Any solution for cashing out in Euro with LindeX?

[Sybil Hallison]

Hello,

Since I live in Europe, because of the latest TOS change, I am now encountering many different issues when it comes to cash out money from SL. Until now I used virwox to exchange L$ to euro, since it was fast, easy, and able to sent euros directly to my bank account.
With all this mess I now have the following problems:

-I have to review my trading & billing limits. (solved)

-If I cash out in paypal, there is a fee of 3,5% +extra fee per transaction.

-If I cash out directly in credit card, there is no fee other than LL's fee BUT...

-With both ways there is a fee from my bank to exchange US$ to euro

-And another fee to withdraw the money from the credit card and to a bank account (since I mostly pay in cash)

Oh and I have to own a credit card! I guess that should be the easy part...

With all these fees, and a 15-20% loss, I don't know if it is even worth the trouble...

Any european merchants out there with any solutions?? Is there a simpler way??

[Steph Catseye]

Hello Sybill,
there is no other solution as of yet. 3rd party exchanges will no longer buy your L$ only sell them.
It is now up to LL to add more options especially for other currencies as USD.

The loss of money because of Paypal and their criminal conversion rate is insane. First thing I did was adding USD to my bank account, This saves me aproximately 2% (thats what the bank said but banks are criminals too, lol)

The Paypal fee itself is another sweet kick in the face, with 1,000 USD I lose 35 USD alone

...and let's not forget the LindeX Fees, if you withdraw 260,000L$ that is about 1,011 USD.. the proceeds are only 975 USD

The average non USD user will loose 109 USD for each 1,000 USD withdrawal
(36 USD LindeX / 35 USD Paypal / 38 USD Currency Conversion)


Just to put a size to it... in my case that is 68 outfits I am no longer getting paid for. Not a dramatic number but broken down on a year this becomes a whooping 5,668 USD and that's no longer funny. Compared to Eldex I am loosing 4,223 per year.

A market that is based on micro payments must have better options, this can't be good.
Having said all that... I am one of the few people who holds no grudge against LL, compared to 6 years ago I am in heaven right now, I sincerely believe there will be better options by the end of the month. Probably makes sense to sit on the money for a few days longer.

[Sybil Hallison]

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Steph Catseye wrote:

I sincerely believe there will be better options by the end of the month. Probably makes sense to sit on the money for a few days longer.

---

That's what I thought too Steph.

I m not holding any grudge against LL either, the only thing that troubles me is that I believe we are a minority as I don't see no complaints or petitions for adding support for other currencies. I ve been very busy lately so I haven't really looked it through, but I don't yet understand why the TOS had to change.

Given that, I am not sure if it is of LLs interest to find more ways for people to take their money out of the game. Instead they are surely interested (as they did with the change with authorized Linden merchants) to find as many ways as possible for people to bring their money to the game.

[Madeliefste Oh]

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Sybil Hallison wrote:

Hello,

 

-If I cash out in paypal, there is a fee of 3,5% +extra fee per transaction.

 

 

---

If you cash out at paypay there is a fee of 1 usd per transaction. The 3,5% fee did you already pay when you exchanged your L$ to usd. Paypal does not charge them to you.

 

[Sonja Kowalski]

Here in holland same problem? Now i don,t know how to come on lndens! its realy idoot... it was easy and save to buy with ideal.Now i am hard thinking on leave SL so its no fun anymore...

[Kahlie Niven]

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Sybil Hallison wrote:

...

 

With all these fees, and a 15-20% loss, I don't know if it is even worth the trouble...

 

Any european merchants out there with any solutions?? Is there a simpler way??

---

Hello Sybil, given LL charges 3.5 % and paypal 40 pips (about 3% to euro at actual rate) .. that makes a total of 6.5 % ...that would mean your CC bank eats up to 9% of commission when you cash out ... my advice would be to change bank, definitely.

