Furious with LL

It takes alot to make me angry. I have a good amount of patience, and a very slow temper, but Linden Labs has finally made me lose mine.

I don't know what my options are, besides getting an attorney.

Here's a brief rundown of what I've been going through:

For over a year now, there has been a glitch in LL's billing database that over-charges me for tier. I get charged for a $75 tier every month to my credit card, despite the fact that I haven't had a $75 tier in over a year.

The correct tier information is shown on the accounts page, as does the correct billing amount, yet my credit card gets charged the wrong, and higher amount each month.

Over the past year I've called LL several times, and each time I'm assured it is corrected. Each time it's not. Finally, about 3 months ago, after yet another phone call, I get a $35 refund to my credit card, which is one month's worth of overcharges. But the problem still isn't fixed, and so the next month I get overcharged yet again.

I talk to --- Linden and she assures me she will get the database folks to fix it, and that she will refund me all of the money owed to me for the past overcharges. She said she would credit $350 (10 months worth) back to my card immediately, and then look into it to make sure I wasn't owed even more.

This never happened and it's been at least 3 weeks.

So I call the 1-800 number to ask them, once again, what's going on. I sit on hold listening to ---- Linden preach about how "L$ is just like real money, except better" in some irritating recorded commercial. Eventually another recorded message tells me no one is available (this is during business hours) and to leave a message.

Ok..I try calling repeatedly (at least 20 times spread out over 6 hours) throughout the day, and NEVER get ahold of anyone. So finally I leave a message with the details of who I am, my account and the problem, and my cellphone number.

I recieve NO CALLBACK.

Two days later I try and try again to reach an actual LL employee on the phone with no luck, and so leave another message, and get no callback.

Then I send an email to the billing department, and all I get is an automated response acknowledging that they recieved my email, with inane suggestions of how I can use the in-world tools and website to get help.

I recieve no other email for LL addressing my problem.

So what now? I can't get ahold of an LL employee by phone. I can't get an email response. MY credit card is quickly reaching it's limit, due to LL's overcharges. And they have not come through with what they said they would do.

Where is LL? What happened? Did they sell Second Life already and the phone just rings in an empty office?

This is terrible customer service and a slap in the face to me, who has been a great customer for the past 2 1/2 years. I have always owned land in SL, I have always paid my monthly charges, I have never been in trouble in-world, and I have contributed a great deal of time, energy and money to SL.

And I get treated like crap.

Sorry for airing my account problems to the General Forum, but I am so very frustrated at the moment.

You know, I've been trying to get ahold of the Lindens through the hotline for like the past month now and never can catch one in.

I thought it was just me!!!

LOLZ!

sux

Also, I've had to listen to Jack Lindens Financial advice each time I called. OMG! I think I have his voice and the message ingrained in my skull. Everynight before I fall asleep I hear him saying "this has been a spot of financial advice by Jack Linden."

LOLZ!

I had this problem with my long distance phone company for several months. Ugh...what a headache. Hope you have better luck fixing it than I did with my phone....we just had to switch eventually. And even then bills kept coming.

Hi David - call your CC and dispute the charges and tell them what the charge needs to be.

Then explain to them about LL REFUSING to correct the situation after repeated attempts on your part. Be sure you have saved all your corresponcances with LL - and if not, document the most recent reporting to them.

This is one of the excellent! consumer-protection features of most credit cards...

David, the easiest way to solve this problem is to "accidentally" lose that credit card and have your credit card company close the account and issue you a new one

The entire concept of customer service from corporations is dead in this country.

That would be a great option, except I have so much going on in both RL and SL right now, that having no credit card for even the two weeks it takes to replace it would not be a good thing, and then if I use the new card to pay for SL, chacnes are it would be overcharged if the problem still hasn't been fixed.

But thank you for the suggestion.

These stories have been so commonplace over the past couple of years that it's hard to believe people have tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in the grid. I do hope they all have a large cushion to catch them.

Good Luck David.

I may end up having to try this Merwan. Thanks. My only correspondence has been by phone, and unasnwered email, and I didn't record the conversations, but I guess in these times, I should have. I'm not sure if my CC company would actually reverse all those charges though. It would be wonderful if they did.

I wouldn't say its dead, per se. See, the problem is that most products/services these days are made with very tight margins - usually margins that include little or no provision for customer services expenses.

Lets take for example televisions. My dad bought our family TV in the 1960's and it was $500 and a tube screen encased in a very nice wooden surround. But lets keep in mind that $500 back then was like $1,500 now. The same TV today (well, you couldn't probably get the wooden encasement, lol) would probably cost $160. And TVs today are in color.

Now, companies didnt magically save money through the years, they cut expenses or did larger production runs. So, they cut customer service and they made today's TVs practically a one-press seal so that if something goes wrong, its just easier to throw it away then try to get the company to honor the warranty.

This is on purpose. When given a choice, people have tended to choose lower cost over better service. Why do you think Wal*Mart is doing so well? If we really wanted service Wal*Mart would be dead because their stores always stink, are congested, look like crap, and have smelly people in them and bad customer service. But they are the cheapest places to buy stuff so they thrive because we are a nation of cheapskates.

Just my two cents. LOLZ.

I've had excellent! results with disputed chagers; the vendor making the mistaken overcharges against my card corrected it within a week - and the cc: card called them within 24 hours after I reported it.

