Why was my account disabled and why don't they tell why?

People on here know that I generally support LL and am usually upbeat about SL and not prone to moaning.

But there needs to be an urgent investigation into whether or not erronious bannings are happening.

Some of these poor souls are being cut off from their community, seemingly through no fault of their own.

(this is the same reply I put on the other thread on this topic but it's just as relevant here)

If this company was a person in a mental health system it would be labeled Sociopathic.

It's pure rot. No one in their right mind should take Linden labs and their pathological minion, scammers seriously.

Having worked support in the past I can relate that most stories that start out "This happened to a friend of mine... " usually turn out to be tainted with obvious bias if not a completely bogus account of the 'facts'. They leave out important bits like they are dissatisfied with something so they dispute the charges on their card. That's like being upset over a speeding ticket so you refuse to pay your taxes. The IRS is soooo understanding when you do that. It makes a big difference in the story but it doesn't make them sound so bright in retrospect so they conveniently leave that part out.

What you can do is go to live chat and just ask if they can't help you directly if they can at least check to make sure your ticket is in the right place an hasn't ended up in the dead letter pile. If they can't help and it is in the right spot then you'll just have to wait. The more you muck up the system with extra tickets (which means extra work to process) the longer it's going to take for everyone.

Also, I know for a fact you can't contact the abuse Lindens directly, so if you know you're banned for something against TOS you did (yeah, I know, it wasn't you it was someone who looked like you, right?) doing the live chat thing won't help much. They only work through tickets.

I find it nearly impossible to believe that Linden Labs bans so many people they cant be bothered to take the time to send them a forum letter Email explaining why their account has been suspended or banned.

But from what everyone says about being banned in SL, thats how it happens.

Pretty pathetic on the customer service end.

You should consider going premium for a month till you get the mess straightened out. I have done that before when I have had trouble I can't fix myself. After everything is working downgrade to a regular account.

I'd recommend everyone dropping notecards on the Lindens in world to let them know what's up and how unhappy the users are with it. Cyn, Char, Torley or M might be good targets?

Plus, open a JIRA so we can vote on it!

While we are at it how about suggestions to reform the whole abuse reporting system.

Seems wrong that "justice" in SL often comes as the result of a virtual lynch mob.

Assuming these actions are being taken as a result of ARs. The bigger problem is the lack of communication to the Resident, which should be a matter of course in the action. That it isn't is ridiculous.

I don't know if its a bigger problem per se.

Its a different problem.

How they handle bans and suspensions is one problem.

Why they ban / suspend in the first place is another.

From what it sounds like (and has sounded for years) there is room for improvement on both fronts.

Most definitely.

Also, if LL are handling AR's and suspensions in this sort of cavalier fashion I can't see how SL is going to be taken seriously as a place of training or business by rl companies which they keep saying they want. Just imagine some big shot MD having his account disabled for no apparent reason and getting the treatment as outlined by the OP and other examples in the thread.

If the various accounts are to be believed, if LL gets an AR that someone is underage they will disable that account until that person faxes proof of age across (even if that person is age verified, and worse even if that person has already faxed such proof across due to a previous AR). It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think that a group of students might think if extremely funny to AR their teacher just before he is due to give a class in SL!

It is just too easy and too common for a glitch (either in technology or process) to completely wipe out substantial investment in SL, and cases where LL's support rectify the situation tend to be the exception rather than the rule. No one is going to make serious investment into so fragile a platform, which is one of the reasons SL remains substantially a recreational platform (having hardware requirements more typical of a gaming machine than a business machine is another).

Matthew

The whole guilty until proven innocent thing is loopy.

