Massive Billing Issues

Ok - I've been gone for a while for the Christmas holiday so am just catching up on many of the posts circulating around at the moment. In several people have mentioned being billed -42 TIMES- last week incorrectly as well as other billing irregularities so i was just curious if anyone else that had experienced similar things would be interested in sharing their experiences for the good of the community. Its obvious that they have some serious problems within Linden Lab and probably shouldn't be trusted with financial information like credit or debit card numbers. Here are the two original complaints i've read in the last few minutes:




Wow -- Is this acceptable? These are some of the most faithful and invested members of our community, and although their specific problems were quickly fixed after notice by the aggrieved, how are we to know less minor glitches don't happen all the time? Does it really become "okay" just because they "fixed" it each time? About a month ago I was incorrectly charged myself $395 for a tier payment on an account that wasn't even mine after specifically speaking with several people in billing and at Linden Lab about a seperate issue. Its ridiculous that they can't even handle taking our money correctly and im sure we've only seen the tip of the iceburg as always.

I continue to have an unresolved billing appeal to Linden, although thank God I haven't seen this type of problem.

You may recall that in one of the previous patches they resolved a bug that had prevented proper updating in group land donations.

I got stung by this twice when I was new and struggling with group land controls. I knew from Jamie's tutorial that you had to FIRST put your donation into your group THEN purchase on behalf of the group. But what happened with a new land that required confirmation at auction is that somehow, this wasn't updated -- or perhaps I made an error -- and when I made the purchase it took me to my web page account, where a new tier level was already checked off that couldn't be changed, and forced me to accept that tier level or lose the land I had just purchased. The tier that I had put in the group hadn't moved and so it thought I didn't have enough.

I thus wound up paying tier twice -- one as an individual and once as a group officer making a purchase for a group. Since then, I've done it dozens of times, and I can see how easily this can go wrong. You have to sometimes wait and relog to get the group to update -- you can't assume it's "in there" just because you put it there.

I've appealed this to LL repeatedly with no response at all. I believed that if they looked at my records, they'd see that the exact same land amount was passing from an individual to a group and that it go double billed and double tiered, and simply credit me. I was wrong.

Did they correct the problem, or did they just keep your money?

Well, in my case i didn't even notice it until very recently but what appears to have happened is that a group mate called in to try and arrange payment on a land purchase. When he did he found out they had already charged his card and the purchase was already completed. He was talked in circles several times until eventually he was gaurunteed there was nothing they could do, and had it ended there it would have been FINE - yet somehow LL took it upon themselves to first request that he change his payment info anyways the way he wanted it for the sale they were about to deny - and then immidiately charge my friends tier fee to ME. I hadn't bothered to contact them about it over christmas and just figured i could rearrange within my group to fix the fuck up (ie. pay my friends tier and not pay for a portion of land we jointly purchased) rather than try and have them refund me and recharge him (as they have told me before they won't do under any circumstance and the source of the original problem in the first place).

Of course, this was prior to hearing about all the other masssive billing issues people have been having lately and most likely not in any way a part of it. It just seems to me that no other company i deal with on a regular basis has these kind of problems and I've NEVER experienced random withdrawls of cash from my credit card by a game just 'by accident' in all the years i've played MMORPG and other subscription services. Its quite a scary thought.

Bugs are one issue but screwing with rl bank accounts is a very serious matter.

CHECK YOUR ACCOUNTS!

12. GENERAL PROVISIONS. The rights and obligations of the parties under this Agreement shall not be governed by the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods; rather such rights and obligations shall be governed by and construed under the laws of the State of California, including its Uniform Commercial Code, without reference to conflict of laws principles. Any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with this Agreement or the performance, breach or termination thereof, shall be finally settled by binding arbitration in San Francisco, California under the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce by three arbitrators appointed in accordance with said rules. Judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrators may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. Notwithstanding the foregoing, either party may apply to any court of competent jurisdiction for injunctive relief or enforcement of this arbitration provision without breach of this arbitration provision. Linden's failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive Linden's right to act with respect to that breach or subsequent or similar breaches. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement or your rights hereunder, and any attempt to do so is void. This Agreement sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between you and Linden with respect to the subject matter hereof. Notwithstanding anything else in this Agreement, no default, delay or failure to perform on the part of Linden shall be considered a breach of this Agreement if such default, delay or failure to perform is shown to be due to causes beyond the reasonable control of Linden. All notices given by you or required under this Agreement shall be faxed to (415) 243-9045 Attn.: Customer Service or emailed to [email]Support@Lindenlab.com[/email].

