Why doesn't my land fee decrease?

Hi all,

I just sold land so that I now have only 3584sqm left. I switched the tier from 40 USD to 25 USD and saved the changes. But on the account summary page there is still listed:
Total monthly cost: US$40.00

Why?? And how can I change this? That's weird.

It will the following month. Your tier charge is based on the maximum amount of land owned at any one given time during your tier month. So if you have land even for only 1 or 2 days after you just paid tier, you will have the same charge on your next bill date. The following month will be adjusted to the new level.

If you manually tiered down in your account page, this only becomes effective in the next following month. For the current month you still will be billed at the old (higher) rate.

That's how it generally works: Tiering up gets charged immediately, tiering down reduces your charge in the next following month only.

Unfair? You didn't expect (2nd) life to be fair, did you?

Not quite. Tier fees are charged monthly, based on the peak ownership of land within the billing period. And AFAIK you need to tier down manually if said peak usage warrants it.

So if one assumes the billing day for the tier fee (which may differ from the premium membership billing day) is the 13th each month and one sells all his land at the 15th, he'll still get charged the full tier fee at the 13th the following month... And thereafter he may decide to tier down to zero.

Morale of the story: If you're able to, time you land sales near the end of the billing period - and purchases to the begin of the next one to avoid paying for usused land possession rights.

You want to be awfully careful trying this, tho. It is sooooo easy to slip over into the new month and OOOOPSIE!!! There goes another month of tier.

How do we manually tier down in our account page?

I thought tiering up or down was predicated by the amount of land we bought and/or sold. So shouldn't we be automatically tiered up and down according to our land purchases or sales regardless of what we manually do on our account page?

MY SECOND LIFE >>> MY ACCOUNT

then

LAND >>> LAND USE FEES

Look towards the bottom of this page for the tier settings.

I'm not sure if they automatically decress. I agree, they should *Shrugs* Haven't went down yet, so not sure.

If you own land at all, reading every bit of every section of the LAND options under teh MY ACCOUNT page should be required reading. I'm not singling anyone out, I'm only saying this in hopes those who haven't read through them will go and read them.

Land in SL is just like land in RL. You have all sorts of options and also FEES that if you're not aware of them, they can take you by surprise. Take 30 minutes and read through it all and save yourselves headachs down the road ^.^

~Jessy

You should not be billed in a month for more than the peak amount of land you actually used during that month, even if your tier level as indicated on the Account page is higher. If you are billed for more, contact Linden Labs.

Beware that if you have bought land for a group, selling the land does NOT remove the tier from the group; and also tier allocated to a group is ALWAYS considered "used" even if the group is not in fact using it for land. (This is to prevent disputes regarding "whose tier is being used" when a group has more tier than land.)

The tier setting on the My Account page represents the highest amount of tier you are willing to pay. For example, suppose that you own 2048sqm of land, putting you on the 2048sqm tier. You sell 1024sqm of it. As soon as you have a month in which you did not own more than that 1024sqm for any amount of time, you pay only the tier for 1024sqm of land, even though your listed tier will be for 2048sqm. However, if you decide you want to buy more land, SL will allow you to buy up to another 1024sqm (ie, up to your set tier of 2048sqm) without warning you that you need to tier up in order to do so.

So if I am understanding this correctly, even if I do not manually tier down, as long as my actual land ownership was in a lower category than the current tier on my account for the billing period, I will only be charged for the lower tier? But which button will stay checked off on my account screen - the higher tier I originally had, until/if I manually tier down? So if I sell off a bunch of land, as long as it meets the requirements, if it results in a lower tier, that will automatically be what I am charged? I don't have to worry that I overpaid, if I don't rush right in on account payment day and tier down manually?

Princess Ivory

Correct, Princess.

You will automatically be billed for only the highest amount of tier/land in use during the month immediately prior to the billing date.

So, lets say your billing date is conveiniently (and unlikely) on the first of the month. During the month of May, you owned or had donated tier equivalent to 8192 worth of land, but sold off or un-donated 4096 before the end of May. On June 1, you would still be billed for 8192.

During June you make no further changes in land ownership or donated tier. On July 1, you would be billed based on the 4096 level even though your account page still has the 8192 level checked off.

This gives someone who makes frequent changes more latitude in buying/selling without having to go to the website or whatever to authorize an increase in tier because they've already agreed they are willing to be billed for 8192, but still gives them the price break if they drop down a level for a long enough period of time.

Char

That's a great explanation, Char. Very easy to understand! Thank you.

Princess Ivory

The button on the website only sets where the warning appears when you buy land (The one that says "This will increase your monthly Tier payment...) - it has no effect on the actual tier that you pay as that is based on land ownership.

But!... then there is the issue of Linden Labs having a bugged billing system, that decides to bill me for a 5$ land tier, when in the past month i had No land, downgraded to a Basic account, and in the month before, had just 512m land (sold days before downgrading) wich then was included in the Premium account.

