Suspended for no reason? LL wants identity proof?

For the Too Long Didn't Readers, skip to the end.

I don't understand what happened. A few months ago, my main was banned after some strange events occurred. I tried to login into my account, it said the password was wrong. So I changed the password. Then, my account was banned. I wasn't using my main anymore and I didn't receive an email, so I put in a support ticket and waited. Nothing happened. Still banned. Well that's okay right, because I have alts.

I created another main alt but I had other alternate accounts that I just used here and there. I wasn't doing anything illegal with these accounts. I WAS a photographer and needed models. I was making clothes and wanted to see them on different avatars, or I was playing in different RPGs and it was necessary to have different characters. Multiple alternates are frowned upon but allowed (https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=4201)

Anyway, I say all of this beforehand because first my second main was banned, and then all of my alts were banned as well. I only received one email, for my second main account, which stated that they wanted to prove my identity. I had previously done this with age verification but they wanted photo proof. (Hello, Identity theft anyone?)

Then I went through the hullabulloo of calling LL, there are different numbers. No one will talk to you on the phone, and they are incredibly rude. Condescending, impatient, don't seem to know anything about this situation. However, it seems so nonchalant, like oh yes, we just suspend for no reason all the time. Well that's nice for people who don't make money on Second Life. Unfortunately you're costing me about 1000 dollars.

So that is the extent of my situation. I've filed a support ticket, commented multiple times and contacted a lawyer, because at the end of the day, I don't trust LL and its staff to make the right decision. I feel targeted for a reason that has not been explained to me and possibly will never be explained to me.


My question is, how do we trust a system that has in their TOS, that they can suspend or terminate without a reason at any time? Doesn't that lead to discrimination, where Lindens are allowed to do as they wish? I remember being contacted by a Linden in world the night that I was suspended, she wanted to know if I was having trouble with my payment option. I was changing my billing status and trying to buy lindens, so it hadn't gone through. It's apparent to me that I was being watched. For what, I have no clue. I never did anything wrong. Just spent lots of money on a game, that now I realize, has no real technical support, no real safety net, because they are unreliable and really too young to be operating a business of this magnitude.

Really, grow up, SL. You need to have better support system, trained staff, and phone support. You will avoid a lot of angry users and maybe even a lawsuit, who knows ;p

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MY SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS

Are process credits affected when you are suspended? I currently have two in progress, near 1000 dollars.

Why do you think I didn't receive emails for the subsequent accounts? Do I need to file a support ticket for each of those? I wouldn't care but I had an incredible inventory on each of them, and they are important to me.

Should I worry about identity theft? Currently, they have part of my social security number, my license, and all my credit card info. I'm feeling very sick about it, because I mean do we really trust Lindens? I'm not sure, because I feel like I was being watched.

Is it weird that I played Zyngo on two of these accounts? I know Zyngo isn't considered gambling but I did play the game on two of the accounts, passed lindens back and forth. Is this suspicious behavior? It was done in complete innocence. My trading limits were limited on one account, even though I had had it a long time and it was a premium account. I put in a support ticket for that and they reviewed and changed my trading limits, so then I just started playing on one account, also a premium account.

Most of these accounts were premium or former premium accounts. I used to really love Second Life and wanted to be a contributor to its economy. Now I feel abused.

Really, I just want to know what happens in a suspension and when can I expect my support to be answered? Currently, it's been over 24 hours and still no response. I understand it can take up to 72 hours but my account is a premium account, and if process credits are affected, it's going to hurt.

Thanks.

If you were moving lots of money around between alt accounts then they are probably investigating you for possible money laundering.

Pep (So if you weren't you have nothing to worry about.)

Im not 100% savvy on this, but you mentioned that you have been swapping alot of money around between avatars and also withdrawing out 1000 (usd?) with two of those going on at the moment.
These are classic signs for lindens to take notice of money laundering - now before you start to shout "but I am not doing that!", I for one am not accusing you of doing that, but that might be a reason why your account was flagged, lots of alts moving money about is according to linden labs suspicious behaviour and in need of further invesitgation.
I might be wrong and I hope someone else will also have some ideas.

