And Stupidity Runs Rampant

[Apelles Luna]

Subscriptions being charged 30 times, payouts taking 2 weeks....what more is there to say? If this were a bank or a broker they would be in jail.

[Steph Catseye]

actually if they were a bank they would receive money from the government and gigantic bonus checks,

however their technical problems can not be their customers fault. For some reasons my credit card gets charged exactly the same day for 3 years and I have had waiting periods for pay outs of 17 days. What a coincidence isn't it? Since this maintenance is unscheduled we can't even hope for real time processing as it would be appropriate in 2013 for an internet based company.

[Marcus Hancroft]

Howdy, Apelles

I've said this before, and I'll say it again...

Never, never, ever pay for a subscription!  

Linden Lab's history with them is horrible.  Too many times I've heard of this very issue with charges and so I have absolutely no faith that the billing system operates like it should with them.  Taking out those subscriptions is just playing with fire, in MY opinion.  Sooner or later, your linden balance is going to get depleted by the system, and who knows when the commerce team will get it refunded back to you.

Back in 2010, I tried a couple of subscriptions for about 6 weeks.  I had no appreciable sales increase because of them.  From that experience, I have no confidence that they even do anything for you.  "You are just throwing your money away." was my thought on the whole subject after those 6 weeks.  So, I cancelled them, and haven't looked back.  Then I started seeing all these crazy threads coming up about accounts being charged thousands of lindens in error.  Whew!  I got away from THAT mess just in time!

I'm just a small Merchant here in SL.  I don't make enough to do any payouts.  But, I haven't had to buy lindens in a long long time either.  So, my sales take care of everything I want to do in Second Life.  But this payout thing...yeah, that's another ridiculous problem I'm glad I don't have to deal with.

I hope the Lab gets everything fixed and FAST for those of you dealing with their crap right now.  It IS too stupid for words.

[Ela Talaj]

Even with the payout system maintenance going on the delays are not as long as they seem. I requested a payout on October 4 and received payment on October 14. It does seem like a long time but only because of weekends. In fact it is 6 busness days instead of the standard 5.

[Apelles Luna]

Thanks Marcus. I personally never use the subscriptions for the very reasons you gave, but I am suffering the ridiculousness going on with the payment system and could not help but be aware of the simultaneous failure of the subscription system as well. I know why it is happening: you have gaming developers attempting to write fiduciary software for what they think are only gaming tokens, but everyone else, including the federal government, considers it an online currency, and as such it should be handled as cash. You would think someone would get a clue at Linden Labs, but the Marketplace failures continue to mount and the levels of non-communication continue to multiply.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Interestingly enough I recently did a cash out from one of the open sims.  I put in the request on Thursday night, it was processed first thing Friday morning and by Friday early afternoon the money was IN my Paypal Account.  While I realize there is a big difference in volume that LL must process, It raises a lot of questions in my mind as to why it takes several days from the time the process credit is complete to the time it shows in Paypal. 

[Spica Inventor]

Oh oh. Companies having financial problems deliberately start to do these type of things. Not a good sign. :-O