Premium Question and Confusion

[Lycoris Bluebird]

Okay so, I've had premium for a long time.. I don't understand why LindenLabs just doesn't set it to be canceled when it's done with so that way people don't go in dept to them and have their account locked. Just kinda bugs me that people I know and even people I don't know have to go through that. Why not just fix that problem so noone has to go through it? I know several websites such as meez, gaiaonline, etc can do that.. Why not you?

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Maybe because most premium members don't have this issue and people are supposed to be responsible adults so LL doesn't have to hold their hand..  There are tools on the dashboard that people can use to check out when their next premium fee is due enough in advance to cancel it if they no longer want it and if they do to make sure their PIOF is current and there will be no problems..  If people are too irresponsible to use them, that's on them.

[Perrie Juran]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

Maybe because most premium members don't have this issue and people are supposed to be responsible adults so LL doesn't have to hold their hand..  There are tools on the dashboard that people can use to check out when their next premium fee is due enough in advance to cancel it if they no longer want it and if they do to make sure their PIOF is current and there will be no problems..  If people are too irresponsible to use them, that's on them.

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While those of us who have been around a while our aware we need to cancel if we don't want to get charged again, poking around my account page I can find no clear statement that renewals are automatic unless you change your status.  You really have to do some digging to find that information.

[GiaDiFranco]

They do it for the money of course !  Do you know how many people subscribe and play for a few months and then quit? alot i'd imagine.  Real life gets busy or whatever and games that you once had time for take a backseat. before you know it 6 or 9 months go by and that game you had forgotten about charges your active credit card for however much a yearly subscription costs now. if they cant charge the account it gets suspended.

 how many other games do you know that only offer only reoccuring subscriptions and then if you dont pay  hold your account hostage until you to pay to get your account reinstated? its a pretty shady thing to do when you think about it.

[Perrie Juran]

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GiaDiFranco wrote:

They do it for the money of course !  Do you know how many people subscribe and play for a few months and then quit? alot i'd imagine.  Real life gets busy or whatever and games that you once had time for take a backseat. before you know it 6 or 9 months go by and that game you had forgotten about charges your active credit card for however much a yearly subscription costs now. if they cant charge the account it gets suspended.

 how many other games do you know that only offer only reoccuring subscriptions and then if you dont pay  hold your account hostage until you to pay to get your account reinstated? its a pretty shady thing to do when you think about it.

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And how many of those 'games' also offer a 'free to play' option?

But aside from that, if you fail to pay recurring charges on other MMO's your acount will be locked till you pay up. 

[GiaDiFranco]

Everquest 2 offers both a free 2 play model and various subscription models at least in that respect its similar to second life. Since eq2 is  the only other mmorpg I play  I'm not really sure about the payment models of any of any others. Everquest 2 doesn't lock your account when you fail to pay and demand a payment, they simply switch you over to free 2 play mode and you lose you levels and other perks you would otherwise have until you resubscribe. 

EQ2 also gives you other options besides reoccurring payments and if you want to switch you can do so ahead of time without losing those benefits until your time is over with. Try doing that with the second life. In order to even cancel your account so you wont have reoccurring charges you have to give up your land and stipend...even if you have 9 or 10 months left to go ! That really doesn't seem ethical to me, name another game that takes away benefits you paid for even when you have months of playtime left?

 Linden labs basically does everything they can to keep you stuck in that reoccurring payment cycle. They "punish" you for canceling the reoccurring payments ahead of time. They make it difficult to find the cancellation button, and they only send you a weeks notice prior to the next billing cycle. It really wouldn't kill them to add a non-reoccurring payment option. But its not in their benefit to do so. 

[Griffin Ceawlin]

Digging? It's one click away on the invoice page.

 

[Griffin Ceawlin]

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GiaDiFranco wrote:

In order to even cancel your account so you wont have reoccurring charges you have to give up your land and stipend...even if you have 9 or 10 months left to go ! That really doesn't seem ethical to me, name another game that takes away benefits you paid for even when you have months of playtime left?

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Then don't cancel until you're much closer to the end of your membership period? Or is that too easy?

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They "punish" you for canceling the reoccurring payments ahead of time.

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How do they "punish" you? (If it's the falderal above, don't bother repeating it.)

 

 

[Tari Landar]

Sorry but I completely and utterly disagree with your assesment here. If people cannot be financially responsible for themselves, they probably don't need to have credit cards or bank accounts in the first place.