Yea I mean, I don't know why it's suspicious really. I mean I guess that's why I was being watched. This only happened between two of my accounts though. I feel like I should have been warned to maybe update my personal information beforehand or something like this.

I'm not doing anything illegal though. The night I was suspended, I had been playing zyngo and I had just cashed out about $500 on the same account that I had been playing on. So, really, this was LL's fault if they're going to accuse me of money laundering because they had limited by trading limits for probably laziness, not reviewing and updating, because the account was several months old and was a premium account. When they realized that (after I filed a support ticket), they fixed my trading limits and I just used one account. I did pass lindens to this account from another one because one of them is a photographer and makes a great deal of money, and I wanted to play Zyngo on another account where I wouldn't be bothered.

I'm really annoyed if I've been banned all this time for something as simple as that. It's a further aggravation to have all of my accounts banned because I can't access any of my textures, photo equipment, and I have a lot of clients who are probably going to go somewhere else because I'm not doing their artwork for them.

Oh well, says the Linden Lab governance team.

When you are in a hole, stop digging.

Pep (This isn't LL; this is the US Government speaking. )

That is, unfortunately, simply not true.

People get banned for (apparently) no reason whatsoever. It might be nothing to worry about if you have invested nothing, have no stake in continued availability, and are just in Second Life to chat. Even if all of those things are true, it's quite worrying that Linden Lab bans people without explanation or apparent cause: http://tinyurl.com/ndptcp

@OP: I too was banned and asked to give proof of identity, and to this day I do not understand why. I complied immediately, and two weeks later there had still been no action on the issue (until yesterday).

I can only sympathize with you and suggest that you do not let up on the pressure. Do not get complacent and believe that Linden Lab will, without outside pressure or motivation, resolve this issue on it's own.

.

Welcome!

Hmmmm after searching 'suspension' and finding a bunch of posts where large sums of money triggered a suspension, I think that this must be the reason that I was suspended. Had I known, I wouldn't have done it. It was innocent.


Do we know of numbers that we can call to talk to someone helpful? Do you think calling billing support would help, as this involves premium account?

Lol. I know you were being a snarky snark but that was funny.

Does anyone know a higher up Linden that I could speak with?

From your description, the initial ban could have come because someone stole your password, used your account, and committed some bannable offense with it. I say this because you said that at first, your password didn't work. (How did you then get in, by the way?)

Whether your account was hacked, or whether you yourself did something with it to get it on LL's radar, your subsequent creation of other accounts is definitely a bannable offense. One is not supposed to create new accounts to get around a ban on one's original account.

Large transfers of money without a clear indication of what the payment is for can raise flags.

Purchasing $L from non-approved third party sites, or worse yet from an eBay seller, is very risky. If it turns out the $L were originally fraudulently obtained, i.e. by using a stolen credit card, the purchaser of those $L is considered an accomplice. LL may confiscate the money, impose a 50% penalty, and/or ban you.

I'd file a support ticket, with ALL the evidence of my innocence I could assemble. In addition, put the evidence in a notecard and send it to Blue Linden. Follow up by attending his office hours.

I lost an account that way, too. I forgot the password so I tried a bunch of guesses, then tried requesting a reset. Now it doesn't show up in search anymore. So maybe it's a security measure that got tripped.

The account was MrsDay Oh and I decided I don't care enough about it to submit identity information

Okay thank you. However, I did not create any accounts to get around a ban. I want to reiterate that I had my second account BEFORE my first account was banned. I stopped using my first account before it even got banned. I just one day decided to check up on it and it wasn't working. So I thought I just forgot the password, because I have multiple passwords for security reasons. I have a feeling I know who may have been able to get on that account and will have to talk to that person to see if its true, though doubtful if that person will tell me.

Didn't purchase L from outside websites. Didn't use faulty or stolen credit cards. Large payments came from Zyngo machines and cashed out that L after it was win. It's clear to see that's what I was doing.