[Pamela Galli]

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Steph Catseye wrote:

 

 

...and let's not forget the LindeX Fees, if you withdraw 260,000L$ that is about 1,011 USD.. the proceeds are only 975 USD

 

 

 

---

I always cash out 260,000. If I set the limit at 247, I pocket around $1014.  If I set it at 248, I pocket $1010. 

[Sybil Hallison]

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Kahlie Niven wrote:

---

Sybil Hallison wrote:

...

 

With all these fees, and a 15-20% loss, I don't know if it is even worth the trouble...

 

Any european merchants out there with any solutions?? Is there a simpler way??

---

Hello Sybil, given LL charges 3.5 % and paypal 40 pips (about 3% to euro at actual rate) .. that makes a total of 6.5 % ...that would mean your CC bank eats up to 9% of commission when you cash out ... my advice would be to change bank, definitely.

---

Ok, maybe it's not 20% but I don't know if I am missing something here, or if I missunderstood any conditions, since I haven't made yet any LindeX exchange to try it out.

I read on the LindeX Fee page:

"Sellers of Linden™ dollars pay a fee of 3.5% per transaction. Proceeds will be credited to your US$ account balance."

Then on the paypal page:

"with our simple and transparent pricing of 3.4% + $0.30 per transaction, you won't be surprised by hidden fees."

and:

"The retail exchange rate is our wholesale cost of foreign currency (determined by an outside financial institution) plus a currency conversion fee."

And If again I understand it right, I can then withdraw my euros for free on my bank account, but with a remittance fee of 3-4 euros that is applied from my bank, or any other bank in my country from my research.

That is if we go with the paypal way. Depending on the amount of money transferred, and if my math is good, these fees may be up to 9-10% of the whole sum?

And now compare that to the 2.73% exchange fee of virwox + 1euro withdraw fee + 3-4 euros remittance fee.

And I don't even mention the speed of the whole process...

[Eddy Bouvier]

You can make all the calculations you want, but suffice it to say there are a couple of disadvantages to using the Lindex:

1. you loose over 10% of your money in fees
2. you have to wait much longer (as compared to a TPE)
3. there's a lot of hassle/transactions to be made to actually get your money
4. you're fixed to a certain price, whereas with a site like Virwox you can speculate and wait for a good price to arrive

Ok, not 100% honest here with nr.4:  you can do the same with the Lindex, but with a multi-million-dollar wall at 257 L$/USD any chance of getting a better rate are negligible.

So the only options you have right now are either to wait and hope LL and (one of) the TPE will come up with a working solution, or take the 4 points above for granted and just live with it.
If anyone has a better idea, i'd sure like to know it,because i can't get my lindens out the easy way either.. and yes, it stinks

 

[Kahlie Niven]

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Sybil Hallison wrote:

Ok, maybe it's not 20% but I don't know if I am missing something here, or if I missunderstood any conditions, since I haven't made yet any LindeX exchange to try it out.

I read on the LindeX Fee page:

"Sellers of Linden™ dollars pay a fee of 3.5% per transaction. Proceeds will be credited to your US$ account balance."

Then on the paypal page:

"with our simple and transparent pricing of 3.4% + $0.30 per transaction, you won't be surprised by hidden fees."

and:

"The retail exchange rate is our wholesale cost of foreign currency (determined by an outside financial institution) plus a currency conversion fee."

And If again I understand it right, I can then withdraw my euros for free on my bank account, but with a remittance fee of 3-4 euros that is applied from my bank, or any other bank in my country from my research.

That is if we go with the paypal way. Depending on the amount of money transferred, and if my math is good, these fees may be up to 9-10% of the whole sum?

And now compare that to the 2.73% exchange fee of virwox + 1euro withdraw fee + 3-4 euros remittance fee.

And I don't even mention the speed of the whole process...

---

Well, calculation isn't done like this... Madeliefste Oh stated it to me and I received confirmation after I received my money xfer to paypal. Paypal commission is paid by the sender, not by the receiver, which means here Linden Labs. As they trade a huge amount of USD, they have a very low commission rate, so LL finally included it into Lindex 3.5% commision.

