep the group Available For Purchase at 0, then remember that donations to a group get a 10% bonus in the group.
So....
If you withdraw 512 of tier from a group, the group's tier gets reduced by 512 +10% = 563 (rounded)
If the group sells 512, a matching donation reduction would be 466




Echoing some comments above:
The billing is based on land owned by an account plus any tier donations.
The highest instantaneous total of the two during the billing month is used to determine the tier band.
The warning limit that you can set on the website has no effect on billing. That figure is simply a flag to warn you if a land purchase would send you over that tier limit.

Noty quite, the 10% bonus rule means you don't need to remove as much as you sell.

I'd forgotten about that, so...

When the land is sold, have a look at the group's Land details and see how much land can be added for the tier it holds. That's how much tier to remove.

I am constantly amazed when people think of land plots in powers of 512 (rather than 560) or own a lot of land and have not moved it into a group. Just roll an alt, pay 50 lindens, and presto!

Again not quite lol, it gets a bit tricky, if you remove as much as the group holds the 10% factor kicks in again and you will remove too much but eventually you'll work it out, it is trickier than it should be.

A good way to work it out is to set the land for sale to yourself and then pretend to buy it, don't go through with the transaction but when you sell to yourself it will ask you if you want to remove x amount of land from the group.

The Land Available for Purchase incorporates the 10% bonus.
Reducing the donation by that number would put the group into negative tier.

Darnit! lol

One thing about it is that, if the group becomes short of tier for the land that's deeded to it, it doesn't make any difference for a while, so it can be fiddled with until the number is 0 available.

Ciaran - don't say "not quite" this time

hehe that's correct you get time to put it right.

It's correct? wow! I can have a happy new year now

Sooo confusing.

So - tier is the same as meters of land?