For all those thinking about going Premium..

I believe this gentleman is in charge of implementation of LL plans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvljC8HTgwA

It explains much.

Yanno, we *get it*..you are not a happy camper, you have given up on LL, SL and everything. Why don't ya just move to BM or OS or IMVU or webkins and stop all this breast beating and negativity. Ok, I am now going to find that ignore button and get on with my life

Well I cant belive I had to report Linden Lab to MasterCard and PayPal and the BBB geezzz... kinda sucks

btw this is thier BBB page.. very not good only 1 company is worse then they are... that might help Stokers case abit..

http://www.bbb.org/greater-san-francisco/business-reviews/video-games-wholesale-and-manufacturers/linden-lab-in-san-francisco-ca-57373

Fifty eight... (O.o)

I'm not going to say SL is doing a "good" job... But 58 complains out of over 60,000 daily users... 0.097% deserves an "F"? (O.o)

Sorry... I'll stay premium thankyouverymuch. *hugs her base tier 512M parcel* (^_^)y

All the cool kids never came to SL in the first place. Was ever only their mums and dads who were here and left already. Is only the cool grandparents here now. We got way more stamina than the littlese. The problems of SL are piffling compared to bare feet in the snow.

I agree. LL's failure to make premium accounts more attractive makes little sense to me, and outsourcing their help may have had the opposite effect. It seems that at least half of the people I know who have used it walked away frustrated and without resolution. I'm glad to read some success stories in the replies here.

It really does make you wonder about the ADD that seems to affect LL. How many new ideas, plans and shinies have the trumpeted out to us over the past couple of years, only to be forgotton in favor of a new idea, plan, shiny?

The new Live Chat workers advised me to re-install my graphics card drivers to fix a DNS resolution error. That's about all I need to know about them.

Now I won't say I've had bad service from LL in regards to their support system. I use the live chat feature when I want/need an immediate response and I file a ticket when I don't.

Given that I was spoiled rotten by the in world Live Help, this just seems pointless to me. Phil's dream was to make us MORE reliant on SL as a platform, not keep directing us out of world to get support!

I'm not tiering down until they get ready to close the doors or I'm fed up with their "change for change's sake," attitude. You know, I think they have the word "upgrade" mixed up with what they really do, which is, "downgrade."

hmm, i wonder if i should switch to premium?....

I think I woulda droped the phone and died laughing if they told me that LOL

Unless there has been a big change Live Chat is in world.......not over a phone. If you are have a DNS resolution issue how would you use Live Chat? A DNS problem won't let you log in.

I couldn't log in to SL, and the error was "DNS could not resolve host name". I was however able to log into the web site and access Live Chat.

Then you know a DNS problem is somewhere in a network. It could be on the server end but mostly it's somewhere else. If it's on the server end then a bunch of people will get the same problem...........a support ticket is the route to take on such issues. And looking at your end........which is where most of those issue originate.

Well, a support ticket would have taken a week or more without access while they wait to get back to me.

The problem turned out not to be a problem with my network. For some reason, something weird happened in one of the settings files. (I can't explain it off the top of my head, it's all in another thread in the forums here, but not terribly interesting enough to quote I would think.) After spending 3 hours with Live Chat, I posted the problem here in the forums, and someone helped me find a solution in about a half hour after posting.

Though, your approach to diagnosing the problem is a logical one. That is not what I got from Live Chat. They were obviously running down a generic solutions list for generic problems, and either they were not listening to all the symptoms I kept listing for them, or they didn't know what to do with all the information I gave. Point is, it may not be an easy problem to solve. But update my video driver to solve the DNS error? Really? That's a suggestion from someone with minimum technical competence?

Updating any driver for a network problem besides maybe a network card is silly. My point is a DNS (or similar) problem is almost always on the user's end............of course the servers could have the problem but, like I said, many more people would have the same issue..........a support ticket would alert the grid monkeys to maybe look at it (though one or two reports spread over a day would not indicate a problem to the techs.......so the ticket might very well be never resolved). But submitting the ticket would be something to do anyway..........just in case.

