Penalty for Premium Membership?

Purchased a premium membership yesterday. When I tried to buy some L$ to get started, it informed me that I have exceeded my monthly billing limit:

"This transaction would exceed your monthly billing limit by US$72. You have already billed US$72.00 of your monthly billing limit is US$25.00."

I've read messages about other people getting an account and immediately buying L$, was that because they bought a smaller package? I don't get my signup bonus for 45 days, My stipend is next Tues if I understand correctly. I'm a total noob, but standing here I feel a little burned.

Should the price of my membership be counted toward me buying L$? Here I am with my RL pockets $72 lighter, and with no money for land or goods, I'm going to be right where I was, trying to scrape up cash until whenever this limit wears off. At this point, I am really feeling no benefit whatsoever from my membership, nor will I for a while.

I'm a total noob, but this is confusing and a little depressing. Is there a way around this? Am I doing something wrong? Should I look to third party sites or are they all scammers? I'm not anxious to pass my CC# around to strange sites.

It is a bit silly that it counts toward your limit, I agree. Whatever you do don't buy L on Ebay.
Some people like SLExchange, though.

As much as I'm disgusted with LL for other things...........I don't think LL is scamming you. There a waiting period..........about two or three days till your CC is billed successfully. So LL waits for that verification before letting you "spend" more. Sort of a protection for you..............but mostly for LL.

Are you in another country besides USA?

Don't be depressed - this too shall pass.

Welcome to Second Life! There are lots of great people and wonderful things to do and see here.

Nah, I don't think I am being scammed or anything, and I'm not really mad about it. I'm in the US, and the credit card payment has gone through. This is some sort of cap I guess intended to acclimate noobs to making money in game or something.

I guess I could see that a bit more if it was a one week or one month ban on buying L$ across the board, but with this limit, the people who actually spend more to get the premium membership seem to be more penalized. That, to me, anyway, seems goofy. The main reason I got the membership was so I could get some land, but I guess it will be a while now.

I think if you know ahead of time that this will happen you can buy L first, then go premium - but most people couldn't anticipate this.

The fourth birthday celebration starts on Saturday - that will be fun to see.

Go set up an account, and buy all the L$ you want from Slexchange, it doesn't count towards any of LL's limits for new accounts.

I'm confused--did you not get the L$1000 bonus you're supposed to get when you sign up for Premium? Or have they changed that again?

Paid 40 or 45 days after sign-up as far as I recall

Odd--I seem to remember getting mine the moment I upgraded. But they keep changing the rules so what applied to me doesn't apply anymore, it seems.

It's really freaking annoying that those things we pay directly to LL (not buying/selling L) is counted towards the trading limit, but there are a range of things that are freaking annoying about the LindeX in general.

Until you get past the low limit, use the SLExchange. Fewer headaches, from what I'm told.

Welcome to Second Life!

I think LL is worried that you might ask your bank to reverse this charge this month. It is a bit like a credit rating. But I think it wrong you did not get your $1000 as that does not cost them anything.

These trading limits are in place to minimize the damage of credit card fraud - that's why account fees are included along with L$ trading - it's billed to a credit card. The "waiting period" allows for time for a stolen card to be reported and deactivated, before the thief has an opportunity to go on a wild Linden shopping spree.

It is frustrating, and not explained clearly during the signup process. The OP's best option is to create an account at slexchange, and buy L$ there. As another warned, do NOT purchase L$ from EBay, as there seem to be a pretty heavy volume of dirty money flowing through it, and you might end up having your account suspended.

zk

I received mine, L$2000 at the time, immediately. This was back in October of last year though. I suspect the reason it is now delayed is to give new Residents cause to stick around. It's a stop-loss measure.

When I needed Lindens in a hurry (to buy some land with) I actually used a gaming site--the kind that usually deals in swords and gold for other online games. Obviously, they don't do much trade in SL items, since if you want something, you can just BUY it inworld, but they do have Lindens in batches of about 5000 that you can get for a pretty good exchange rate. I think the one I used was called SLTreasures, because I got the most Lindens for my buck from them.

It's amazing how much more willing we are to put up with things, if we have them properly explained to us! It should clearly state the fees count towards the trade limit and that it will take up to 45 days for the bonus to hit your account. There should be a little checkbox that acknowledges it. That way, they'd reduce complaints and we'd know when to start complaining

These days, you reeeeally need to be cautious about where you buy your L$. If the exchange does not use Linden Lab's Exchange Risk API, DO NOT buy L$ from them.

I don't know if that particular one did or not. I do know that I paid my money and got my Lindens in short order with no hassles. I am aware of the scammy things people have done (especially on eBay) but I figured an established site would be a reasonably safe bet. It seems to have worked.

It has been said already but i will say it again.

Use SLexchange, there service is much better, the website doesn't constantly break and you usually get more $L for your money (this is not the case at the moment as the lindex has been broken recently so everyone has been buying at slexchange and the buy price has gone down.).


I have $US in my SL account but i cant even spend it because somehow my limit got reset to day 1, i sent an email to get it fixed, they sent one back saying "fixed", i bought another $10US of lindens and now im stuck on day 1 trading limits again due to the fact i havent actually managed to get a charge on my credit card yet.

I'm in the same boat. I signed up yesterday, but since I payed for the whole year, I can't buy Lindens from LindEx.

And SLExchange is no help because it makes you wait 7 days before you can buy $L from them.

Are there any other places that use the risk API? I definitely won't buy from ebay, since a friend of mine did and her account was suspended AND her Lindens were taken away AND she was penalized 150% of the price of the Lindens that she bought from there (US$40 for L$10,000). So, basically she paid $90 for nothing.

This is news to me.. *scratches head* When I signed up on SLexchange, I charged my Paypal for US$ and then bought LS$ AND an item listed for sale, all within like 20 minutes of signing up. Wierd...

I tried to buy from SLX 2 weeks ago with my newest alt and was also told that I had to wait 7 days. It may be a newer fraud prevention measure they've instituted.

I suggest you write to the support center and explain your problem. I did and they kindly upgraded my "spending" limit.