Land Tiers and Peak Land Usage charges

I'm about ready to sell out and quit. Why?...may you ask. Ok...maybe you won't ask...but I'm going to tell you.

I had a parcel here....and a parcel there in different sims, for different purposes totally around 6000 sq meters. It finally got to a point where there were too many advertising signs, clubs, or castles in the sky. So...I go out and seek out new property. I found a really nice piece and bought it. It was just over 6000 sq meters. Nice waterfront...yadda yadda.

Immediately, I put my other pieces up for sale at a really low rate to sell them quick, but not low enough that I couldn't recoupe some of the money that I started with. No problem....they all sold within 24hrs.

Well.....HERE IS THE PART THAT REALLY F*K'N MAKES ME MAD!!!

My peak land usage goes up from the $40 tier to the $75 tier because I had to buy before I sold....ESPECIALLY the way a good piece of land goes in this game. $75 FRICKEN DOLLARS to own that property for less than a day. THAT IS AN EGREGIOUS RIP OFF!!!!!

I emailed the address for Second Life billing......no response....nothing...not a peep....not a "Gee that sucks" ......NOTHING!!!

Then to add insult to injury......I bought the land bordering Linden Maintenance land....which ended up being auctioned off ......which could only be affordable to our favorite land barons......................and now my waterfront property is turning into floatila parcels.

IS ANYONE ELSE P*SS'D BEYOND THEIR LIMIT ABOUT THE LINDENS EGREGIOUS LAND POLICIES????? DON'T THEY GIVE A D*MN??? I'm just about ready to spend my $40 a month somewhere else.

Nope, because I read how they work before I start buying/selling land.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/landpricing.php


It also shows a window when you're buying land. It says if you have money, and if you have enough tier. It also says if you'll tier up when you buy it. If you click accept without reading, why are you upset?

Whilst I can agree with the second post in that 'its how things are, and you should have read the instructions', I would tend to side more with the first post in that it is a rather unfortunate way of raising extra income for SL. Don't forget, of course, that whilst you automatically 'tier up', you have to manually tier back down otherwise you'll continue to be charged at the upper level. I got caught for a month on that one, and yep nothing can (will) be done.

It's quite unfair to be honest, especially in cases like yours where it might even be just a matter of a few minutes that you're over tier.

Lewis

You know...maybe I am wrong, but wasnt there a 24 hour period for you to approve the tier? I remember buying land and selling the other before I claimed the new land without tier fee bumps.

Or am talking about my 3rd life?? lol

X

I understand the frustration, but one option would be to sell first, let yourself be homeless for awhile (good time to tier down and save 40 bucks if you're homeless long enough) then buy when you find land you like.

I can see why you're frustrated but other options are available.

I believe they changed that when enterprising people used to transfer land between alts on their tier day so that neither of them paid the right fees.

Lewis

No, you are talking about Second Life of a year ago.

This happened to me, too. About a month ago, I bumped my tier up to the $75 level so I could expand within my sim (I want it all, muahahaha!). I also donated some tier to a friend so he could expand his parcel to a useable size for his store, and I deeded the rest to my group so I could calculate how much more land I could acquire.

A couple weeks ago, I requested that two abandoned parcels adjoining my land be released. By sheer luck, I managed to hop on SL right as Guy Linden was releasing them, and I bought the first one (48m) as fast as I could. I though something looked funny, and I hopped on the website. Sure enough, it had increased my tier, so I immediately undeeded some tier from my group and fixed it on the site.

On this last bill, I was charged the $125 tier fee, even though I'd held it less than a minute, and only 48 meters of it. There really should be a double-confirmation thing in the land sale box, or maybe a 6-12 hour grace period (enough to conduct legitimate business, not enough to game the system without catching attention).

I understand that you have to pay tier charges....I've got no problem with that. But, you all know the risk of letting a good piece of land sit while you wait for your other land to sell. The only way you can gaurantee to sell immediately is to set the price at or below the lowest sq. meter price. Then you risk not being able to buy the land that you scoped out soon enough. In fact, new land that is really cool is usually sold within the first 24 hrs.

