FYI... Linden Labs Billing Glitch

This announcement is hopefully just information about a simple billing glitch by Linden Labs. I'll keep it updated as they let me know what happened, and also as they let me know that the situation has been corrected.

On September 21, the Neualtenburg Paypal account was successfully billed for the US$195, which we pay each month for our sim. This is the normal schedule.

Yesterday, September 26, the Linden Labs computer again attempted to bill the Paypal account for US$195. This time the billing failed, since the billing is against a debit card on that account, and there were insufficient funds in the account to cover another $195.

The Neualtenburg sim has been placed in a 7 day probationary period, pending resolution of this problem. In this case, of course, the problem is LL's, so we hope they resolve it within that time time.

I have immediately emailed LL billing with copies of both the Sept 21 billing and the Sept 26 attempt at billing. If there are other suggestions about how to bring this to the attention, in a friendly fashion, of the LL folks, I'm certainly open to suggestion.

To be updated.


Sudane

You could try emailing Robin Linden at: [email]robin@lindenlab.com[/email]

And/or posting this on the Hotline. Sometimes the Lindens who answer the Hotline will be sure that the question gets into the hands of the correct people.

That is all I can think of to suggest.

Also, when you say probationary period, do we still have access to the sim during this time? And what happens if LL fails to correct the issue before that 7 days is up?

It appears that everything stays the same during the 7 days... no restrictions. After that .... who knows? Hopefully it won't get to that.

I'll try both of your suggestions. Thanks.


Sudane

I'm glad to announce a quick and happy resolution to this glitch. Both Cyn and Robin have written to me to let me know that their billing system did indeed glitch this morning, that the second billing was in error, and that we are not in fact in a probationary period... our account is in good standing.

As suspected, it was a totally minor thing. But I did feel that everyone should know about it.


Sudane

Thanks for letting us know about this and taking care of it, Sudane. I really appreciate it.

~Ulrika~

Yay! Glad it is all resolved Sudane!! And thank you for keeping us up to date!

LL has not fixed their billing glitch. It appears that despite communications with them, the problm was not fixed. And, unfortunately, it has now escalated to a new level.

It appears that the LL computer, after failing to bill the Neualtenburg account last Monday, as I reported, due to insufficient funds being in the account, tried repeatedly to do so. There are records now in the Paypal account that it attempted EVERY DAY last week to bill the account, and failed because of insufficient funds.

Unfortunately, thinking it had been fixed, and having no other good option, I transfered the remaining US$ amount from our GOM account to the Paypal account, all of $23. It was sufficient to put us over $195 in the account. The LL computer struck again yesterday, and this time succeeded in improperly removing the $195 from our account.

Obviously, I have sent emails, both yesterday and today, to Robin and Cyn. Since its the weekend, theres been no response.

While it might seem an obvious step to change credit card numbers, there's no straightforward way to do this. Changing the cc number in your account with LL causes their computer to seek an immediate confirmation, so that step would just transfer the problem to an individual account.

And the NBurg card is actually a debit card, so I can't call Paypal and have them refuse to honor the charge. Paypal does offer credit cards, but, they don't allow a linkage directly to the Paypal account itself, in the fashion we need it.

Please, if you pay your monthly fee via Paypal, postpone your payment for the time being, until we can report that this problem has, *really*, been fixed. I'll send IM's to those who usually pay via Paypal as well.




Sudane

Yikes!! This stinks Sudane!!

I'm sure they thought it was fixed when they said so. The bug must have been different than what they thought. I have to deal with issues like this in RL on a regular basis, so I know it is possible for something like that to happen. Doesn't make it suck any less though.


I would definitly put the whole story in a Hotline to Linden post. I'd also email [email]jeska@lindenlab.com[/email] (alert her about the hotline post maybe) and [email]cory@lindenlab.com[/email] (as it is a tech issue as well) and contact the Billing Team via email: [email]billing@secondlife.com[/email] or give them a call at 1-800-860-6990.

The more people you have looking into this, the more likely it will get the attention you need!

Thanks, Pen. I'll try all this, tho on a Sunday.......


Sudane

Yeah. You probably won't get a response today. But at least the emails will be there on Monday when they get to work. Plus some *do* check their emails over the weekend. And while slower on the weekend, there is still some forum moderation and hotline responses. I'll send out good thoughts your way in the hopes this gets resolved quickly!

Well.. I just got an email from Cyn. I'm sorry she has to work on the weekend .

She apologizes profusely on behalf of LL; they were of the understanding that this was fixed. Our card will be credited the $195 on Monday morning.

And... she said she will credit us one half of our October billing! For the trouble we've experienced.

Now, fellow Neualtenburgers. This is not an occasion for partying. I feel that LL is sincerely committed to correcting this problem, and that is really the essence here. (That's Sudane "the Grump" speaking ).


Sudane

Yay! More beer money!

Excellent. We'll have to hold on to that for a rainy day.

Personally, I've had horrible problems with LL billing. Before I downgraded my account to basic last month, I was suffering through a billing problem every month for the past five months. Every time my account would go into probation and I'd have to forward this giant ever-growing snowball of emails to support. That's why every month I'd disappear from "Find" in world for a week or two at a time. The only thing that fixed it was downgrading to a basic account.

~Ulrika~

lol Garnet!!

And Yay!! Great news Sudane!! Thank you again for keeping us updated.

Aww Sudane, I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, the billing system sometimes has glitches (and it works both ways — failing to bill you, and not only billing you repeatedly). Stay in touch with Cyn — she's always awesome in replying to any issues. If all else fails, Annette from Billing usually can sort things out for you manually. God only knows how she was willing to help with way complex billing issues on another of my projects With almost 60,000 users and counting, it's now wonder things are getting pushed to the extremes at LL