Bleh age verification is a load of rah rah!
I know a 15 year old that just "borrowed" her mothers drivers license to prove her age........ SL age verification is a crock! I have heard of people using stolen ID"s o verify as well.
RE: Account suspensions well one of my friends today in fact received an email suspending his account, no reason stated (I read the email). And then received an email that stated they would be accessing his account due to some incident that occurred in SL was linked to his account. They went in for 2 mins and his account was reactivated and no apology or reason or anything but he has his account back. He has been unable to get any answers to his questions so far i doubt he will.
My personal experience is even if you are premium account you will not receive any service when issues occur. Someone hacked my account and deleted more than half my inventory, I filed report after report after report, was told nothing could be done about recovering the "lost" items.
The person who gained access to my account even admitted that he did it because he was angry at me I passed this conversation on and the person in question didn't even get a one hour ban, even though what he did was against TOS.
The recovery of items i phoned SL and was told nothing could be done. BUT in world was told to apply for a copy of invent, which many people I had spoken to had successfully achieved when SL had eaten their invents.
Now legally I believe SL must keep a copy of your invent and transactions for a 30 day period, so they do in fact have a copy of your invent at any given time on their servers, but due to the amount of people requesting a copy of their invent when things go missing they no longer offer this as its too many man hours to actually give service.
personally I think there should be NIL lindens in charge of TOS reporting and abuse, the avatar you have should be able to block any interaction with a problematic person, eg they become invisible to you and nothing they say nor do will have any effect on your experience. I personally would prefer their to be more programmers employed to repair the platform to a level of stability. I wish they would stop trying to gloss things up in SL and just go back to basics and repair what is wrong with SL, not make it pretty...JUST my opinion.
I think a stable platform that doesn't eat your stuff would be preferable to a glorious sunset or a better looking default avatar!
There are many issues and quality of service is just one as its so arbitrary and is dependent on the Linden who receives the report and if they can be actually bothered.
Just quietly about 12 mths ago when there was a in world help chat, I sought Linden help as someone had dropped a laggy scripted item and something that orbited all avatars in a certain radius in a public sandbox and the wipe wasn't going to be for another day or more. I asked if a Linden could come and return the naughty persons objects. When she arrived she asked me how to return items! This is sometimes typical of some Lindens they know absolutely nothing about the platform, how to use the interface and the rules they are suppose to enforce. And I have to admit there are far too many mentors who are completely clueless and I am just continually amazed at some of their behaviour! (But i digress)
Its like RL to be honest, some employees go out of their way to help and be positive and others are not bothered just log online to get their hours up for their paycheck (don't want to work just like the dollars)
RANT over
Be good everyone

Oh I forgot to address the MR bigwig thing about being banned
There was some issues with an avatar called Tizzers Foxchase, many a linden irrationally loathe this person and every time he gains another avatar it is promptly banned. One person in SL who is a great supporter of Tizzers and a huge land magnate in SL, has had his account banned a number of times due to some irrational reason relating to Tizzers. Anyway he threatened to take LL to Real Life court, this got him promptly unbanned.
I will quickly address the idiosyncrasies of the banning issue: Firstly I am sure you can read online the issues relating to Tizzers if you do a search so I dont want to bore you with that history BUT having said that, another account who shall remain nameless made RL threats to many people in both voice and in IM's, saying he knew where Tizzers lived and was coming around to cut his throat etc and was reported by up to 10 people who witnessed this incident and were also victims of the abuse, the person who made the threatening comments didnt even receive 5 min minute ban, but if the violence was aimed at anyone else but the btards and Tizzers the abuser would have been perma banned.
Can you see how the whole policing of SL is inconsistant and erratic ?
Nothing is going to change unless the big M really starts to crack down on the egotistical nature some Lindens possess.
sigh

They take a very dim view of repeat tickets = see it as griefing. Given the stretched resources they have for Customer Support - and there must be internal SLAs to meet - I can understand that view completely.

Sympathies to the OP, if this is a screw up.

***edit OK I read the post above. Course it's like RL - these are people doing a RL job. Even if they are still playing SL, seeing under the bonnet causes a radical shift in perception. If you have a troublemaker (in your opinion) re-presenting themselves then you will slam the account shut first and ask questions later. Happens in any company which has online dealings.

You are not the only person who has had there account taken away, and LL refused to tell them why. It's hard to defend yourself when you are never made aware of the charges against you.


i have unanswered support tickets over a year old.....

