How to get Free Tier

Here is an example:

$25 in tier pays for a total of 9 lots in land usage.
You pay $25 for the ability to own 9 lots of land.
You use your character to purchase 9 lots of land. (I'll call the character Player X.)

Use some alts to create a group. Group X.
As an officer of Group X, Player X may deed the 9 lots to the group.

The officers of Group X have full permissions to the land. Any officer may adjust the options or even sell it. At this point Group X owns the land, and Player X pays the tier for the land.

The next step is for Player X to leave Group X. When Player X leaves Group X, Player X no longer owns the land. Player X no longer has any permissions towards the land. Player X may no longer adjust the options or sell the land because Player X is no longer in the group as an officer. Relative to player X, the land is no different than any land owned by any other player. Furthermore, the land no longer counts towards Player X's tier. Therefore, because Player X has paid $25 in tier for that month, Player X has the ability to go purchase a brand new set of 9 lots. Or downgrade his account to basic, and pay nothing to play.

The original 9-lot land is still group owned by Group X. The officers of Group X still have full permissions to that land. They may adjust the options or even sell it. The only difference now is that nobody is paying tier for it. The group owns the land forever or until they sell it. And never have to pay tier on it again.


PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THERE IS ANYTHING INCORRECT ABOUT THIS TACTIC. THUS FAR, I HAVE ONLY TRIED IT FOR A WEEK, AND IT HAS WORKED.

Two points, X will be charged the tier for the month for having "owned" the land through allocation to the group so X will have paid $9.95 premium and will be charged $25 at the end of the current billing cycle even if they have tiered down to basic status.

Secondly, the group will have one week (seven days) for someone to assign enough allocation for the group to hold the land or the land will be released to Governor Linden. Groups have this grace period to grant them time to recover when someone withdraws their allocation without warning. But it's not perpetual.

You know if this works, your biggest blunder was announcing it

But seriously, when you left the group, is the tier donation still there? If not, you will end up losing the land. If it's still there, you're paying tier anyhoo.

I will own your land.

Where are your land plots, I'd like to see this in action? Also, when exactly did you start trying this tactic?

Khamon,
You made an interesting second point although your first point made no sense.

Hiro,
The tier was no longer there, but according to Khamon, it will be reverted back to Gov Linden after 7 days so its only free tier for 7 days. But then that just opens up for multiple lands under 1 tier.

For Example:

Player X has a group of alts using basic accounts that pay no fees, called Group X, just as the example above.

At $9.95 per month in premium fees, Player X can only own 1 lot.

Player X purchases Lot 1. Then does the deed to group/exit group as exemplified above.

This leaves Player X free to purchase 1 lot while his group owns Lot 1 for 7 days.

Player X purchases Lot 2. Then he does the same deed/exit thing.

He may do so for Lot 3,4,5,6 and so on.


Before 7 days are up for Lot 1, Player X must take back ownership of Lot 1. This can be done by using an officer of Group X to sell Parcel 1 to Player X for 0L. Then Player X does the deed to group/exit group again which will give Lot 1 another 7 days.

Now Player X only pays $9.95, but he owns all these lots. As long as he does the deed/exit proceedure before the 7 days are up for each one, he can continue to ownmany lots for only $9.95 per month.

SWEET!
Please let me know if there is a flaw in this scenario.

We pay tier fees at the END of a billing cycle based on how much land we've owned during that cycle up to the amount of tier we've approved on the web page.

I'll try again. Player X approves a $25 tier on Jan 3rd and allocates that tier to a group, purchases land, then leaves the group and tiers down to $0 (basic) all in the same day.

Player X will pay Linden Lab $25 on Feb 3rd for having "owned" $25 worth of land during the billing cycle.

So even though it seemed like the group had "free" tier, it was actually being paid for by Player X.

Your second scenario might work if you keep selling the land and recommitting it to the group. I won't bother to reason out a gaming strategy. I thought you were asking questions of legitimate use to avoid possisble problems with group-owned land.

Wrong.

Land usage fees are paid within about 2 days of tier upgrade. If Player X begins a premium account on Jan3, his billing period is from Jan3 to Feb3. If at anytime, during that period, Player X upgrades land usage, that land usage will be good until Feb3. Upon purchase of the land usage, Player X will be billed within a few days.

When Feb3 hits, whatever Player X's land usage is set to, he will be charged for it again within a few days. This land usage will be good from Feb3 to Mar3.


Let's say Player X's land usage is set to $25 for the first period. (Jan3 to Feb3.)
Let's say sometime during the first period, Player X sells all his land, and downgrades to basic.
Let's say Player X forgot to set his land usage back to 0 when he downgraded back to basic.

When Feb3 hits, Player X will NOT be charged $9.95 for premium fee. His account will officially go into basic mode. Player X will however be charged $25 for land usage. He will be charged $25 around Feb5. This land usage will be good for Feb3 to Mar3 despite the fact that he no longer owns land and cannot even purchase land without upgrading back to premium.
Furthermore, because he now basic, he no longer has access to changing his land usage. Even if he attampts to change his land usage to 0, the interface on his account will not allow it. His tier will be stuck at $25. And he will continue to be charged the $25 month after month.

The only way he can stop this is if he contacts LL. If he calls LL, and speaks to an incompetent rep, the most they will offer him is credit to his SL account as opposed to an actual refund. If the right person finally reviews his problem, they will give him a full refund of his $25, and not just store credit.

What they will not do is adjust his land usage back to 0 unless he makes it clear to them that he is unable to set it to 0 when he logs into his account on the website. If he does not notice that his land usage is set to $25, he will continue to be billed. Mo money mo money mo money for LL.


According to the example in my first post, I sepcified that Player X paid $25 in tier/land usage. If the 7-day rule did not apply, he would be able to keep the land forever without ever paying tier again. I'm unsure what you are arguing.

Yes I am.

So this is all some misguided attempt to "get back" at LL for a billing problem that was not resolved to your satisfaction?

alot of crap to go through just for a few lots of land... mmmmmmmmmm....... maybe he cant afford the tier?.....(sort of takes the fun out of it )

Yeah, what a pisser. They should only charge you on land used, not what your tier is set up to.

Holy smokes what a scam.

Everything was resolved and nobody is getting back at anybody. I don't understand.
It's a tactic that would probably allow you to have multiple lots without paying tier.
Nothing more nothing less.

Dream on....

Huh?

I am sure you cannot game the land system, that is where all the money is.

yawn.......

Additional Information on Group Land Allocation:

If at any time a group owns more land than they have land contributions for, Linden Lab will contact the founder of the group and let them know they need to either contribute more land allocation or release land within 72 hours or risk losing some of their land.

so the group will always need a premium member to allocate the tier for the group. You will gain nothing

Flaw 1.

There is no link between individual plots of group land and tier donated to a group.

The moment the group does not have enough tier to cover group land a 7 day timer is started. At the end of 7 days, if the group still does not have enough tier to cover its land, all excess land will be returned to Gov Linden.


Flaw 2.

A group cannot claim/buy land that it does not have the tier to cover. If tier is removed from the group (leaving the group short of tier) and used to buy new land, that land can not be given to the group, even if tier is given with it as the group is already short of tier...

I'm terrible with math, so I wont even venture to calculate were the flaws may lie in your scheme.

However, I feel very very comfortable in proclaiming that the chances of somehow attaining "FREE" tier in SL is akin to the proverbial snowball's chance in hell.

LL will get theirs...

And it goes nowhere but downhill from there