Account going to be deleted.

[MrJokes]

So yeaa i guess my first account is going to be deleted, I didnt know that if you cant pay your premium membership fee that it would be banned then deleted. I owe 20 dollars, but as you can tell i cant pay it, money right now is not going so well, lot of rl stuff. Getting loans, possibility of moving ect ect ect. SO of all the time of having that account ive spent at least...i dunno, over 100 dollars. So all that goes down the drain because of 20 dollars? out of all that ive given? I was hoping to be able to pay it off but no luck and then i see that the account is banned. And the chances of me being able to pay it isnt looking good. 

 

Is there anything i can do? This just does't seem right to me at all. Yes i know i could have cancelled and all that but like i said, I was hoping to be able to pay it off. So yea..Is there anything i can do? I cant pay for it, I just dont have the extra money to be spending on this thing anymore, i got more important things at this time. And i really dont want to lose this account, i put way to much money and time into it. 

[wiked Anton]

i have also put 100's pof dollars into mine as well, and afraid to think that when i go....i cant take any with me. ..everything i bought should be transferable to my computer, so i can re-import it later....otherwise whats the point, so i will also be interested if someone had a fix for this

[Griffin Ceawlin]

---

MrJokes wrote:

Is there anything i can do?

---

Yes. Decide whether keeping the account (and any alt accounts) is worth ponying up twenty bucks or not. If it is, borrow it from somebody. If not, kiss it (them) goodbye.

[Ackley Bing]

:smileywink:

You can take this lesson with you to RL!

[Tari Landar]

Nothing you can do, but pay it. If it's gotten tot he point of being deleted, you have been in debt for a while. LL doesn't much care why you can't pay. It's not their business to care. Harsh as that might sound, it's true. Your 100's of dollars are no more valuable than any  other person's, so throwing that around really won't help you any, lol. How much you've spent in SL doesn't matter if you can't pay your debts(I'm not sure why it would, it's not like LL bases their decisions on loyalty or amount spent, lol, it's a blanket policy).

If you want to keep your account, pay the money, otherwise, you're going to lose it. Sucks, yes, but that's how life is sometimes. Same thing happens in rl when we can't pay our debts too, and it often sucks even worse then.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Unless you come up with the money owed you have lost those accounts,  In the future if you can  pay they will reactivate the account, but depending on how much time has gone by, you may also need to pay the 9.95US reactivations fee with no guarantee your entire inventory will be intact or that any L's you had will still be there,  I think the fee will apply if you don't pay your debt and reactivate within 60 days. Once you pay your dept you can drop the premium membership so you won't be under further obligation.

As far as it not seeming 'right' to you, why isn't it?  You agreed to this when you signed up for the premium membership. What bill do you get that they will waive just because you wanted to spend the money on something else? Other than the membership fee, chances are the $100 you spent was not paid to LL but to other residents who are merchants.  If you are evicted, why would your landlord or mortgage holder care about the money you spent with someone else on clothes or furniture they have to put out on the street?

If that account means anything to you and you are honest, you can prioritize your RL spending to come up with the money.  Small things like not buying that coffee or six pack , not renting that movie, taking lunch to work rather than buying it, then setting aside the money towards this bill is one way of doing that.  In a relatively short time you'll have it.  Only you can decide if it is worth it to you.

In case you don't know, if your account is deleted  by LL, under the TOS, LL may also delete all your accounts including the one you now are using or any you create in the future, until you settle with them.

[Daniel Regenbogen]

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

As far as it not seeming 'right' to you, why isn't it?  You agreed to this when you signed up for the premium membership.

---

Of course it is correct for LL to proceed like that. Doesn't mean it is smart. It alienates customers who otherwise might come back sooner or later. Especially compared to free basics that *never* get deleted, including millions of long-abandoned accounts. Wouldn't it be much smarter to simply do an automatic downgrade to basic, reclaim any mainland parcels, return items to inventory and stop paying the stipend? A much better chance for the customer to later - in a hopefully better general economy - decide to come back, when he knows that he doesn't have to start from scratch because he lost a big value in SL already once.

 

[Qie Niangao]

And it's a huge disincentive for anybody to go Premium.

Or it would be, if people read the fine print before signing up, inasmuch as otherwise nobody would ever expect to be treated worse for having paid.

Nonetheless, even with the obscurity of this policy, I can't imagine that the revenue lost to its deterrence of going Premium could possibly be offset by income from those rare occasions when somebody pays-up to reactivate an account.

The only excuse I can dream up for LL still having this policy, after years of complaints,  would be a bit of creative accounting: perhaps they think that this way they can book all those unpaid fees and tier to accounts receivable. Yes, that would be nonsense, but it's more sensible than discouraging Premium membership for no reason whatsoever.

