LOL Streamlining LINDEX? Opposite effect

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

I used to be able to increase my credit in order to keep a USD balance on hand. Billed in 25 dollar increments to my credit card, it was a handy way to budget and simple. As part of the ongoing process of updating Lindex, that option is no longer available. When I tried to do that, this is the message I got ...

"If you came here to add credit to your account in order to place a limit buy, you no longer need to add credit to your account to complete the purchase. We have streamlined the order process so you can now go directly to the Buy L$ page and place your order there. You will be redirected to the cashier to make payment once you place your order."

I called the billing department, they said that's right, I have to purchase Lindens and then sell them to increase my USD credit balance. THIS is streamlining? Instead of plugging in the exact amount of USD I want to add, I have to look at the rate of exchange, do the math, figure out the L equivalent, purchase them, THEN sell them.

[Perrie Juran]

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Lucretia Brandenburg wrote:

I used to be able to increase my credit in order to keep a USD balance on hand. Billed in 25 dollar increments to my credit card, it was a handy way to budget and simple. As part of the ongoing process of updating Lindex, that option is no longer available. When I tried to do that, this is the message I got ...

"If you came here to add credit to your account in order to place a limit buy, you no longer need to add credit to your account to complete the purchase. We have streamlined the order process so you can now go directly to the

Buy L$

page and place your order there. You will be redirected to the cashier to make payment once you place your order."

I called the billing department, they said that's right, I have to purchase Lindens and then sell them to increase my USD credit balance. THIS is streamlining? Instead of plugging in the exact amount of USD I want to add, I have to look at the rate of exchange, do the math, figure out the L equivalent, purchase them, THEN sell them.

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Why do you need to increase your U.S. Dollar balance?  The point here is you no longer need to have a balance on hand to do a limit buy order.

Granted that for you in order to buy $L, you will need to do a little math if you want to purchase $25USD worth but the advantage is you will no longer need to add money first.

But I like the new system.  If I only want to place a limit buy order for say $3,000L (~$10.00USD), I can now with out having to tie up more of my money.  It is now 'pay as you go.'  I just tried it and I like it.

 

eta for clarity

 

[Phil Deakins]

You need to have US$ in the account to pay tier. Perhaps that's why she needs it. Or maybe I'm missing something.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

You need to have US$ in the account to pay tier. Perhaps that's why she needs it. Or maybe I'm missing something.

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No you don't.  If you don't have it in your US$ account then LL charges what ever PIOF you have.

I think the OP means she put 25USD in her account per month and used it to buy lindens a bit at a time to stay on a budget.

 

[Phil Deakins]

In that case, I was missing something. What LL has done does appear to streamline the operation, except in the OP's case, where she wants to add a budgeted $25 each month.

[Vania Chaplin]

I used to increase credit to pay my premium account (annual fee), just to be sure that it don't has any problem. In fact it makes no difference to me if I send the money on day 10 or on 27 - I will pay the actual bill in the same day. That way I would have many days to resolve any issue that could happens, withou hurry.

But since 2007, just once I had a problem and was because I forgot to replace the credit card when the old one was out of validity

[Phil Deakins]

So are you saying that the streamlined system is worse for you, like it's worse for the OP?

[Perrie Juran]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

In that case, I

was

missing something. What LL has done does appear to streamline the operation, except in the OP's case, where she wants to add a budgeted $25 each month.

---

It does change that for me.  I had a budgeted amount I would spend for SL.  But it's really only a minor mental switch now.  Instead of adding USD and then buying, I need to calculate the equivalent in $L and purchase that quantity.  I'd still be doing it once a month.

I guess for people in other countries there is a little bit of extra math to calculate currency conversions.  But didn't they always have to do that anyways?

[Phil Deakins]

I've only ever added real money to my account twice - both in my first week or so. Currency conversions never entered into it back then, and I doubt that it does now. No doubt there is a charge for it, but it was never presented to me.

[Vania Chaplin]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

So are you saying that the streamlined system is worse for you, like it's worse for the OP?

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I'm not saying that, just that if I have any problem, I will not have a few days to resolve the issue. I will know of it after the billing failed - after they try to bill me.