Don't let the lack of physical documentation prevent you from reporting it to your cc company.

True, true. How would this apply to a firm with negative margins for their entire existence?

The reason contacting your CC company tends to work is that the CC company WILL check with whoever provided the company's (in this case LL) merchant account.

Merchant account providers do not like merchants who provoke too many CC company complaints and will suspend accounts of merchants who do so, or move them to a higher fee tier to cover the extra admin costs.

Smart companies move very fast and cooperate fully when contacted by their merchant account providers because they know where it can lead... I've only had a few billing problems online over the years, but it's always worked for me.

Now I'm not saying this will apply with LL, bearing in mind the levels of professionalism and common sense they exhibit, but it's definitely your best shot. Better than doing what you've been doing so far.

One suggestion:

Make a non-ranting post in the Answers forum.

Explain up front that you understand that the forum is not for billing issues, however you have hit a dead-end with every support option available to you, and that you have run out of contact options.

Ask them (non threateningly) if there is anyone available that could return your phonecalls & emails, and possibly ask if telephone customer service has been formally switched to voicemail only.

Its a longshot, but it might put a fire under the right person to go read the support email box, or check the voicemail. Or not, but at the worst case, its just a couple more minutes wasted of your time

Go to the bank. Get a pre-paid bank card, which is issued immediately while you are at the bank. Change your billing information with LL. This prevents your current card from being charged again, and you set the limit on what they can reasonably charge you. Keep a printout of what your billing page is telling you is owed, and when they overcharge your pre-paid card, fax the proof to LL that they overcharged you again. Hopefully you have proof of the difference over the past 10 months, but if not at least you prevent them from running up your regular credit card charges.

Also file the dispute with your credit card company to try to recoup some of the losses.

Before posting my rant, I thought about doing just that Travis, and probably will. But to tell you the truth, I've done the steps I was supposed to do and went by the LL book in trying to get this resolved. This has been going on for over a year.

I think I earned my right to throw a rant out, while LL has done nothing for me, the customer. If they aren't reading the support email already, or checking the hotline messages, then something is obviously seriously wrong with the company practices.

I will continue to try to get this resolved, and I've seen some good suggestions in this thread, but my frustration venting was earned through my time spent, my money spent, and LL's lack of communication, lack of problem fixing, dishonesty, and causing me real-world hardship.

I know it's not what alot of people want to read, or alot of people care about one bit, but horrible customer experiences shouldn't be kept quiet, just as really positive customer experiences should be overlooked as well.

I don't mean to suggest for a moment that you don't have every right to rant.

Its just, (and I'm guessing here) if you had to choose between the satisfaction of chewing someone out, or getting results, you'd probably rather have the results.

Since you'd be clearly going against the sticked purpose of the forum by posting your grievance there, I think you'd have better luck catching flies with honey

Either way posting there might be futile. I'd just expect that if you posted a rant, it'll be immediately dismissed as "This is not the place for rants."

Considering the flap in the news about AOL refusing to cancel a customer's account, LL is in for some serious grilling about this, I'd say.

And don't forget to file a report with the better Business Bureau. Businesses do not like to have poor ratings with the BBB...at least the ones who care about doing the right thing.

Unfortunately, disputing the CC charges will probably end up with your tier charges not being paid at all, and your land being revoked by LL, who will of course say it's all your own fault.

Careful how you do this. I've put a link on my front page to this thread and a comment about it, as well, so that those who don't read the forums will see it.

I have some extra tier for the next 30 days if you wanted someone to donate tier to your group. Just in case you do decide to go this route and are in fear of loosing your land. Let me know.

I have had some billing issues w/ LL also, fortunately it was when they still answered the phone. At that time, the issues were resolved quickly.

I'm not at all sure I am going against the purpose of the general forum. This certainly has to do with Second Life and Linden Labs. I don't see a billing forum. I do know that at least a couple of Linden employees occasionally read the General Forum.

It's not Off-Topic, and it doesn't fit neatly into any other forum that I can see. So I posted it in General, and apologized to this forum's readers for having to read yet another rant and someone's particular account problems. But to me at least, the General forum is for the good, the bad, and the neutral issues that have direct involvement with Second Life and Linden Labs.

And it probably will be dismissed. But then again, apparently so have my actual phone conversations, messages and email.

Thanks Schwanson

Really, I don't want to come across as an LL-hater. I just want a fair amount of customer service. And I have had a few problems taken care of by LL in the past as well. And I really do enjoy aspects of Second Life!

But, having worked in corporate america for 20 years, and having set up and run my own business, terrible customer service is a pet peeve of mine, and has become so very common place in today's business world that I just couldn't keep my big mouth shut any longer.

Oh well...I'll probably get banned or something for being negative towards LL in this thread anyway.

David,

You need to act promptly if you're going to dispute the charges. Some credit card companies won't act on a dispute that is older than 60 days. In this case, of course, you *have* been trying to act. Dig up those emails you've sent-- you'll want to include copies. I'd also suggest using InternetArchive.org to see if you can pull some screenshots of your account status over time, but I don't know if this will work on a non-public page.

What does your SL billing history show? Does it correctly list your tier and/or land used?

Good luck,

neko

PS - I don't think Travis was trying to tell you your post was OT for General, just that you could get tagged as OT for Answers unless you word things carefully. I think we're all in sympathy with you here.