Issue with payout- HELP!

[lestatll]

Two weeks and of course still NOTHING. They have rushed as always to close all of my tickets and on the phone they use they classic "We can´t do anything, you should wait".

 

At this point I guess they know they have a terrible customer service and they just don´t care. I think they are going through some sort of financial crisis and are trying to withhold as much money as possible.

[lestatll]

Hi all, still the same old story.

 

I just called to LL asking (AGAIN) about the status of my payout order. i was surprised to listen to a new voice (By now I thought I´ve met every single customer support officer). This time I was greeted by Antonio and I recorded the conversation with his consent to have a tangible record of what I´ve been facing for months.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like Antonio may have not received a proper training in customer attention, since after I explained my case and asked a simple question as "Does the customer support belong to LL or is it a 3rd party outsourced company", he said they were an Internal company. His tone was quite rude by the way.

 

After trying to get more information, he kindly explained to me that internal means inside (Thank you very much for your English lesson) and he said that he would be forced to put me on hold if I didn´t let him finish saying what I already knew (but recorded for the first time). 

 

To make a long story short, all he did (surprise!) was escalate my case one more time and tell me well known phrase "you will have to wait Sir".

 

 

I will keep you posted.

 

Thanks for reading!

[lestatll]

Hi all,

 

Tired of being ignored and told endlessly to "wait and see" for months now I decided to follow the advise of someone here who suggested to try and reach the Lindens myself , so I did that in world via notecards to  Ebbe & Rowan Linden and a couple more  of Lindens as well (I don´t know how many of them are bots so I tried a few like Compliance Linden, etc). "Echo Linden", the one who signed my last ticket does not exist.

 I would have liked to escalate this properly through the customer support, but after trying for many times the escalated tickets get closed even though the problem is not solved and whenever I asked to speak with a manager they are always mysteriously busy. I have even had to suffer rude replies from the customer support on the phone (only by someone called Antonio, the rest I must admit were kind enough even they could not solve my problem).

 

I will wait and see if the LL can aknowledge my issue and finally provide me with a response.

 

I´ll keep you posted.

[Phil Deakins]

This is all so astonishing that it's almost beyond belief. You certainly sound as though you are being honest with us, and not holding back any relevant information, so I believe you.

If Ebbe doesn't get it dealt with for you, I suggest going on to LL's Twitter and/or Facebook accounts and posting about it there. I've never looked at those accounts so I don't know if people can post things but I'd certainly find out.

I'd also want to take them to court but it sounds like you're not in the U.S. so that could be difficult. If you are in the U.S. I'd go down that route if I were you.

[Perrie Juran]

I wish I knew the best way to contact Ebbe or whom else to contact.

Twitter doen't allow you to say much but you could use tiny url to link back to this thread.

There is always 'snail mail.' 

The problem is that their are people who think it's funny to clutter up his inbox with garbage.  Makes it hard for the rest of us.

[lestatll]

HI all,

 

After many months cashing out lindens without issue, last week when I entered a request it was declined. As usual, LL does not consider that you are important enough to know the exact motive. The response I got for my ticket was the typical "something went wrong but we can´t tell you what" (see email below). I have provided my real ID, I have voluntered to provide whatever they need. They just ask me to wait 2 weeks and "see what happens".

 

I have been cashing lindens without issue for several months now, so I don´t really know what the problem may be, perhaps this time the amount was a bit higher, but still way under what LL has authorized me to cash per month.

 

At this point I am pretty much convinced LL is facing some sort of financial crisis and is trying to avoid and/or delay cashouts as much as possible. 

 

Has anyone experienced this before? 

 

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 Thank you! 

A comment has been added to your Case..


Greetings,


We were unable to complete your transaction at the time it was reviewed for processing. This may be due to one or more of the following reasons:


- account status

- geographic location

- undisclosed potential risk factors


Unfortunately we are unable to disclose or discuss the exact reason for the decline. You are welcome to resubmit your request in 2 weeks' time, at which point the transaction will be re-evaluated.


Please do not submit another payout request until a full two weeks (14 full days) from the date of your last request.


Regards,


Linden Lab Billing

 

[Phil Deakins]

Whenever I've thought it might be useful to contact LL bosses, including the CEO, I've IMed them. I don't think I've been ignored but I haven't contacted Ebbe - yet.

[lestatll]

Thanks for your answer Perrie and great advice!

 

As it´s been two weeks already since the time I last entered my payout request, I have just tried again.

 

I´ve contacted Ebbe Linden in the past and he has been most kind. Right after I wrote to him, my tickets were magically answered faster and my request was accepted (it was odd they did otherwise since I had provided every single documentation they asked me to).

Thus, I have contacted Ebbe and Rowan Linden this time too. Hopefully, everything will be ok. I encourage you to contact Ebbe Linden in you are in a similar situation I am. 

 

I don´t think Ebbe or any Linden at top level are aware of the extremely poor customer service Linden Labs is offering lately. i insist they must review their Finance and Support departments immediately. They will lose clients to other VWs with better attention to their customers if not.

 

Thank you all for reading, I will keep you updated and let you know what happens.

[lestatll]

Hi all,

Finally, after contacting Ebbe Linden, they replied my ticket right away. They needed me to provide my ID (again, as I provided it on February, but I have no problem) and this time they asked me to fill in an IRS form (W8BEN in my case). I completed and submitted it all yesterday, so I hope this time everything goes smoothly.

 

I have no problem at all providing this information, I just would like LL worked harder on their communication channels. Sending an email saying that they can´t tell why they rejected a request looks a bit too unprofessional to me.

 

I´ll keep you posted.

Thanks,

 

Lestat

[Phil Deakins]

That's good, and I hope it gets sorted quickly for you.

