Cannot Buy Estate Land

Hello Everyone, hope someone can help me with this one...

I upgraded to a Premium Account about a month ago (paying quarterly), hoping to get cheap First Land to get me started. With that option now gone and mainland prices being so high (for me anyway), I decided it would make more sense to buy some land on a private island and pay tier directly to the island owner.

Since the My Account page said any downgrade would only kick in after the end of the three months, I chose to Downgrade, figuring I'd still have all the benefits of a Premium account until May.

However, it now seems I cannot purchase ANY land -- not even Private Island land!

I asked in Live Help and the volunteer there, although helpful, said I'd need to contact Linden Labs via email. However, after reading posts in this forum, I'm concerned I might never hear back, and I'm desperate to purchase a particular piece of island land before it is sold. I've tried 'Buy For Group' figuring that might work but no joy.

All I want to do is buy some Estate land.

FYI, this is the error message I get whenever I try to buy land on an island:

Cannot buy now: "There has been an error while fetching land buying information. You have initiated the downgrade process. Your account will downgrade to Basic Access on Saurday, May 5, 2007."

Is there anything obvious I'm missing? Do I really have no option but to hope that my email is read and replied to, before the land I want is sold to someone else?

Are you absolutely certain this is private island land you're trying to purchase? If it is, sounds like you may have uncovered a problem that WILL require contact with Linden Lab.

In the mean time, maybe you could negotiate a "hold" on that parcel with the island owner? (give me a week to sort this out, I really want this)

Hmm, that's what I figured. I hoped I was wrong, though. And yes, it is definately private island land - it has an Estate Owner name, Private Island in the description and everything..

Thanks, I guess that's what I'll have to do... But what with the taking away of First Land, weeks after I sign up for a quarterly accound, and now this, I'm starting to wonder if the gods are just having a little 'fun' with ol' Steve Mondegreen... (just to be clear, I'm not referring to the Lindens here )