You must not read the forums of other games then because I have seen billing problems occur on every MMORPG I have ever played. That is over 8 different games.

er, i said i've never experienced it, devlin... read.

That was an 'AND' you never experienced it. You also said that no other company you deal with on a regular basis has these problems. I would be willing to bet that they have.

true enough! =P Why don't you go and find out.

Provide me with the names of said companies.

Pardon me BUT 3 errors with over billing/incorrect billing does and should raise the eyebrows. It does.

To tell u the truth I had a error too. It said couldn't be billed on the credit card, which I knew was impossible cause I had not had the card long and I had not used it for anythign else. Later it was added that ita was sent thru ok.

I had an issue where I was billed a second time for a life time subscription. Linden Labs reimbursed me for the amount that they billed me for in a timely manner.

Unfortunately (#1) it was not a credit card. It was a Visa check card. (I learned an invaluable lesson the hard way and way too late. Be real F***ing careful with your check cards)

Unfortunately (#2) My finances were so low that I ended up in the red. I got penalized several hundred dollars putting me even further negative. That money I was not and will not be reimbursed for. (I believe it was shortly afterwards that the terms of service were modified to include something to the effect that LL refuses responsibility for such charges)

I still owe that bank money and I'll have a hell of a time getting another checking account until that's resolved.


In a way it was my fault because I trusted them with my card but that's almost like saying that a rape victim is at fault for trusting people not to rape her.

Here's another 'Unfortunately' (#3)

Because I then had no card with which to be billed and being over my land allocation I decided that I needed to sell off some land and get myself out of a tier where I was being billed. However we were already into the next billing cycle (didn't take that into account) so I still ended up being billed. My account ended up being suspended.

At that time I was not able to get online except sporadically so by the time I learned of it I was in danger of my account being DELETED outright. I paid using the 'linden bucks' for land option. Due to some unknown technical problem on their end, it didn't work.

I contacted support and was told it did not work because I didn't have enough money. The person I was corresponding with (Colin Linden who was a real jerk and cost me money) did NOT look into the matter as thoroughly as he should have. Basically he just looked at the amount of $L that I had and how much I owed, saw it wasn't enough and gave me the brushoff.

If he'd dug just a bit deeper (as I was forced to do) he would have seen that I HAD (past tense) more than enough and that the appropriate amount had been deducted but that my account was not properly updated. All this transpired over the course of a couple of weeks and I BARELY got them to resolve it before the deadline at which point my account, my inventory and everything I ever created or scripted (in essence, everything I AM in SL's virtual world) would have been irrevocably DESTROYED. Less than a day to spare.

This all happened several months ago but I feel the psychic wounds being torn asunder as though fresh.

These guys need to get their customer handling skills on a par with their programming skills. And the time at which it needed doing was over a year ago.

There realy is no excuse. ll coverered themselves to a point with the tos BUT that does not give them complete control or final say in the matter. Anyone who disputes that fact should take a look at any number of lawsuits filed for any number of reasons. Example: Mc Donalds, an old woman and a hot cup of coffee! I don't think Mc Donalds said "oh we are so sorry that you spilled that coffee in your crotch, here is 10 million for your troubles. More likely than not they were making jokes at headquaters about the stupidity of the woman. If I felt anyone was screwing with my rl funds by any means, I would be getting a lawyer to decide what the next legal course of action would be. Of course ll is going to tell you there is nothing you can do, they are trying to stay in business. I dig ll too but touch my money, and "it's on".

That cup of coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns, and melt AND vaporize human tissue.