It's a shame that some, or many, of the LL workers are so slack and care so little about paying customers. In fact it's much more than a shame - it's incredibly bad, and it's the reason why I am so against Linden Lab as a company. I wouldn't lift a finger on their behalf, or let them have even 1 cent more than absolutely necessary for me.

As always, when I say something like that, I have to add that some of LL's customer-facing workers are very good, but only some.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

That's good, and I hope it gets sorted quickly for you.

It's a shame that some, or many, of the LL workers are so slack and care so little about paying customers. In fact it's much more than a shame - it's incredibly bad, and it's the reason why I am so against Linden Lab as a company. I wouldn't lift a finger on their behalf, or let them have even 1 cent more than absolutely necessary for me.

As always, when I say something like that, I have to add that some of LL's customer-facing workers are very good, but only some.

---

Sometimes** this is a management problem.  The basic support person may not even be able to see the actual cause and is stuck with using a boiler plate reply.

And while I consider it no justification, this is no different than the majority of RL companies.  Getting a problem escalated to the level of Mgt that can deal with it can be a real exercise in futility.

The previous company I worked for was like this.  I had a short list of things I could do to make a customer happy.  Anything more had to go to the owner.  I always checked what mood the owner was in before sending it up the ladder because if he was in a bad mood it would automatically get sh*tcanned. 

We sometimes wondered how he managed to stay in business.  His employee turnover rate was astronomical.

 

**Actually I do understand that it is ALWAYS a management problem.

 

[Phil Deakins]

I have to disagree that it's always a management problem, Perrie. Not with LL anyway. I've had a number of cases where the Lindens whose job it is to deal with certain types of problems, simply don't do it properly. I'm talking about the AR people, of course. All too often they accept ARs at face value and, without doing any checking, they issue warnings and such when, if they'd bothered to look, they would have seen that the ARs were not justified. It's only after contacting higher management that thought and sense enter into it.

I've been PMing with someone today who told me of another such case. It was only when higher management was contacted that an actual brain went to work on it and sorted it out correctly. Prior to that the result of the lesser Linden was to banish an object from SL and issue a warning - both totally incorrectly.

All to often, they just don't do their job properly, and they don't care if paying customers are badly affected. If they are so busy that they don't have time, then they should not be issuing warnings, without checking, on the say-so of ARs, but I'm totally convinced that that's exactly what they sometimes, maybe often, do.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I have to disagree that it's always a management problem, Perrie. Not with LL anyway. I've had a number of cases where the Lindens whose job it is to deal with certain types of problems, simply don't do it properly. I'm talking about the AR people, of course. All too often they accept ARs at face value and, without doing any checking, they issue warnings and such when, if they'd bothered to look, they would have seen that the ARs were not justified. It's only after contacting higher management that thought and sense enter into it.

I've been PMing with someone today who told me of another such case. It was only when higher management was contacted that an actual brain went to work on it and sorted it out correctly. Prior to that the result of the lesser Linden was to banish an object from SL and issue a warning - both totally incorrectly.

All to often, they just don't do their job properly, and they don't care if paying customers are badly affected. If they are so busy that they don't have time, then they should not be issuing warnings, without checking, on the say-so of ARs, but I'm totally convinced that that's exactly what they sometimes, maybe often, do.

---

Please take what I said with this grain of salt:  If an employee is "getting away with" doing a lack luster job that is management's problem.

Sometimes it really sucked but whem I was a manager. I was held accountable for the people I managed.  If they screwed up, I was accountable to fix it also.  And if someone was a real 'screw up,' the documentation I had to do before I could terminate them was insane. And I had to get my Mgr's aproval to do so.

This is one of the reasons why you read about Mgr's doing things to make someones life miserable in the workplace.  It's to get them to quit.  I'm not saying it is right, but it goes on am awful lot.

[lestatll]

Hi all,

 

Once more I got a rejection without motive from LL.  I assuime that they have not still processed my information which I submitted 48 hours ago... I´ll call and contact again Ebbe/Rowan Linden.

I don´t mind doing this, but I must admit it is a very time consuming and tiring process...

 

Your recent request to process USD credit from your Second Life account balance to a PayPal account has been denied. We have now returned the credit to your Second Life account balance."

[lestatll]

Hi all,

 

It comes as no surprise... one more rejection from LL, only this time I provided them with everything they asked me. Contradictory messages. 11 days ago I got a ticket saying my account was okay and encouraging me to resubmit my request right away. Today however I got a ticket from LL saying that my request was  "very close" of being approved, however I was a naughty boy and asked it before the two weeks (on top of the two weeks I had already waited before) were due.... What the..?!?! They first tell me to do something and then take it back?!

 

I do really think that LL is only focused on SL 2.0 and completely neglecting their customers. However, they should think that there is a big chance that there are no customers left to use their 2.0 version with this very poor customer service...

 

Please try resubmitting your payout request at this time.

Case: 02013267

Avatar: lestatll Resident 

Type: Unable to determine

Status: Waiting for Customer Acceptance

Hello, lestatll Resident:


Thank you for responding to our request. Your credit will be processed shortly and your account is no longer on hold. Thank you very much for your cooperation.


Please try resubmitting your payout request at this time.


Regards,

Linden Lab

and 

 

Case: 02008473

Avatar: lestatll Resident 

Type: Payout Issues

Status: Waiting for Customer Acceptance

Greetings,


We've checked your request and see it is still processing. We expect that it will finish processing very soon. However, you did not follow the instructions to wait 2 weeks before resubmitting the request. In the future, please follow the instructions and wait a full 2 weeks before resubmitting.


Regards,


Linden Lab Support

 

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