Alt limits - from the horse's mouth

During the Disappearing Alts scare I emailed LL to ask for the limit on alt numbers. That was on 15 May, and I was assured of a response by the next business day. It arrived yesterday [cough]. The text is pasted below:

HA! Anyone try to create an alt (even a first alt!) on the same email address as your main account lately? Unless they fixed that and didn't brag about it (unlikely) it just can't be done. It does (or at least did a few weeks ago) work when you use a different mail account though.

You have to reply to an email now to activate an account, not sure what happens to people with more than 5.

There have been other threads, referencing 'official' quotes from other Linden reps, stating different information than what you have offered in this thread... It is just appalling how this is being handled... Why can't LL just stick with what is in the knowledge Base and stop the madness on Alts.......?????

I have posted the text of an email received from Linden Labs and signed by an employee named Linden (it also gave his real name, but I chose not to include that). That's "official" as far as I am concerned, and I think you'll find I am the only poster to do that rather than saying simply that I had been told by a Linden.

Please don't take offense because I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with you or your thread... I just mean that LL needs to officially set the records straight, and be in synch with their Knowledge Base.

And although I don't feel like looking for the threads right now I am 99.99% sure that I have read direct linden quotes in other threads - all saying something different - and that is "madness".

What defines a "free" alt? Does that mean if you paid the 9.95 one time fee it is not a free alt any more? Or does it have to be a premium account to not be a "free" alt?

You mean 'free basic' don't you? You can have:

1 x free basic account (@ $0.00 / your first ever account).
4 x additional basics (@ $9.95 each)

Any of the above can be upgraded/downgraded to/from premium accounts at any time.

I see a problem for people who lied about their additional basic accounts so they could get them for free, but I'm not going to moralise about that.

Edit: maybe i misunderstand? i didnt' see a reference to 'free alt' in the thread, and never heard of that before - beyond those who weren't quite truthful when registering alts - so I assume there isn't really any such thing.

I also inquired while I was on a tech support call if, since I joined before there were free accounts, if I could now get an alt for free having already paid for my main account and I was told that I can't get a free one.

The statement above, that you may have only one free basic "at any given time", implies that if you create a free basic account, then upgrade it to Premium, you can create another free basic account (because you're entitled to one free basic at any given time and your first account isn't a free basic anymore). This would be effectively a "free alt" but I honestly don't think it works that way at all..

"... Please also remember that you may have only 1 free
basic account at any given time."

I probably shouldn't be posting this, but until I recently altered one of them I had two free accounts associated with the same email address. Oh well ...

Can you please tell me your source for this information? The SL Knowlege Base documents that you may own an unlimited number of alts, for a one time $9.95 charge for each alt beyond your first. However, in reality you never get a chance to pay the $9.95 during the process of LEGITAMETLY signing up the alt. Perhaps this is what you call not being thruthful?

Also, you need to have a separate email address for each alt sign-up or you will get an alt limit error message near the end of the sign-up process. This is not documented anywhere however, and is only learned through trial and error. Add to these things the fact that people started to lose alt accounts with no warnings, and for no apparent reason in many if not most cases, and also the fact that Linden reps are quoting different rules for alt ownerships, is causing mass confusion... and again, it is appalling.

I was quite truthful when recently registering my (first and only) alt, but alt creation has been borked for a while now. If you use the same email as for your first account, you will get a message about the number of alts being limited (even for a *first* alt, let alone *five* of them), and never get the option to pay for an alt. If you use a different email, but all the same info otherwise (*real* name and all that) you just get an alt without the system ever asking if this is your first account. I was both quite truthful and quite willing to pay for my alt, but there is just no way to get money to the Lindens to pay for an alt at the moment.

Thanks, Jake. It was the inverted commas that nettled me, LOL. I do agree with you, nboth about Customer Service and the failure to update the Knowledge Base.

Well, your email got a response from the horse, but until we get something properly stated in the terms and conditions or a blog post to clarify it, experience tells us to hedge our bets on exactly which end of the horse it came from.

I have to go count my alts, back in a bit!

I thought I went through the payment process for mine but was never billed, but seeing my main is premium, but I wonder why should I have pay for 4 alts when the majority of the population get their accounts for free.

They do need a limit and 5 is enough for me but I regret my name choices on some but aren't going to risk deleting them & recreating

ROFLOL!