So where on earth did LL get my 512+512 land owned in the past month from? Unknown, i guess they just wanted another few dollars. I sent a support request last Friday, not one word from them yet. Reading about other bililng issues, i sure wont let them take even 5$ for nothing. And unless this gets responded to real soon, and reversed, this is going to become a Big Issue for me. When i get upset, i make sure Lots of people get to know about it.

This is going to hurt your PR Linden Labs, i am no small person when it comes to Internet publicity. Its not about the few dollars, but the principle of the issue. You Do Not ever take money from a customer that you have no reason to send a bill for. There are many words to describe such activities, the Kindest one is blaming a bugged bililng system.

But the Law does not take flawed billing systems into account when deciding what is ok and not. So... where is your Support, Linden Labs. Do you want to be Thiefs or do you correct your mistakes promptly and send a big excuse for the frustration caused?

Nevermind, its not like any Linden will either read or respond here. They dont read emails or respond to support tickets either.

That might be a glitch, or it might have to do with timing. For example, if your bill dates ran from the 20th of one month to the 20th of another, and you sold your 512m on May 21st, you could say that you held no land in June, but by LL's standards you did. Also, if you downgraded a week later (or any time before the 20th, actually), LL's policy of charging tier for the maximum amount of land you held in a billing month would probably cause you to be charged for the 512m, since it was no longer covered by your Premium membership.

That is one of my huge annoyances, i can not see further back than 30 days either L$ or US$ history or i could easily prove myself right. But i do know exactly how the land owning things work, i have been here to and from since before there was even any snow land. Wich was like 3 years (?) ago or something.

I sold the land before i canceled premium, about a week before even. Land tier and subscription was billed at about the same date, 20-21st as far as i remember. I got billed for land tier anyway. I can assure anyone here, and Linden Labs, that wether they claim i owned 512m land that was not covered by the premium subscription or not, i say it was. And that is all there is to it, unless Linden Labs get their fingers out and prove me wrong.

It really is that simple, Linden Labs have so many flaws in their billing in various ways, i Do Not trust that this is in any way justifiable. Because i also know for a fact, my land tier showed 0 up until a while before this supposed land tier billing was warranted. That in itself is quite fishy too, and smells of roll-back bugginess or whatnot.

I have owned 1024 meter land in the past, 3-4 months ago. I also owned way more than that, long ago. I have owned and sold land through land tiers several times, i do know how they are supposed to work. I built things, got tired of them, sold land, came back another month, did the same procedure. But i know how those things are supposed to work, if they dont work as written on the site, then that is also not something I should pay for.

And i am just typing away because this upsets me, mainly the complete lack of customer support and correction of mistakes.

'There will be no monthly maintenance fees on your first 512 m2 of land.

The Land Use Fee is a monthly charge for the peak amount of land held during the previous 30 days, including actual parcels held and land tier donated to groups.'

Those lines say it all really. As long as I do not own more than 512m land while being a Premium resident, there is no additional cost. So if i sell the land first, still no land tier. Then i wait a few days, and click the downgrade to Basic. Still no land tier, since i have no land, and am still premium. Then i get downgraded, still have no land, and can not own land, and should ofcourse still have 0 land tier. I do not care if Linden Labs sneakily imply they have a right to bill me for land tier, because i owned 512m land in the past 30 days, when that land while i actuallly owned it was INCLUDED in the Premium subscription.

To be billed a 5$ land tier, i must have owned 1024m land while i was premium, or (impossibly) have owned 512m land while being a basic account resident.

Anyone disagreeing must be a LL emplyee who thinks squeezing every last measly dollar out of their smaller customers is a good way to make them happy. *boggle*

I had plans for a whole island, no more if this is how LL thinks it is ok to treat smaller land owners. No way.

On second thought, I'm wrong. No matter when you downgrade, Premium privileges should last through the end of the last period you paid for, so even if you were on monthly, your 512m tier should have been covered. The only reason I can see that they would have had to charge you is if you owned or donated more than 512m at any point in the month, even if it was just for half a minute. If you're sure you didn't, then it's definitely something that needs to be addressed.



Actually, owning 513m total would have put you in that tier...it's anything above 512m and up to 1024m.

Actually, owning 513m total would have put you in that tier...it's anything above 512m and up to 1024m.

Precisely.

Subscriptions and additional land tier are separate. But that first one plot can not ever be cause for any land tier billing. Even if i forget to sell it and downgrade, it should be returned to Linden Labs with no land tier added, since a basic account can not keep owning it anyway. It is just impossible to incur any land tier while owning only 512m of land, with no group deeds.

Oh well... i let 'support' work on it one more day.

(edit: yes, i know 513m land would make for 5$ land tier if i had that anytime. But as far as i know, the smallest plots possible are 16m.)