us citizens being billed from uk

i showed my friend this thread and he'd like me to post on behalf of him because he only has a free account. he definitely has some points to ponder for us all...

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Hello,

My chinese friend gave me the complete post to read. To me, poor belgo-russo-french-germano-dutch. I can't write anything on the forums, even if i'm a SL resident, because i have no payment info... What is this concept of "pay to talk"? Free expression now has a price, in spite of the First Amendment of the US constitution...

This subject shows how much some people need to be a part of a group, a club, a nation....or more often, a company.

We are all bastards. Our genes are mixed since the first day. What is an american? What is a european? What is a chinese or whatever? All the people thinkin they are so are wrong and should go back to school to learn some biology and some history.

Hey, this is a scoop : nations are "man-made", not natural. We can all be the first ones (if you really want to have a number in front of your name....) if we consider ourselves like just what we are in fact : men and women.

The USA is kidding about differences in EU.... and yes we have differences. Yes, we fought against each others. we had wars on our soil... and now, we don't want it anymore. And yes, the EU is kidding about the USA for having elected actors, alcoholics and mono-cellular brains as their presidents or top-level authorites.

I consider my self as an Earth Citizen. I have friends in EU, in the USA, in Malaysia, in China, in Russia, in Africa and South America. We share our differences and that makes us richer... We are not thinking on behalf of a flag but as the little living thing which we are.

Some of you here talk about military stuff and advanced weapons and technology. I guess those people have never been on a combat zone...

A nation, whatever it means, is just an open door to the war and the nationalisms. It's just stupid. We have to think about things we have in common... think as if we are just one nation.... It's the only way to go further and survive. Am i idealistic when i say that? No, I'm a realist. Sadly a realist.

I just have one flag : my planet's. It makes me sad to see people raising a flag against the others. Why? because maybe one day my sons will die for those "ideas"... Educate yourself before and then spread the good word. When you help someone, you help yourself. When you heal someone, you heal yourself. And i'm not religious! Who needs a symbol, who needs a Flag when he lives in this universe. Just watch the sky at night and normally, you will find your real place down here.

I'm proud to have so many different blood running in my veins. I couldn't make war against USA or Russia or China or whatver without thinking i'm gonna kill living brothers and sisters.

PUT THAT WEAPON DOWN!

Peace on earth to the good and willing people.

Alexei Beaumont

Fair point Object, that sounds wrong...anyway! My point is that banks don't have to charge these fees, in this day and age with so much done electronically, the overheads should be a pittance for banks to absorb. Especially when you consider that some of the banks in the US apparently charge customers these fees and the same bank in the UK don't when the shoe is on the other foot.



Again a fair point, although 15.9% isn't at the high end these days, one of my Credit Card companies raised my rate by 7% and then sent me a letter asking why I don't use that card anymore!

I really think we're comparing apples and oranges here. I can think of US banks and credit companies that charge British customers more for currency conversion and unauthorized lending fees than their American counterparts. To this day it's a controversial issue for AMEX and Capital One. Banks offer different packages for different markets, and just because one package is cheaper in one area doesn't mean it's not more expensive than another .. which takes us full circle back to the account comparisons I made earlier. The free account charged currency conversion rates, but the non-free account didn't. The costs (existent, fair or not) for so-called 'free conversion' are just made-up somewhere else.
hehe. Still, 15.9% APR on *all* your transactions (not just the overseas ones) will likely cost you more than a surcharge on the occasional foreign transaction on a standard APR credit card from a High St. bank with 13.9% APR. So that Nationwide claim (on their website) isn't as good as it seems. Indeed many would dismiss it as pure spin.

*shrugs* Apparently, some people are of the mindset that "he who has the biggest guns rules all," and are applying this to fees? Geeze, why start a war over something so stupid?

Frankly, I just don't think it's fair that I am being charged an foreign transaction fee because I am in the US and pay a US company money. It has nothing to do with countries frankly, but with Linden Labs making a choice to move banks to one overseas, instead of just finding a bank in the US that has branches overseas. Or even getting a second bank for the overseas users.

It's like they didn't bother researching things very fully before just plowing ahead, again....

I don't think it's fair on you either. Is it worth contacting the San Francisco Better Business Bureau? If there were enough complaints, LL might do something instead of wringing their hands. BTW - I have no axe to grind as I'm in the UK.

*noddles* Possibly. And it is fair that you all shouldn't have to either, if it can be avoided! There are ways of handling this without causing us this kind of headache, such as I mentioned in the previous post.

But this.. it was without warning, without a blog post until JP Linden decided to post that the fees weren't LL's fault. There wasn't even the "We're sorry, since we changed banks, some US users might incur the foreign transaction fees," it was like, "Not our fault. We changed things and it screwed you, so who cares?" *sighs*

I swear some of the Lindens should have shock collars attached to their keyboards to keep them from posting such insensitive stupidity. There wasn't even, "We're looking at other ways to handle this to try and prevent this from happening on our end." Not that we'd be likely to believe it, but still.. it'd sound as if they cared. As it is they don't... and the blog post showed it. They only cared so much as to claim no responsibility.

Don't get me wrong, I know that the charges are coming from the banks, but those fees didn't happen when LL had did their own banking in the US. *mutters*

But it's not their fault and as a world wide company why should they apologise because your bank chooses to charge you fees? LL get no extra income from this, the majority of LL users are not in the USA.

Complain to your bank.

Please what does all ths America vs Europe vs the rest of the World talk have to do with the issue at hand.

I just got off the phone with my credit card provider because my credit card was frozen due to what they said was possible fraudulent behavior on some questionable credit card charges from a perscription drug company out of the UK. You know I am having a blast here in Second Life (yes my 1st life is suffering from neglect) and I do not what to see the Linden Labs shut us down. But I have to ask myself why is the Linden Labs representing themselves as a perscription drug company out of the UK for the consumers who happen to live on the other side of the pond? Why are they not representing themselves for who they are ... "an online internet gaming company".

I do not blame my credit card provider for freezing my account. Can you blame them? It's not like I would be ordering perscription drugs from the UK when I live in North America.

That's the question at hand. Why are so many Linden charges being called questionable? I've done business with overseas merchants, and never once have they been questioned. Why do the banks not trust Linden?

But they are a US based Company, tey must gave a US bank for their business purposes. Why can't Charges me madethere for US Customers, and A European Bank for "The Makority". I don't see any logic to it, especially in an age of multi national banks. To me it's just more badly thought out business practices.

LL is an American company. They may have a worldwide audience, but that doesn't make them any less an American company. When you deal with an American company you expect it to accept payment in the American currency (USD) via a merchant on American soil. If they don't do that, it stands to reason international money transfer fees may come into play (this is not rocket science) and they should warn their customers about it.

Yes Ciaran, if British Telecom suddenly started taking online payments via Joe McSchmoe Merchant Services in NYC without telling you about it and this caused a currency charge on your bank or credit card account (never mind the questions about Joe McSchmoe's reputation), I'm sure you absolutely would not complain to British Telecom at all for not advising you about the change in payment circumstances.