When you sell L$ to USD through Lindex, you pay a 3.5% commission.

When you xfer USD from Lindex to your paypal, you pay 1USD whatever the amount.

When you convert USD to EUR through paypal, paypal takes 4 cents as commission based on the EUR/USD value.

(that means that if EUR/USD is worth 1.29, you'll get 1€ for 1,33 USD)

Now maybe your bank has better currencies exchange rates and then it could be interesting to open a bank account in USD, and do the exchange directly at your bank.

About CC cashing out fees, normally rates are very slow, if not equal to 0 at some banks (though I know for example  neteller prepaid card is interesting to pay merchants , but has insane comissions when you try to get cash with it).

 

Main issue still remains delay yes.

[Vick Forcella]

Just to add some fire to the discussion:)

The Third party exchanges also have to pay the fees, they mixed it all well hidden in the bundle you received on your payment.

You won't loose more as with another exchange unless they could create money.

Can't blame LL for transparency on their fees.

[Sybil Hallison]

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Kahlie Niven wrote:

 

Well, calculation isn't done like this... 

Madeliefste Oh

stated it to me and I received confirmation after I received my money xfer to paypal. Paypal commission is paid by the sender, not by the receiver, which means here Linden Labs. As they trade a huge amount of USD, they have a very low commission rate, so LL finally included it into Lindex 3.5% commision.

When you sell L$ to USD through Lindex, you pay a 3.5% commission.

When you xfer USD from Lindex to your paypal, you pay 1USD whatever the amount.

When you convert USD to EUR through paypal, paypal takes 4 cents as commission based on the EUR/USD value.

(that means that if EUR/USD is worth 1.29, you'll get 1€ for 1,33 USD)

Now maybe your bank has better currencies exchange rates and then it could be interesting to open a bank account in USD, and do the exchange directly at your bank.

About CC cashing out fees, normally rates are very slow, if not equal to 0 at some banks (though I know for example  neteller prepaid card is interesting to pay merchants , but has insane comissions when you try to get cash with it).

 

Main issue still remains delay yes.

---

Thank you for clearing that up. I feel a bit more relieved now by also hearing that LL are trying to resolve this issue by implementing more currency options in the future. *Fingers crossed*

 

---

Vick Forcella wrote:

Just to add some fire to the discussion:)

The Third party exchanges also have to pay the fees, they mixed it all well hidden in the bundle you received on your payment.

You won't loose more as with another exchange unless they could create money.

Can't blame LL for transparency on their fees.

---

 I totally disagree on that, I used only virwox and their exchange fees depended on your trading activity. If you had payed 0-1000L in fees in a month you had 3.9% commission fee, while if you had payed more than 1000L it was 3.51% and so on.

https://www.virwox.com/help.php#_Commissions_and_Discounts

Now you can understand that the people with low trading activity, were paying the fees for people with high trading activity. A common business policy. The fee of 3.5% was payed one way or another.

The extra fee though, and the loss for european merchants, comes from the currency exchange fee. In TPEs you can directly exchange Linden in your own currency, since they match the buyers and sellers that use the same currency.

[Vick Forcella]

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Sybil Hallison wrote:

---

Kahlie Niven wrote:

 

Well, calculation isn't done like this... 

Madeliefste Oh

stated it to me and I received confirmation after I received my money xfer to paypal. Paypal commission is paid by the sender, not by the receiver, which means here Linden Labs. As they trade a huge amount of USD, they have a very low commission rate, so LL finally included it into Lindex 3.5% commision.

When you sell L$ to USD through Lindex, you pay a 3.5% commission.

When you xfer USD from Lindex to your paypal, you pay 1USD whatever the amount.

When you convert USD to EUR through paypal, paypal takes 4 cents as commission based on the EUR/USD value.