 

Anyway, the probability of having a problem is low, but I'll need to see in the billing day if everything went well and, if don't, rush to resolve intead to make it with plenty of time.

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

Actually my tier is 40 USD a month (not sure why I mentioned the minimum of $25), and I like to have the USD balance in my account so it comes out of that, as my bank gets a bit funny with online purchases and has been known to freeze my account for "suspicious activity" and I usually don't find out about it until I'm at the checkout line at the grocery store, trying to use my card on a Saturday night, and then I have to wait until Monday morning to get my bank account unstuck. This isn't the first bank that's "protected" me so inconveniently. This way, I can check with my bank at my convenience to make sure they haven't put any sort of hold on my account.

[Perrie Juran]

 

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Lucretia Brandenburg wrote:

Actually my tier is 40 USD a month (not sure why I mentioned the minimum of $25), and I like to have the USD balance in my account so it comes out of that, as my bank gets a bit funny with online purchases and has been known to freeze my account for "suspicious activity" and I usually don't find out about it until I'm at the checkout line at the grocery store, trying to use my card on a Saturday night, and then I have to wait until Monday morning to get my bank account unstuck. This isn't the first bank that's "protected" me so inconveniently. This way, I can check with my bank at my convenience to make sure they haven't put any sort of hold on my account.

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So yours is a specific case usage which is understandable and I agree the add dollars function should be an option.

Someone at LL didn't think this through all the way.

[Trin1]

Ok, so easily paying USD for expenses is gone.

What next they gonna remove the ability to use paypal or credit cards?

This is the most idiotic thing I've seen in a while.

 

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Someone at LL didn't think this through all the way.

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Daily occurance, they should hire a professional to do their thinking for them

[Perrie Juran]

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Trin1 wrote:

Ok, so easily paying USD for expenses is gone.

What next they gonna remove the ability to use paypal or credit cards?

This is the most idiotic thing I've seen in a while.

 

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Someone at LL didn't think this through all the way.

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Daily occurance, they should hire a professional to do their thinking for them

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The big failure once again is in Linden Lab's failure to communicate.

Lucinda liked adding money before it was due to avoid any potential problems with a failed transaction.

Now she will have to deal with it after the fact should a transaction fail.

Which unfortunately puts her land and account at added risk.

I know many folks get a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to filing bug reports, but being the only official way to complain, it may not be a bad idea to voice concerns about the new system this way.

[Treasure Ballinger]

Yes, this is what I, also used Increase credit for; to manually make sure enough USD was there for LL to take my Premium payments, and also my tier for my mainland parcel. By the way, I believe (at least in the past) that you can only 'cash out' Lindens to USD if it's $100 or more; my needs didn't equal that, so this totally removes my ability to manually set it up for LL to get my tier and Premium payment. So, that is my cue to drop Premium, go to basic and get rid of my mainland, which I've had that parcel since 2007. Sad. But I don't want LL randomly dipping into my PIOF. They double dipped me once, well, they double dipped the hold they put on the $$, said it was my bank's fault, not theirs. Maybe. But I don't see why I should jump through hoops to accomodate it, when it's worked just fine for all these years. Things change, gotta be flexible, for me that means shutting it down, because, there is nothing I can do about it.

[Ravie Bunny]

i also prefer paying tier and such up front.  I don't want to risk the business getting shut down or wiped out because someone at my credit card is dumb and thought this was "suspicious".  Plus, I can't imagine why LL would do this.  If anything, they get money in advance from a few people.  In just about any business I've ever heard of, that's kinda preferred.

[Vania Chaplin]

I am seeing that I'm not the only one who prefers to send money before the payment day, in case of a problem that can occur in payment, having plenty of time to resolve any issue. And the wise guys in lab took this possibility from us...

[Trin1]

Yup, in their infinite wisdom they are slowly ruining the game for all their paying customers.

[MaxineCrow]

After two occurrences where first LL suddenly stopped liking my Paypal, and the second time something wonky going on with my CC of which it's still not clear whether the cause was at the end of LL or the CC issueing company, I have been in that oh-so-brilliant spot twice where land/business/account went under because of some billing issues.

