Catch 22

My friend left Secondlife recently, unjoining the group (of two) that I had formed for just us alone, on her way out. My land was all donated to that group. A couple of days back, I got an email from Secondlife to say the group had been closed by them because it had not the minimum (2) members! By the time I got the e-mail they had already done it.

So... now I find I own no land - it simply belongs to a non-existent group. I cannot reform that group to buy it back from myself because "A group of that name already exists" according to the Group starting software. I cannot buy the land from myself, and I cannot sell it to myself (nor to anybody else!)

After a couple of e-mails and long minutes waiting on the telephone from here in good old England I am really beginning to get desperate. I paid my tier, you Lindens, and you just took another 3 months membership and the tier payment from me, on the same day you rustled my land!

Anybody know a hack to fix this before they go on to mark my land for sale and claim it was abandoned? I can only assume they are running around like headless chickens in "help", following the last update, and ignoring emails about the normal(?) problems of their paying customers.

Call the support number. Maybe if they get their heads out of a dark place that it currently resides, you might be able to get your land back.. I doubt it though. The inability to get help is part of the new fun exciting support system! If you cant figure it out yourself, you basically might as well forget it..

Yes Leviathan, I fear you may well be right.

I called the support number and suffered truly awful mechanical music and bright jolly recorded Linden voices for many minutes, including one that suggested that I tried the in-world live help (how's that again?) Finally, I was informed by a robotic cutie that if I clearly spelled out a whole pile of stuff, including my avatar's name and my telephone number, I *would* be rung back (eventually).

Oooh, now let me see... assuming the working day in the SL helpdesk sweatshop ends at 5:00 pm local time, then here in the UK I might be getting called back at any ungodly hour ... up to or perhaps even after 1:00 am UK local time! Now how attractive a prospect is that, unless you just happen to live alone, be an insomniac, or spend your entire life dedicated to SL?

Now come on Linden Lab., it's way past time to get real!! If you are going to operate this as a serious business in a global context, then think it through and do it properly! Without customers like me, regularly feeding you with my real-world money to buy and/or maintain virtual assets that I can neither touch, nor apparently reliably keep, you will not survive for long. Hiding from your paying customers whilst encouraging uncontrolled growth is really not a viable business strategy, as I'm sure you will eventually discover.

E-mail support to get your land back. It may take a day or 3, but most of the time you can get it back. Good luck!