There are reports that the Lab will soon launch another push to get Premium sign-ups. If only the poor patsies knew what they were getting into.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Daniel Regenbogen wrote:

---

---

Of course it is correct for LL to proceed like that. Doesn't mean it is smart. It alienates customers who otherwise might come back sooner or later. Especially compared to free basics that *never* get deleted, including millions of long-abandoned accounts. Wouldn't it be much smarter to simply do an automatic downgrade to basic, reclaim any mainland parcels, return items to inventory and stop paying the stipend? A much better chance for the customer to later - in a hopefully better general economy - decide to come back, when he knows that he doesn't have to start from scratch because he lost a big value in SL already once.

 

---

I think the consensus on the Forum is that it would be nice if failure to pay resulted in an automatic downgrade.  But as has been pointed out, you agreed to  a contact.

On the other hand, just as soon as the Lab would institute the automatic downgrade we'd get some one coming here crying, "I forgot to pay my bill.  It was just an oversight.  I can't understand why the Lab can't put my land back to the way it was."

 

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

And it's a huge disincentive for anybody to go Premium.

Or it would be, if people read the fine print before signing up, inasmuch as otherwise nobody would ever expect to be treated

worse

for having paid.

---

I recall similar discussions on the old forums years ago (and I bet you do too, Qie).  Someone made a comment in one of those discussions that has always stuck with me.  After hearing of many similar situations (Premium members unable to return to LL until/unless they paid what they owed and, in some cases, their inventory being gone when they did), he made the decision to keep his main avatar Basic and create an alt to specifically be the Premium member; he kept little to no additional inventory on that alt.

 

[Storm Clarence]

Several years back I donated USD500 to the SPCA when my lady friend adopted a cat.  Two weeks later the cat got whacked by a car.  Go figure.  I didn't have the nerve to ask for my donation to be returned.  

 Life happens, make the most of it.

PS I don't know you main avatar name, but MrJokes is pretty cool. 

[Knowl Paine]

The Account will remain on Hold for a considerable amount of time.

After that, the Account will be still be available for reactivation.

You have time to pay the bill, and get the account back.

You are Not Banned, your ability to Login has been restricted.

Maybe your finances will be better next month, or the month after, the account should still be there.

[Storm Clarence]

---

Knowl Paine wrote:

The Account will remain on Hold for a considerable amount of time.

After that, the Account will be still be available for reactivation.

You have time to pay the bill, and get the account back.

You are Not Banned, your ability to Login has been restricted.

Maybe your finances will be better next month, or the month after, the account should still be there.

---

Perhaps this is a foolish question, but based on what you wrote above would it be better to be proactive and call LL to reequest they put the account on hold for a few months.?  Or it really would not matter?  

[Knowl Paine]

If the OP has selected for the Account to be Closed, and Cancellation is Pending, the OP would definitely want to Contact LL, to request for the Account to Not be cancelled. 

 

Policy can and does change, until it does, I need to rely upon experience. If I had to guess the minimum length of the initial Hold for payments reasons, I would say it is 6 months.

Some procedures are proprietary.

As Residents, all we can do is to speculate, and theorize about what LL May, or May Not do, in matters without clearly defined protocols.

[161488303349]

almost all the delinquent Premium account problems are caused by Tier being paid for in arrears

if linden made it so that we had to buy Tier in advance (same like buying islands) then most of the problems would go away 

[Pussycat Catnap]

All one has to do to avoid this mess is convert an account to basic before it gets behind in payment.

I've switched at least two accounts from premium to basic in the past (I say at least because I'm fuzzy over a third, and not sure if one of my current premiums was ever premium then basic and then back to premium before).

I can still log in to and access all of the inventory of those former premiums. Before the bills were due, I converted them down - so everything is safe.

 

Converting down is simple, its an option on your account page under the premium membership section if I recall right. You just need to shed any land you own first, and pull donated tier out of the groups its donated to - and if you can't sell it, that's what the abandon land button is for.

You can also find everywhere you have land on the account page, as well as a list of all groups you're in and how much tier you've given to each.

 

[Crim Mip]

So let me get this straight. You sign up for a premium account, pay for whatever length of time you want and then the renew time comes around and you can't don't pay. LL cancels your account rather than autoflips you back to basic? That's assinine.

[Melita Magic]

Yeah it's troubling to me too that an NPIOF can exist forever but, if a premium cancels, they will disappear.

I think they might revisit that idea.

[KenZakuMi]

Hello, good evening to all.

My account will be deleted for reasons of suspension backlog. I submitted a request for assitance. They replied that they resolved the problem. Then I wanted to record a credit card to pay my debt. My registration was rejected. what should I do?

Thank you in advance for your answers.

[Phil Deakins]

I don't understand why people find this a bad thing.

A customer has allowed the debt to occur, so LL cannot be expected to allow the customer to continue at any level (basic) unless the debt is paid. They can't accept people freely using their system who owe them money. I don't think anyone would disagree with that part.

So it's the placing on hold, or deleting, the account that people think is bad. But what else can LL do? They can't downgrade it to basic, reclaim any land, and let the person continue to freely use their system while they still owe money. Well, they can, but they'd be idiots to do it. So what can they do?

Note: It's quite well-known that I am very anti-Linden Lab, so I'm not defending them in this just because it's LL. I'd be much more inclined to do the opposite. It's just that I don't see it as wrong in any way, and I don't see a suitable alternative for them.

