Do they want my money?

I have a premium account paid quarterly, and it was due to be billed yesreday. This AM I find myself 300 L$ richer (stipend) but $22.50 USD in the hole because of the premium fee not being paid. The account is set up for recurring payments on a Visa card. I haven't bought any L$ for about a month, but no problems last time I did.

Any suggestions on how to get LL to take the USD's I owe them?

Actually it is a Master Card I am using for the account.

All Your Money Are Belong To ... You ...

Email, phone or enter a support ticking to billing. They are the chaps you need to speak to.

I've just seen your signature. Dammit ... how did you know about my fear of sporks?

<twitch>

I think most of the world fears sporks but they are too afraid to voice their fears in case they get 'spoked' Well done for standing up and admitting your fears.

My name is Porky Gorky and I fear the SPORK!

MY US $ balance is at -$40 since yesterday.
I guess they are having some trouble billing credit cards at the moment?

I fear NO Plastic Tablewear! (Except those really big clear plastic salad tongs. They give me the Willies)

Note that there's a third-party in your transaction chain:

You <--> Bank/Card Issuer <--> Linden Lab

You might take a moment to contact your bank/card issuer to see if they flagged and declined the charge by Linden Lab.

*nods* Firstly, you'll get a far faster response from your bank than from LL and secondly, LL will probably just tell you to call your CC provider anyways. Since LL moved their bank overseas, a lot of banks are flagging it as potentially fraudulent.

But to answer your title question, apparently not.

They just did the same thing to me. The only difference is that I bought Linden$ less than a week ago, and it was my $40 tier bill.

my solution was to convert some L$ to US$, and plan on continuing to do that.

No sense continuing to pump real $US into this game.

Shouldn't my bank contact me, instead of the other way around?

Well, I guess it's up to the individual as to whether or not they want to patiently sit by their phone for the amount of time their bank repeatedly declines the attempted charge by Linden Lab and they wind up having their Second Life account locked out for the unpaid bill and their land is reclaimed by Governor Linden.

At least they sent me the stipend (all 300 L$ LOL)

Seriously, I will contact billing later about this just for the record, but I think I will just convert some L$ to US$ and be done with it for 3 more months.

Never have I seen a company more inclined to commit suicide than LL.

The same thing just happened to me. In the red Saturday. I followed the suggestions here and updated my payment info, waited a day and still -$40 so I submitted a suport ticket yesterday afternoon. No reply to the ticket yet, but today my US$ balance is back to zero. I
think it is a glitch and takes a few days to switch from trying to bill your account here to your credit card.

If a bank repeatedly declines a charge and takes that long to call you to confirm it, find another bank. I'm sure part of this nonsense is post 9/11 related, which is understandable. But there is no reason for a US based company to not have a US bank to acommodate us in addition to overseas banks for everyone else. If someone has a good reason other than standard Linden ill thought business policy, please let me know.

I called my bank.
No transaction has been declined.
Linden Labs has simpli forgotten to charge us.
I have no doubt they will soon do it now

It might be due to the risk assessment software used by the bank. At this point in time we don't know if this is a Linden Lab problem or a bank problem with this particular transaction.

Let US know. I'm still scratching my head about this one. The only reason I can see is to save the overseas users the fees, but then, there are banks who do world wide business are there not? Given this and well, LL's past history of decisions, I'm leaning towards the 'completely ill thought out,' myself.

Unless there is a problem with the LL’s system right now, which it could very well be due to Lindex is also having issues. LL is now using a UK bank to do its transactions. A lot of U.S. banks will automatically deny an overseas pending transaction to a CC due to possible fraud. This is done by the issuing bank, not Visa, Matercard ect. It is just how a lot of bank systems work. That is most likely why u have negative U.S. balance. A couple ways to correct it, the 1st is call the bank that issues the CC see if there has been a transaction block and lift the block on the transactions from Linden Lab and or Second Life, it can come through either way. If there wasn’t a block, im guessing its LL’s system right now. Some banks will make it a permanent lift to the company you specify, a 24 hour lift or some actually have a automated system that will call for your approval. The second way is to switch from using a CC to paypal as your method of payment. That requires you to 1st delete your current method of payment then create a new one using the paypal method.

The reason I know all this is that I went through the same thing about a month ago. If you have other CC’s u can use, call the issuing bank and ask if overseas transactions are blocked or not.

It is a little hassle I know, but the CC systems are actually trying to protect against CC thief.

Hope this helps.

DoC

see this and other threads on SecondLife Insider:
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/06/17/lindens-not-billing-correctly/

While trying to buy L$ last Sat on the website (as suggested on the official blog) I was redirected to update my CC details. Not only did the transaction NOT go through, my account CC details are now borked (permanently saying waiting for update verification).

***My CC company contacted me first thing Monday morning*** as my card had been flagged as possible fraudulent use, and when I talked with them further they said (and I quote) "Linden Lab have had a lot of recent fraud". Luckily none of the weekend attemped transactions had gone through, but I'm worried now that my Premium a/c will be suddenly suspended if they can't take my Tier payment...

Support Ticket put through over the weekend but NO email response/acknowledgement and the Ticket still says NEW.

Anyone know if there a UK support phone number?

That's all well and good. But I still ask, Why does a US based business not have a US based bank to handle US based transactions? When Linden has a strategy meeting and orders Pizzas for everyone, does the charge go through a bank in England? Does Linden even serve Pizza at strategy meetings. Do they even have strategy meetings?

And for what it's worth, I use a Bank of America Debit Card for my SL expenses, and I don't get hit with any extra fees.

Whatever the issues....i know Sales are being hit hard. If players can't buy Lindens, the economy and particularly the Vendors/ creators will suffer. LL are totally incompetent!!

I bought a private island SIM from a 3rd party last Wednesday.......and it still hasn't been transferred!

I have lost faith in those guys in SF, things are slipping from bad to worst. The latest item on the blog talks about "enjoyable weekend at Hack Day London which Christopher Linden and I attended to help hackers mashup Second Life.".....and then trying to recreate some stuff into SL world

Shouldn't LL learn to walk before they attempt to run?

Wish I knew

I have notice they new billing department does take there own sweet time to charge your card and bank. It usually goes through normally for me on account end then maybe 3 weeks to 6 days later it actually arrives my bank. First time the month was almost up before they charged me anything and it was over 3 weeks.