I am someone who believes if you cannot pay for it, you don't need it(in the majority of cases). If you buy a subscription to something it is...a subscription. That would mean a continued financial agreement with someone/a company. The only time a specified amount of time would apply is if your agreement was ONLY for a specified amount. Otherwise, you should be looking at subscriptions as permanent, until you (or they) say otherwise. Sl is one of those subscriptions that doesn't come with an automatic end date. In fact there's an awful lot of information out there about premium accounts, right at everyone's fingertips. So there is no excuse to not know this and to simply assume it's for a limited time.

Does your credit card company allow you to just not make payments because you've decided you no longer want to? No, they keep billing you for as long as they can. Closing an account, or terminating your financial obligations, is how you get out of having those obligations you no longer want. You don't just sit around and wait for them to go away, or wait for the company to terminate them for you(unless you want to put yourself even further in debt, lol, which is exactly what will happen when you don't meet your financial obligations)

This is one reason why so many who do have credit cards, should not have them. They don't understand financial obligations in the least. Sl is no different from any other subscription service. You want premium, you pay for it. You don't want it, you cancel it. It's NOT difficult at all to terminate your sl subscription, or to find information on your subscription. It's not up to LL or anyone else, to tell you this. You signed the agreement-likely without reading it-it's your responsibility to know what you're paying, when you're paying it and deciding if that's a choice you want to continue to make. It's not like you get penalized for stopping your premium membership. If people don't want their account locked, they should make certain they can pay for what they sign up for. It's really simple. If you find yourself in a postion where you can no longer afford it(and this happens all too often, not just in sl, of course) or even just don't want it anymore then CANCEL it.

[Daniel Regenbogen]

Well they will send you an eMail some time before they charge you again for renewal, so it shouldn't come as surprise to anyone, and you have time to cancel your premium membership before you get charged.

[Sierra Oskar]

I agree with Amethyst. Like 2 weeks before the end of the subscription period, you abandon LL land and you degrade to basic. I see no confusion here. It bugs me that many people want everything ready for them by someone else.....

[Studio09]

I'm thinking about downgrading to a basic account since I haven't been in world more than 1 or 2 times in the last 3 months (too much other stuff going on).   As I understand it I need to:

1. abandon land from in world

2. change membership from my account page on the secondlife web site.

Can I change the membership the day before the next billing cycle or what is the minimum amount of days notice I have to give?

[Vania Chaplin]

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Studio09 wrote:

I'm thinking about downgrading to a basic account since I haven't been in world more than 1 or 2 times in the last 3 months (too much other stuff going on).   As I understand it I need to:

1. abandon land from in world

2. change membership from my account page on the secondlife web site.

Can I change the membership the day before the next billing cycle or what is the minimum amount of days notice I have to give?

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And if you have land contribution in a group, don't forget to revoke or wll be charged monthly for that, even if with a basic account.

[Perrie Juran]

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Griffin Ceawlin wrote:

Digging? It's one click away

on the invoice page

.

 

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Because I am already Premium and have payment info on file that particular info does not show.  So I had to go looking through the terms of service to find the details before I posted my comment.

And while it is very easy to click on 'more info,' why ever hide that simple comment behind it?  They are obviously not making it obvious. It is pretty typical business practice.

On the other hand I used to subscribe to a trade journal that clearly gave me a choice between a recurring or non recurring subscription.  When I clicked on the subscribe button ALL my options were displayed with no further clicks needed.

 

[Knowl Paine]

I like the system the way it is.

I have no intention of abandoning my land. I don't want my account to be automatically changed to basic. I don't want to have to reaffirm with LL every month. I'm in it for the long haul. They will have to kick me out.

[Dillon Levenque]

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Daniel Regenbogen wrote:

Well they will send you an eMail some time before they charge you again for renewal, so it shouldn't come as surprise to anyone, and you have time to cancel your premium membership before you get charged.

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Correct, and that should be all the notice anybody needs. I suppose the problems happen when people have set up email accounts just for SL, then for some reason lose interest in SL and as a result stop checking that email. I can see how that might happen; I just can't see why anyone would consider that a fault of Linden Lab.

[Pussycat Catnap]

So what should happen to say... a very nice plot of land other people want to buy... if somebody doesn't pay their bill.