This is to inform everybody that my personal issue with LL has been resolved, while other problems remain:

On Friday I finally called LL and got through relatively fast, given that it was Friday afternoon in PST timezone and I certainly wasn't the only caller. Obviously someone tried or managed to log into my account from the US, they suspected me to be under attack and shut me off. At that point it took me less than 10 minutes to have my password reset and I was back again.

The action LL took was certainly correct and is, as I wrote early, not to be debated. What still annoys me that I never received any individual message or warning, automated if need be, something like "we have placed you on hold for security concerns", no hints how to appeal, simply nothing. That's when you start wondering.

Another thing is that it appears to be impossible to address a support ticket within one business week. If nothing else the customer seems very much left alone.

In fact calling LL took less than 20 minutes after I was through, and the rates to the US turned out to be much less than I suspected, Of course this is not always the case and more than one here knows how it feels to be in a loop while the counter is running

So, it was pretty much ado about nothing, I'm back up, and my ticket has been closed, LL's only action on it from where I stand. They definately need a working support system, and I'd exchange a $ or two per month for the feeling I wasn't left alone when problems come up.

Thanks to all for your sympathy, input and compassion.

Glad if got resolved. The key issues emerging from this are, I think:

a) lack of notification (officially there should be an e-mail, but lots of reports this doesn't happen)
b) slow response to tickets requesting information

So I've opened a jira - for what it is worth - on these two issues:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1422

I got banned for using an alt account on two different IP's, they thought someone stole the login information and was logging in elsewhere. But it took about an hour on the phone of them calling me a thief and a hijacker before they would tell me the reason.

No, you don't, not if you are a real business and not if you want to keep customers. We log customer complaints as possible problems with OUR side of things (literally - part of our certification requirements - CS reports to QA), and every customer rep is trained by the numbers how to handle an irate customer. One side is angry and often at least semi-irrational and the other is supposed to be professional, and that's at five minutes into their day and at 7:55 into the day just before they leave. Otherwise, either we need better training or we need someone else on our end of the phone. If someone - anyone - in customer service starts with the presumption that the company, LL or any other company, is right and the customer is wrong, they need to be counseled and on the second offense, fired. If they yell or scream as some CS reps at LL are purported by reputable sources to have done, they should be fired on the first offense. And, yeah, I have been responsible for more than one phone bank. And I get the angriest customers, after they have worked up a full head of steam, so I have been through it many, many times.

Also, FWIW, customer complaints are a monthly part of the QA meeting, in stat form and specifically for any that are seen as significant.

FWIW, the best customer reps see it as an art, taking an angry customer and talking them through a problem, breaking it apart and assembling a solution. No one is right, no one wrong (regardless of the facts) - just fix the problem if at all possible. A sign you have been talking to a good one is that you feel a bit silly for how you started the phone call, but know the person on the other end understands. That level of expertise I've seen once in the various phone calls I've made before I ramped everything down in SL. So they have at least one (or had)...

And a last comment - modern 'state of the art' customer service says empower the CS rep to solve, fix and complete the complaint loop on the phone inthe first instance - deliver the information to the rep and make it transparent. I have had too much 'don't know, can't do' from LL to think they are remotely close to that.

Unfortunately, the residents of SL are not seen as LL's customer base. Or at least not a base that matters when compared to other -- presumably corporate -- clients. The barely adequate (in terms of staffing and training) Customer Support is not an oversight. It appears to be part of the business plan. LL has its sights set on the "bigger picture" of creating a new metaverse platform and providing grid hosting services.

I think maybe we're only hearing the worst of the customer services stories here.
I had an issue a couple of weeks ago, put in a ticket, received a prompt, courteous reply to my query (which was not a common problem).
When their solution did not work and I reported that (politely) I received another prompt response with another possible solution to try. I then received yet another message from them, asking me if everything was okay and if they can close that ticket now.

We hear only one side of the issue when people post about LL responses to their issues. Everyone has inadequate help desk staffing - just try to solve a problems with your cell phone company! I can't imagine that I'm the only one who's had positive experiences with LL's.

ah...remind me of witch hunting. only different is now it happens in cyber world.

Voted Now lets hope enough vote for LL to take notice