Since that second time, I've made it a habbit to put enough US$ in my account to fund at least two cycles for land-tier and account fees.

Now they "streamlined" it to where I get forced to buy LS from them at their rate, then sell those L$ again - and I'm willing to bet that when you sell, you won't get as much for it that it cost to buy - so I can have US$ in my account to pay for tier and account fees when something goes wrong.

Now, why does it feel like the next step in streamlining might be that we actually have to pull real cash out of our bank accounts, and travel over to LL headquarters to pay in cash?

Stuff has happened, does happen and will happen with LL and paypal/CC payment methods going all wonky somewhere along the line... and now we get shafted with this "streamlining" where we can't use an easy simple failsafe anymore.

LL, maybe all of us who pay for this "service" should also do some streamlining of our own, by first demanding that you deposit twice the ammount of L$ into our accounts that would be equivalent to the land tier/account fee that you're going to pull out of our bank accounts/credit cards/paypal/whatever... then after you took the money for tier/account fee, you can write us all a hand-written letter in each of our languages, explaining that you deposited twice the value in L$, took the tier/account fee, and that you are then ready to receive back the remaining L$ value.

 ** Edited for a few typo's and "non-responding keyboard syndrome"

[Perrie Juran]

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MaxineCrow wrote:

 

Now they "streamlined" it to where I get forced to buy LS from them at their rate, then sell those L$ again - and I'm willing to bet that when you sell, you won't get as much for it that it cost to buy - so I can have US$ in my account to pay for tier and account fees when something goes wrong.

 

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I'm not sure what you mean by "their rate."  If by this you mean a Market BUY, nothing 'forces' you to buy or sell at Market Rate.  You could buy  @ $260L and sell @240L.  There are people who try to play the market but how profitable that is when you do calculate fees is questionable.

 

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MaxineCrow wrote:

 

Stuff has happened, does happen and will happen with LL and paypal/CC payment methods going all wonky somewhere along the line... and now we get shafted with this "streamlining" where we can't use an easy simple failsafe anymore.

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I do agree the old option of being able to add funds should be re-instituted to obviate errors.

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

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Treasure Ballinger wrote:

Yes, this is what I, also used Increase credit for; to manually make sure enough USD was there for LL to take my Premium payments, and also my tier for my mainland parcel.

By the way, I believe (at least in the past) that you can only 'cash out' Lindens to USD if it's $100 or more;

my needs didn't equal that, so this totally removes my ability to manually set it up for LL to get my tier and Premium payment. So, that is my cue to drop Premium, go to basic and get rid of my mainland, which I've had that parcel since 2007. Sad. But I don't want LL randomly dipping into my PIOF. They double dipped me once, well, they double dipped the hold they put on the $$, said it was my bank's fault, not theirs. Maybe. But I don't see why I should jump through hoops to accomodate it, when it's worked just fine for all these years. Things change, gotta be flexible, for me that means shutting it down, because, there is nothing I can do about it.

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That's not true. There may be a minimum amount of L$ you can put up for sale but I'm certain it's not as high as US$100 worth of L$.

[Treasure Ballinger]

I"m sure you're right, my memory on the issue is vague.  I would like to know exactly what it is, what the lowest amount is you can cash out Lindens to USD but of course the Increase Credit info page is gone now, replaced by the blurb that instructs you to go to the 'Buy Lindens' page (which isn't waht one wanted to do, at all........but they act like that's the only reason you'd go to that page) and so I don't know where to look now to find the true answer. 

[Phil Deakins]

You could test it by cashing out a few thousand L$. I cashed out most of mine a few days ago or I would test it myself.

[Tabitha Diesel]

I just encountered this problem today when I went to put my budgeted money in for land tier and future lindens purchase (should I need it).  I don't want to leave the money on my CC on the off chance my other half sees there is extra money and "Ooooh money  I get to $pend it" leaving me nothing to pay for tier and having my account go into arrears.  As for buying lindens and then turning around and cashing it in to cover tier I am looking at approx $5 in fees for $75 tier.  That is unacceptable.  Unless they plan to change our tier fees to charge lindens instead of usd they should put back the increase credit option

[Treasure Ballinger]

*AMEN*