Sure they could put your account on hold... but what about the land and the objects in it?

If they didn't seize all of that - you could be sure that most land in SL would be owned by defunct accounts.

 

Granted they could have set it to have land owned by someone no longer paying get reverted to the auction system and all objects on the land returned... leaving the accounts in place...

- That would have worked too.

So I agree in part. Killing the entire account was more than they needed to do.

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

So what should happen to say... a very nice plot of land other people want to buy... if somebody doesn't pay their bill.

Sure they could put your account on hold... but what about the land and the objects in it?

If they didn't seize all of that - you could be sure that most land in SL would be owned by defunct accounts.

 

Granted they could have set it to have land owned by someone no longer paying get reverted to the auction system and all objects on the land returned... leaving the accounts in place...

- That would have worked too.

So I agree in part. Killing the entire account was more than they needed to do.

 

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In RL if you don't pay a bill for services they cut off your service completely until you pay what is owed.  Why should it be any different here?

 

[Sierra Oskar]

Dear Studio

I informed LL 2 weeks prior to the end of my subscription. 1 day before will not work as it take some time to do things.

:catvery-happy:

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Daniel Regenbogen wrote:

Well they will send you an eMail some time before they charge you again for renewal, so it shouldn't come as surprise to anyone, and you have time to cancel your premium membership before you get charged.

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Linden Lab does not send these emails anymore and hasn't for about a year. This came up a while back in either the Forums or Answers and others said they weren't receiving them either. If anyone still is, do please comment.

I'm on a quarterly plan and for the past year, I have just received an email the day after renewal date informing me that Linden Lab has taken payment for my Second Life Membership Plan and how to change my plan if I so wish. It doesn't matter to me as I know when it's due and have no intention of changing to Basic.

 

[Dillon Levenque]

"About a year". My plan is yearly and in fact my billing month is December. I had not received my email (the one I agreed about earlier in this thread) so I just went to check my billing date: it was a few days ago, and they have in fact billed my card.

You're right: they've stopped sending notices.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

"About a year". My plan is yearly and in fact my billing month is December. I had not received my email (the one I agreed about earlier in this thread) so I just went to check my billing date: it was a few days ago, and they have in fact billed my card.

You're right: they've stopped sending notices.

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I think the first time I did not receive the reminder email for my quarterly membership was for my 3rd January 2013 renewal so 'about a year' is a guess, it could be a bit longer. I can't find the thread I mentioned. However, you should have received an email the day after renewal confirming LL had taken the payment. I've always received that.

[Dillon Levenque]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

"About a year". My plan is yearly and in fact my billing month is December. I had not received my email (the one I agreed about earlier in this thread) so I just went to check my billing date: it was a few days ago, and they have in fact billed my card.

You're right: they've stopped sending notices.

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I think the first time I did not receive the reminder email for my quarterly membership was for my 3rd January 2013 renewal so 'about a year' is a guess, it could be a bit longer. I can't find the thread I mentioned. However, you should have received an email the day after renewal confirming LL had taken the payment. I've always received that.

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I hadn't received the 'after' notice either! I just checked my CC statement. My renewal billing date was last weekend; they actually put the charge through yesterday (when I said 'they have in fact billed my card' I just assumed that because my renewal date had been bumped to December 2014). I'll keep an eye open for the after notice.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

Granted they could have set it to have land owned by someone no longer paying get reverted to the auction system and all objects on the land returned... leaving the accounts in place...

- That would have worked too.

So I agree in part. Killing the entire account was more than they needed to do.

 

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In RL if you don't pay a bill for services they cut off your service completely until you pay what is owed.  Why should it be any different here?

 

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Because there are free accounts here.

So if you don't pay: cut an account to free. Don't delete it (what they currently do), or suspend it.

Cut it to a free account - as ALL other MMOs with free accounts do, and remove the paid services: the land.

 

[Kenbro Utu]

It would really not be good business for Linden Lab to treat nonpayment as an automatic downgrade to service.  There could be any number of reasons including temporary financial difficulties, healthy issues, unexpected incidents/accidents, or acts of nature that could preclude someone from paying on time, without the intent of downgrading service. It would be a great disservice if an event like one of these were to occur, and the customer inadvertantly loses their land and has their prims returned (hopefully without loss), or other unforeseen ramifications.  For this reason alone, LL cannot treat nonpayment as a decision to downgrade.