New Premium Billing No Go

I have 2 friends who are totally in love with second life, made basic accounts and are now trying to upgrade to permium. While I realize there are some billing things with existing accounts, one friend has the credit card update to got oPremium at (updatepending) status for nearly 2 hours now. My other friend who is on the screen to get the free $250 KLindens, everytme they click the radio button to input CC info they get an error message.

Needless to say, my two friends are less than impressed and are not sure now if they want to remain as paying members of this venue.

I've searched the blogs, boards etc for a billing update ... but nothing jumps out. Does anyone out there have any info? I'm trying to convince my 2 friends to hang in there, but, they don't want to pay for something they can't use, or in this case, can't use something they WANT to pay for .... anyone?

Would the error message possibly be an indication of what's wrong?

I made the experience that one card wasn't accepted while another was ... something to do with certain types of cards (esp. for non-US residents) not being able to be handled by a US billing provider.

Call me crazy but this post on the blog seems to explain it?
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/04/05/we-are-currently-experiencing-issues-with-billing-processing/

Crazy. Ok I called you it ..

Sure, I can understand delays .. but several hours? Delays imply short periods of time .. not hours and hours ... this isn't a good introduction to a pay service, nor does it indicate a reliance of service. I was simply asking to see if there had been something else posted elsewhere that I may have missed.

Rudeness is not really needed here, thanks.

I wasnt being rude, you said you couldnt find it on the blog, but it is, right there..

We anticipate delays and errors to continue throughout the weekend.

Seems to imply to me it is something serious and not just a couple minute delay...
Sorry your friends are having such a bad experience =/

I've been waiting 2 days for my billing information to update...not impressed with the new outsourced billing service.

Is this because of outsourcing? I had the idea percolating around in my mind that they'd borked the payment system because of gambling somehow.

coco

Great this happens again...when I am low on Lindens. I have never had such a hard time GIVING money to a Company in my life...First or Second.

I can beat you on that. I once had an old ISP literally *refuse* to send my final bill to the forwarding address I had given them.

They even phoned me to ask why I hadn't paid the bill they had sent to my old address. And yes, I had given them proper notice I was moving house and given them a new address a month before I moved. In the end, I told them I was more than happy to pay that final bill, but they would have to send it to me first. They never did.