Why does dealing with Lindens have to be so B@@#! hard

I don't own land - I cancelled my Premium account months ago and still they charge me - I spend time going around and around in a loop trying to figure out how to put a ticket in and, when I lodge one, they rejected cause I'm a Basic user - yet they charge me as a premium user! - is this just another Lindens rip-off --- sure I'm mad!

they charging your card or you use paypal, or some other means....?

id cut them off at the source if you could.

I cancelled my premium a while back but forgot to step down my tier, so I was charged for that next month for nothing. To prevent it from happening again I just removed my payment information and it seems to have no ill effect.

If it ever comes up I'll fix it then. Until then, I'll just buy Lindens through an alt.

Your not the only one having issues in this area.
In my case i own 11712 now i did have more and I abandoned it 2 mths ago. I was being charged 75USD which was not what I had worked out i should of been, on contacting live help was told i needed to submit a ticket to showi had given up the land and undeed the land from the group. All this done and my account shows this
Square meters owned: 11712
Square meters donated: 0
Premium Bonus in Square Meters: 512
Paid Tier Level: 16384
Monthly Cost:* USD 75.00
Now i dont get what this bonus amount is I dont get how my 11712 amount jumps to 16384
I should be paying 40USD

So guys maybe we should start a group RIPPED off group

Thanks for that - at least I've identified the charge - a group which sold oall its land months ago still has me as paying a tier - my Premium membership was paid annually and I cancelled it a few months back but the annual fee period ran out in February only closed last month.

I'm now a basic account! I don't pay tier and I can't own land! So how can their system charge me !?

Streuth these people have become soooo money hungry and it is reflected in SL - buy this, sell that, loose sleep over copyright infringements, have shopping malls forced down your throat everywhere you go .... - yes I'm still mad but thanks

It looks like you still have to tier down explicitly even if changing from premium to basic. If that's really the case, it's a bug.

They probably call it a feature. A "let's try to soak them a little longer before they notice"

/me nods. After all, tiering down is a wholly manual process, which, in my assumption is letting hundreds, if not thousands of residents pay more for tier than they had to.

Lets not - it is them soaking us - fortunately, in my case the amount was small, but as we see above the amounts can amount up - why should they bother fixing it? It all money in their bank.

Logic would dictate that by stepping down from Premium, you are no longer allowed to own mainland hence you can't have any tier responsibilities. The system should be prgrammed to make charging you impossible, shouldn't it?

the most you can own for 40USD is 9472m, and that's only if you deed it all to group. any more and you will be bumped up to 75USD.

Yep. That's why it's called TIERED payment. You pay for amounts up to a certain level and anything in between levels is charged at the higher rate.

There is no need to "tier down" on the website. That number is simply an indication of the level at which you wish to be warned of a tier jump when you go to buy land.
In my experience, the monthly billing has been based solely on the tier level corresponding to the maximum amount of land held/donated during the preceding month.

That's only the way it's meant to happen of course.
The OP has discovered a feature.

Sorry to disagree. When you get rid of land you still have to tier down manually, otherwise you keep on paying at the rate you had. LL will not reduce your tier automatically. Lower tier options become selectable if you hold less land than your current tier level supports, but you donÄt et dropped down automatically. I got burned by that myself several months ago when I sold a major parcel. You definitely *do* have to tier down manually in your account settings.

From my point of view, you are incorrect.
In my own experience I have not had to tier down on the website
and have only been changed for the land I hold/have donated to a group, nothing more.

I have reverted one account back to basic, and have not had any charges come up on that account, then again, I made sure that the account did not have any tier donated anywhere.

Of course if you still have tier donated to a group, they will charge you, that is correct.
And it is easy to overlook when you have tier donated to a group.

Also you are billed for the max amount of tier you held during that billing period, so tiering down in the middle of the billing period will not change it until the next billing period.
A lot of folks forget that and think that they were charged incorrectly, then go to the website and tier it down there as well, and then when the charges come correct the next billing cycle, they think it was because of the tier down on the website.

(of course, there are the odd times that people are incorrectly billed, no system is perfect.)

This isn't true, Sling is correct. I tiered down and paid the lower tier level, but when I went to buy land it told me I could buy upto the higher tier level amount. I had to manually tier down to change the warning to the right level but the charge was correct.

When did you do this? I remember from mid 2008 that they charged me in the 8192 tier range even though I had less than 4096 sq.m. of land. I sold the difference more than a month ago so it wasn't in the same period. When I compained in the billing chat they told me it was b/c I didn't tier down in the account settings.

What you describe is different: If you are still in the period where you paid more you still may buy up to the tier level for which you paid. You will be tiered up again free of charge.

But if you, to stay with the example, have 8192 sq, sell 4096 of this, you still pay $40 for as long as you don't tier down in the account settings.

{EDIT}I checked again on the account page and it seems that the text now confirms what Ciaran is writing. The page says: "You may remain at the higher tier level without penalty; tier fees are only charged for the total amount of land actually held within your billing cycle."

So either they ripped me off or changed the process in the meantime. Oh, well!

File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. That will make Linden Lab jump to respond.

Here's what mine tells me:

Allowed holdings: 1,024 square meters
Current holdings: 0 square meters
Available for purchase: 1,024 square meters
Peak square meter usage: 0 square meters
Total monthly cost: USD 0.00
Next bill date: Friday, 04-17-2009

and when I try to step it down as a basic account? The radio button stays on the original tier charge and gives me this helpful message:

'We are unable to complete your request at this time. Basic membership users are ineligible to own land. Upgrade now to a Premium membership plan.'

So I can't downgrade tier without being premium. Yes, it was my fault for not stepping it down when I cancelled, a mistake I won't be making again.

Out of interest - I am now a Basic Member and my account showed yesterday (I was charged the tier):

Current holdings: 0 square meters
Available for purchase: -512 square meters
Peak square meter usage: 512 square meters
Total monthly cost: USD 5.00

Today:

Current holdings: 0 square meters
Available for purchase: 0 square meters
Peak square meter usage: 512 square meters
Total monthly cost: USD 5.00

So someone is taking notice, but if you read it logically, it still means they will be charging me $5 next month (we will see). A small amount, but when you are unemployed every bit counts.

[EDIT] oops, no actually that is not correct - the change was possibly caused by me, when I removed my self from a group, but it will be interesting to see if they charge me next month.

In my five years of owning various amounts of land they've never billed me for land I didn't own, regardless of how my tier level was set to on the website. I'm billed 5 bucks a month now for my 512, but show 4,096 as my "allowed holdings".

I've always had to tier down manually.

For the OP, just in case you're lost, here's that web page. You may need to manually select your proper tier level:

https://secure-web22.secondlife.com/account/landfees.php?lang=en

Tried to cancel by phone twice, on a yearly; finally gave up and played. Lol

Inform your Credit Card company that the Lab has stolen your card number and are using it with out your permission.. that will get a very fast responce from them

according to what you show there, you are using a 512 somewhere, probably donated to a group