(that means that if EUR/USD is worth 1.29, you'll get 1€ for 1,33 USD)

Now maybe your bank has better currencies exchange rates and then it could be interesting to open a bank account in USD, and do the exchange directly at your bank.

About CC cashing out fees, normally rates are very slow, if not equal to 0 at some banks (though I know for example  neteller prepaid card is interesting to pay merchants , but has insane comissions when you try to get cash with it).

 

Main issue still remains delay yes.

---

Thank you for clearing that up. I feel a bit more relieved now by also hearing that LL are trying to resolve this issue by implementing more currency options in the future. *Fingers crossed*

 

---

Vick Forcella wrote:

Just to add some fire to the discussion:)

The Third party exchanges also have to pay the fees, they mixed it all well hidden in the bundle you received on your payment.

You won't loose more as with another exchange unless they could create money.

Can't blame LL for transparency on their fees.

---

 I totally disagree on that, I used only virwox.

---

You prove my point. There was and is only one place where L$ is transferred into us$ and therefore the fees did apply then, as they do now. Only now you can see it more clearly.

Third party exchanges were not a charitable organisation. Using them you would pay double exchange fees. Once for LL and once for the other exchange.

 

A 3PE exchange could play better on the LindeX. Time and bulk means they had a better deal with a limited sell on the LindeX.

[Sybil Hallison]

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Vick Forcella wrote:

You prove my point. There was and is only one place where L$ is transferred into us$ and therefore the fees did apply then, as they do now. Only now you can see it more clearly.

Third party exchanges were not a charitable organisation. Using them you would pay double exchange fees. Once for LL and once for the other exchange.

 

A 3PE exchange could play better on the LindeX. Time and bulk means they had a better deal with a limited sell on the LindeX.

---

No, I think you got it all wrong. You don't pay double fee. You pay the exchange fee only once, with no additional fee for currency exchange, and you pay that to TPE. You still missing the point here. We are not talking about US merchants. For them, transaction speed aside, LindeX is probably still the best place to exchange their Lindens.

But consider that, a TPE doesn't have to get every transaction through LindeX.

For example, I am a german that wants to sell 10k Linden to buy euros. I then pay an ATM that is connected to an avatar, say Timothy Bank. Now Mr.Bank has 10k Linden. An Italian guy then comes and wants to buy 5k Lindens. Mr. Bank can give them to him directly from his balance. Ofc Mr. Bank has to have some kind of transactions with LindeX to acquire some Lindens in the first place, and has to charge some fees for his services, for matching those buyers and sellers. But the gain for those buyers and sellers is that they can exchange everything in their own currency.

[Vick Forcella]

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Sybil Hallison wrote:

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Vick Forcella wrote:

You prove my point. There was and is only one place where L$ is transferred into us$ and therefore the fees did apply then, as they do now. Only now you can see it more clearly.

Third party exchanges were not a charitable organisation. Using them you would pay double exchange fees. Once for LL and once for the other exchange.

---

No, I think you got it all wrong. You don't pay double fee. You pay the exchange fee only once, with no additional fee for currency exchange, and you pay that to TPE.

---

There was and is is only one place where L$ can become us$, and that is the same place where us$ can become L$.

[Madeliefste Oh]

There is no solution at the moment. The only thing we can hope for is that LL let us trade L$ to euros on the Lindex.

I guess they still have this postbox office in Amsterdam. So it won't be hard for them at all to open a European bank account, if they don't already have one.

[Ratany]

People claiming to cash out large amounts of money? I don't believe it, it's not even worthwhile the extra effort it takes to make sellable versions of things I make because almost nobody buys.

 

It seems to me that the Lindens are trying to keep the money in sl while bringing it down. The more money there's in it when sl is suddenly discontinued, the better for them. Now I couldn't even sell money if I had any. I can't buy any because the exchange rates are unknown --- not that it matters, I quit putting money into it quite a while ago because the insane land prices drain it all out and it will all be gone in a few years.

 

If you have money to take out, try to take it out while you still can.