I can't sell first......I can't remain homeless...I have a modest little store that makes a few L$ here and there. It gets enough traffic that I have to leave it up somewhere...or move it immediately.

I don't care about HOW it's supposed to work according to the Linden policies. I'm talking about a bad policy for those of us who have RL budgets. I really think that charging a person 35 bucks to hold property for less than a day....or even 3 or 4 days is a total RIP OFF! I could go for a pro-rated charge....but not a months worth of tier usage for several hours!

There are a lot of people who are in SL to make money.....and I don't think that is intrisically wrong. And I somewhat like the idea. BUT...to have rediculous policies like peak land usage that don't have a grace period are simply egregious and indicate a level of greed that I consider inappropriate.

It does not matter HOW many dialog boxes that they throw up to warn you of tier changes. The simple fact is that when you are between a rock and a hard place you either succumb to the greed, or decide to not participate. If you decide not to participate, you either stay in the overdeveloped shit hole that you are in, or cancel your account. If you decide to stay, you MUST answer yes to the dialogs. HOWEVER, it ain't gonna prevent me from bitching about it.....not for one second. AND......for SL billing to not even respond to an email request to either explain WHY they have a stupid policy like that only adds fuel to the fire. I think that is more my BITCH than the money......they don't give one damn about replying or talking to someone about it.

This place is owned and run by a bunch of greedy uncaring bastards.

As nimrod said, it's hard to feel sorry for you when you buy the land and it says 'THIS WILL TIER YOU UP TO $75 A MONTH, ARE YOU SURE?!' and you hit Yes.

Additionally, only land specifically mark as 'Protected Land' will stay protected land, getting pissed because the Lindens sold a new sim is silly. They can't keep a whole sim protected for your enjoyment. If you want a whole sim protected for your enjoyment, buy one.

When did you send the email? If it was late Friday like your post, then I got a little secret for you: LINDEN LAB DOESN'T WORK ON THE WEEKENDS. Please wait until monday and call them. Thanks.

Also, for the record, there is a way to buy first and sell later without incurring extra tier charges, but LL doesn't advertise it because it's more a loophole than anything else.

As excuses go, that's a pretty poor one. If you just make a few L$ here and there, you can afford a few hours, or even a day or two of downtime from when the old plot is sold to when you set up on the new plot. If you are making so much money every hour that this constitutes an unacceptable loss in profit, then the store will pay for the extra tier easily...

You can also rent mall space for about twenty cents a week last time I checked...

Well....gee....thanks for the little secret. However, it had been a good week before I posted anything on the forum...I wanted to give them some time. Apparently a week isn't enough.

And please....don't yell....I know that software engineers don't normally work on the weekend. I am a software engineer...and I don't work the weekend either.

I'm curious to know that workaround that you are talking about avoiding tier changes. I'd appreciate an IM about it so I can avoid it next time....cause I'm sure there will be a next time.

I'm not sure why any business should absorb bad or wrong policies. Even if I was making the $11,000 a month on a store....why should I think that tier changes like that should absorb that amount of L$??

As for the downtime.......even if I were down for a day, Linden would not refund the listing charges pro-rated for the downtime. Not that listing charges are a lot, but still.....it's a BAD POLICY that takes advantage of premium members....period!

I'm not saying any business should. But you said, "I can't sell first..." Clearly, that's false. You've decided not to as a matter of principle, fine, but if you want your points to be taken seriously, you should remain truthful and not exagerate. You could sell first, you just don't want to and don't think you should have to.

As for the work-around, I don't know for sure, but I have in the past accidently shorted my group of necessary land contributions for short periods of time with no ill effect. Perhaps this is the aforementioned loophole?

there used to be. I think its been taken out now.

Yep....I could have sold first.......you are correct. I still say that doesn't excuse a bad billing policy on Lindens part. I think that it would be nice to hold a property on a contingency sell, but I'm sure that would open a whole new line of arguments....or comments.

No biggie....just another thing about SL that pisses me off. There aren't too many....but this IS a big one to me because it involves money. $35 is a lot of L$. At least to me it is.

Go on... now I'm curious.