Cashing our $lindens

[walterwhiteSr]

Recently as a birthday gift for a international friend, I sent them some $lindens, to buy a RL gift for themselves.  The cost to buy and go through the Market to sell back the $lindens was about 7%,  I am not sure if there are other fees associated yet on the recepriant's side, as the money has not yet hit their paypal account.

I feel the fee, isn't bad, compared to doing western union or some other money transfer service, which would include both a service fee and money exchange fee. 

My question, is there any service in SL other than Lmarket where one can cash or anyone can cash $L for a smaller percentage fee.

[Innula Zenovka]

Nope.   There used to be, but a recent change in ToS means that you can now cash out only via LL (though you can still buy L$ from other approved sources).

[walterwhiteSr]

Well that is then the answer...

So LL makes money both ways...  sweet for them...

[Griffin Ceawlin]

Did you consider sending them funds directly through PayPal?

[Qie Niangao]

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So LL makes money both ways.

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Not much. I suspect this 7% you cite is more a gift to other LindeX buyers and sellers than an actual fee to LL.

As far as I know, LL charges a 3.5% commission only on cashing-out, plus a negligible US$0.30 transaction fee both ways. (Well, "negligible" compared to most transactions.)

What could easily total more than 7%, however, is using "market" transactions instead of "limit" orders. For anything more than a few L$s, one always wants to use a limit order, both for buying and selling, choosing a price that's just one L$ worse than the current worst open order. That way, your order will fill with the very next market transaction(s).

The LindeX in recent memory has been very stable, so the odds are pretty remote that such an order will get stranded in a sell-off or buying frenzy.

Done this way, the L$ buy is at a cheaper rate than the sale -- by nearly 3.5% (check the spread between open buy and sell orders), which nearly offsets the LindeX commission.

(Yes, your friend will also pay foreign exchange fees if s/he wants a different currency from US$s, but that's a whole separate problem.)