[Phil Deakins]

---

16 wrote:

almost all the delinquent Premium account problems are caused by Tier being paid for in arrears

if linden made it so that we had to buy Tier in advance (same like buying islands) then most of the problems would go away 

---

It's unusual, but I have to disagree with you, 16.

It's the user allowing a debt to accrue that's the cause of all such cases - not just most of them.

Paying tier in advance instead of in arrears sounds good but it could be problematic. It's paid in arrears so that LL can charge according to the amount of land that was held in the month, even if some of it was held only for a second or two. It's a clean way of doing it. If it was charged in advance, then a person would pay according to the land held at the start of the month, then during the month s/he gets more, tier-increasing, land, which must be paid for in arrears because it wasn't known about at the start of the month. It would mean that, at the start of the following month, the new land total, plus the extra for the previous month, would have to be paid. And the month after that it would be down to the new total land, and so on. It can be done bit it's much messier both for the customer and for LL.

 

[161488303349]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

16 wrote:

almost all the delinquent Premium account problems are caused by Tier being paid for in arrears

if linden made it so that we had to buy Tier in advance (same like buying islands) then most of the problems would go away 

---

It's unusual, but I have to disagree with you, 16.

It's the user allowing a debt to accrue that's the cause of all such cases - not just most of them.

Paying tier in advance instead of in arrears sounds good but it could be problematic. It's paid in arrears so that LL can charge according to the amount of land that was held in the month, even if some of it was held only for a second or two. It's a clean way of doing it. If it was charged in advance, then a person would pay according to the land held at the start of the month, then during the month s/he gets more, tier-increasing, land, which must be paid for in arrears because it wasn't known about at the start of the month. It would mean that, at the start of the following month, the new land total, plus the extra for the previous month, would have to be paid. And the month after that it would be down to the new total land, and so on. It can be done bit it's much messier both for the customer and for LL.

 

---

on paying mainland tiers in advance. if was the owner of SL then i do this way

+

first tho look at how it works now

i buy a land. it says: this purchase fits within your current tier payments

or it says: this purchase will bump you into a higher tier bracket [$this] payable on your next due tier date

+

so i change to: use it or lose it

i buy a land. it says: this purchase fits within your current tier payments

or it says: you dont have enough current tiers for this land

if you wish to continue to buy then you have to pay now: [$this] the pro-rata tier amount due now for the remainder of your tier month. on your next tier due date if you still hold the land then your tier payments for the next tier month will be [$this much]

if you do not/cannot pay this pro-rata tier amount now then the purchase transaction will not proceed

+

this happens before the l$ purchase transaction with the current land owner

+

is the same for pay tiers to a group. when you try give some tiers to a/your group then it says/does the same

+

if was pay in advance then makes it more easy possible to allow tiers to be paid direct to private sim owners (via group same as mainland land group tiers). who can then use the tiers from their customers to offset their own

edit add: bc those tiers already been paid for. they not tiers on credit

+

edit add more:

the land group owner actual gets a credit that is applied to their next months payments bc they also have to pay in advance for the current month. which they done already

 

[Ciaran Laval]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

So it's the placing on hold, or deleting, the account that people think is bad. But what else can LL do? They can't downgrade it to basic, reclaim any land, and let the person continue to freely use their system while they still owe money. Well, they can, but they'd be idiots to do it. So what can they do?

---

The issue is the account being deleted. Basic accounts don't get deleted. Sure, LL should not allow login whilst the debt is outstanding but premium accounts facing harsher penalties than basic accounts, isn't the best way of going about things.

[Phil Deakins]

To the best of my knowledge, it's a very long time before a delinquent account is actually deleted - long enough to sort the debt out. Someone mentioned 6 months earlier in the thread and I've seen that before. There needs to be a limit that LL will save an account and 6 months is very generous for the debt to be outstanding and the account be recoverable, and I see no reason not to delete the account after all that time.

You say that the problem is that basic accounts don't get deleted. Presumably you think it's unfair that premium get deleted when basic accounts don't. So delete basic accounts that haven't been used for 6 months. There's no reason to keep them if nobody is going to use them. But there's no reason not to keep them either because they aren't in debt to LL. But definitely don't hold accounts that are in the red forever. Draw the line somewhere and, if 6 months is what they hold it for, it's plenty long enough to hold an account.

The difference between a basic account that's not being used for a long time and a delinquent premium account is that the premium account did wrong by using things that they should have paid for but didn't, such as land and premium support. Basic accounts did no wrong but premium accounts did.

[Phil Deakins]

Yes, I said it could be done. You described a different way but it's messy, like the way that I described. Maybe not quite as messy but still messier than the clean way of paying in arrears.

And there's no need to change it anyway, because it's not paying tier in arrears that causes most of the debts. It's users not managing their finances in time that causes all of the debts. And LL does allow plenty of time to get straight - several months, I believe. If a person runs through those several months without paying tier, they know they are doing it so there is nobody to blame than themselves - and, apart from exceptional circumstances, they really are to blame.