Thanks, I will send all the evidence to Blue Linden. However, this account was created in order to post this message and get around the ban, so will I get in trouble? As you know, you can't use any accounts once they are locked out by LL.

Geeze, you're doing it again! ANOTHER alt account.

Stop that.

Thanks for helping me, Lindall, but I don't really need any slack for having one account to handle this debaucle while keeping it separate from my clients that I am trying to help. I make tons of lindens as a photographer and texture store, so yea, I'm going to protect that.

I'm not the only one who has alts. It's a common thing. Shrugs. I didn't realize there was such alt hatred. It's not really a problem to me, but I would gladly delete them to get back my important accounts.

I just don't understand why it is such a problem if you're trying to do different things. Why is it considered such a problem, and if it is so suspicious, then LL needs to have a firm ruling on it, one account, two account, no more. It's allowed to have more than one.

it was a joke

you realy do need to keep in mind the money laundring ban is an automatic one, when anough signs of it show up the system automaticly locks you out and sends a message to someone, because it is not a g-team action it does not show up in the normal reports and someone might miss it.
sending notes to blue might help but he won't say anything about it in his office hour, no linden will discuss individual bans in world or in the forums.

Having alts isn't the issue. I have alts too. The issue is using alts to "get around" a banned account.

Okay. Well, when LL decides to have a better system where you can call and arrange to fix the problem immediately, instead of relying on a faulty support ticket system, then I won't create accounts to get around a unjustified ban that's costing me large sums of money.

Right now, I would have over 1000 dollars in my bank account. But because of LL, which has now had almost 4 days to reply to the ticket, has done nothing, I'm assuming that they don't care about my situation or how this is going to affect me.

1. There should be a number to call for all kinds of technical support, not just this limited "I can't help you, default back to slow, uncommunicative support ticket system." Any major company has a phone line to call and sort out issues that would probably take about 5 minutes to clear up. I'm imagining that LL has decided to ignore their problems with quality assurance to make more profit and

2. LL could avoid problems like this in the future by altering their shoot first, ask questions later policy to first issue a warning and then have a linden team contact me and ask for an explanation. It seems like an unnecessary and unfair business practice that no other business in the "real world" could get away with.

Two things I have learned along the way:

1) I NEVER know the whole story... (so I stay out of other people's battles)

2) Lawyers generally tell you to shut up and let them handle things. (So either you really didn't contact a lawyer, or he/she is a bad lawyer, or you're not taking the advice you're paying for.)

I actually did contact a lawyer. Known this person for a long time and has represented persons in my family and friends. He knows exactly what he's talking about. He understands the importance of the issue and how 'shutting up' will definitely get me in a lot of trouble--because LL is taking time that I don't have.

So, I don't know what lawyer you have been talking to, haha...but that's some advice to pay for, to 'shut up.' I've never heard a lawyer say just sit back and take it.

Generalizations for the win.

Often times a good attorney will ask you what you can do to resolve it without their legal intervention as that usually cost a minimum of $90-$300/hr depending on what city/state you live in once they get involved.

SO i believe him.

Yea but when I told him about the effectiveness of the Support Portal...how long it often takes, how I haven't received any response, how no one will talk to me on the phone, and the urgency of the matter--that's when a legal intervention is necessary.

And well, he is a family friend so he's not going to charge me that much to help me out. So, lawyer friends, FTW.

If Linden Lab were undergoing a reasonable process to return the money, then yes, give them a chance before undertaking legal action.

For Linden Lab to refuse communication for a week or more with $ 1,000.00 at stake is obscene.

Real businesses don't take large sums of money from people and then hide.

If Linden Lab is unable to hire or train the staff to respond to transaction problems involving large amounts of money, then Linden Lab has no business making such transactions, period.

Perhaps better than a lawsuit (because even though it is a lot of money, it's still not enough to pay a lawyer to help you) is contacting the Attorney General or Commerce Department in the state of California. I don't know how often situations like yours happen, but if they are frequent, someone just simply needs to shut down Linden Lab.