Expecting someone on the other end of a chat call to walk you through dianosing a problem that likely is somewhere in your computer or it's setup is asking a bit much. Especially from some college English major or part time beautian student in Bangladesh who only has a check list for referrence. A support ticket goes to the proper people (at least it's supposed to work that way).........chat help goes to the first available person. Life Chat is for simple problems...........like how do I unpack a box.

The Technical help section of this forum is a good place to ask too..........as you did. And, as you found out, it was not an LL issue either.

You went to the wrong place for help with your problem...........and got surprised when you got BS for help. It's pretty obvious when LL is having problems.........you won't need much time to figure it out. When it's on your end you can't blame support for not helping you.

If that's the case, then one of the two Live Chat workers to whom I spoke could have said that's not what they do, rather than wasting three hours of my time. "I can't help you, you need to ask ______" is an acceptable, professional answer.

Same here, I totally enjoy my premium. Been premium since almost day one (I started on the 14 of April 06 and went prim on the 19th of April 06, and can not imagine not being premium)

I have had the need to contact support and except for a couple times, the results have been outstanding.

and I totally agree with the second half of your comments as well

Well if this thread is good for anything, it is to see that there are more premium users happy with what they get from it, then people complaining

Especially if you can pay yearly, premium pricing is a joke. 15600 linden you get back directly in the form of Linden dollars. 57 dollars or so? (depends whether you buy lindens, or sell lindens of course). Yearly price is 72, for me that would be almost 86 including VAT. So I pay 29 dollar per year for a premium membership. For that I get that 512 tier free, and support in the form of live chat and tickets for all categories. Name me an online platform (let's not call it game) that you can subscribe to for 29 dollars a year. Bet there are not many.

Furthermore... weren't all the cool kids selling Zindra land?

Edit:
Agree with the comments about free users: They keep the economy running! Being a free member does not mean being less important, premiums are not some elite. The fact I am elite has got nothing to do with my premium membership

I would have suggested to the OP to use a prepaid Visa card and only put enough money in to cover the transaction. This is what I have been using in SL for the last year or so. Unfortunately it is being reported now across the aisle that LL is no longer accepting them.

Wow even big companies have problems with Linden Labs billing dept !

https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/regapi/2008-December/000756.html

About a year ago, you helped me when I was erroneously billed $500 for
the "Reuters" surname. (For a further explanation, see below, where I
pasted the e-mail I sent to the RegAPI list last time this happened.)

Well, I have unfortunately been billed again this year for the
"Reuters" surname, despite assurances from Linden last year that you
have expunged my credit card information from your database.
Obviously, Linden still has my credit card and has not fixed the
billing problem.......

Related Ticket
4051-6843646

What kind of issue are you having?
Billing/Account Issue

Thank you for contacting Second Life Live Chat support! An agent will be with you in a moment.

XXX: Hello Tristin_Mikazuki Mikazuki, thanks for contacting us today, how can I help?

Tristin_Mikazuki Mikazuki: Hi Jia I'm trying to see if my double billing has been corrected yet.

Tristin_Mikazuki Mikazuki: I was told it would take 1 or 2 days its been a little more lol Kinda need to get that $72.00 back into my account

XXX: Ok Tristin. Just a minute please.

Tristin_Mikazuki Mikazuki: Thank you

XXX: Ok Tristin. Your current open ticket 4051-6843646 is in a queue with the correct department and will be dealt with soon. If, in the meantime, you need to contact us about this issue, please simply add a Comment to that ticket.

Tristin_Mikazuki Mikazuki: So will it get taken care of by the end of the week? I hope

and thats where she stoped responding..
Now THATS Linden Lab customer support... can it get any better?

I got double billed too. Took three weeks to get resolved, and then they resolved it the wrong way...they billed me AGAIN. At least they had the grace to apologize for THAT one.

Me and 2 my alts have been been premium for many years. On this account almost 4 years. I never had a problem with accessing support and only a billing problem once when LL changed their system and forgot to include my country! That was sorted out fairly easily.

I am happy with my premium membership because the stipends more than pay for the $72 annual fee (yes, I get the old stipend of L$500 per week) and I can buy mainland.

Live chat works great. Had sim issues, mainland, put in a call and a Linden was out surveying the sim in minutes, issue resolved moments later.