ok I give up

[Medusa Torok]

I have been trying for several days to add a new credit card to my account, so that I can upgrade to premium membership and buy some land. You'd think the creators of SL would be happy to have my monies. But i find i cannot even bring up the relevant form to do this. There is no "update billing info button." Any link I click on to change my card details does not work. All I get is errors on page. Attempting to submit a ticket has also failed because when i try to get the form for that, it says service is unavailable. So what the hell is going on? Does anyone else have this problem? I have been using SL for several years and I downgraded my membership when times were hard to save money, now when I want to restore it, they dont want me! This is soo frustrating and has actually taken away my faith that any financial transaction I try with sl will be safe. So much for that.  i give up, I quit, I dont trust you any more, linden lab.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

They stopped accepting Pre-Paid and gift cards...

If you are using either of these then it will not be accepted

[Ishtara Rothschild]

Are you a non-US customer? If so, your payments are now handled by a third party payment processor. Unless you already had payment information on file, you can't update your billing information. The SL website is supposed to load a plugin of a local payment processor for your country whenever you buy something, and it sometimes fails to load.

I've had this problem with Internet Explorer on an alt account. It eventually worked in Google Chrome. But I only bought L$ to get rid of my "no payment info" status, so I have no idea how the premium account upgrade works nowadays or how well the new payment solution was implemented in that area. Perhaps it has not been implemented as of yet?

[Dilbert Dilweg]

I dont understand why they make all these changes and  do not inform the residents.

[Vick Forcella]

 

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Dilbert Dilweg wrote:

I dont understand why they make all these changes and  do not inform the residents.

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Receiving information is an opt-in system: the forums. If LL would send out an e-mail for each change then .. wow.. one long mail each week at least ending up in the spam tray of the users.

 

[Medusa Torok]

I am in the UK, and yes I do already have a credit card set for payment, but I need to change it to a new one. My card expired. I am not impressed with any of this. Third party processor? How do I know who they are or if they can be trusted? and why does nothing on the website function properly? and why is there nothing on there to inform me whats going on or what I need to do? Dont they want British residents? isnt our money good enough?

if anyone knows of  a British equivalent of sl that actually works properly, please post it...

[Vania Chaplin]

I had to help a friend to do this yesterday. Now, instead of you change or add your payment info in advance, when you buy something or send money you are presented with a page asking if you want to use the one already in their system (if you have one) or add a new one.

If you chose to ad a new, you are presented with a form to do this.

[Medusa Torok]

i have tried this on the website already. I figured maybe i need to tell it I want to upgrade before i can eneter the new card.. so I clicked upgrade to premium and got a little orange box that had 2 options, one was to use existing card, one was "new payment method." so I hit "new payment method"...  and absolutely NOTHING happened.

[Maitimo]

I am also in the UK and when my debit card expired I was unable to replace it with another. No bank card or credit card will work any more. I've lost my land because of this. The only thing you mighr be able to do is buy L$ from a third party website but frankly I don't trust them. As far as I know there is currently no possible way for a UK resident to update their payment info.

[Medusa Torok]

well the rental on my current land runs out in 4 days and there doesnt seem to be any way I can solve this, well done lindens for effectively preventing people from buying your service !!

Many thanks to all who took the time to read this and post replies.

I guess I will be spending more time on world of warcraft.

[Vania Chaplin]

Just some ideas that maybe work.

1. Send money to your account, in https://secondlife.com/my/lindex/manage_balance.php? and than use this money to pay subscription or buy L$;

2. Go to https://secondlife.com/my/account/billing.php?lang=en-US >> Payment Method.
There you can Delete yur existing info, and than do the transaction. having no payment method on file, when finalising the transaction, the form to enter a new one appears (that is what happened to my friend yesterday)

There are more info here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:International_Payments_Help?

just for info, we are in Brazil. To Ruth it went smooth after she delete her old card, but I cannot assure that in UK it will work the same way.

[Vladi Hazelnut]

they stopped excepting pre paid cards? that is retarded! and how would they know? I thought pre paid cards and debit cards showed up just like a regular credit card.

There is no way in hell I would link a real credit to sl or any other site like it.

[Rioko Bamaisin]

 

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Vick Forcella wrote:

 

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Dilbert Dilweg wrote:

I dont understand why they make all these changes and  do not inform the residents.

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Receiving information is an opt-in system: the forums. If LL would send out an e-mail for each change then .. wow.. one long mail each week at least ending up in the spam tray of the users.

 

---

 

Almost every other company in the world seems to manage informing their customers of changes via e-mail. Long or not, it is up to the user to ultimately read and make sure it doesn’t go to the spam folder. LL should at least send one out.

[Marx Dudek]

"I have been using SL for several years and I downgraded my membership when times were hard to save money, now when I want to restore it, they dont want me!"

Of course they want you.

As this sounds like a billing issue, try one of the numbers located at this webpage.

[Marx Dudek]

"they stopped excepting pre paid cards? that is retarded!"

It's not.  Credit card on file is used as a means to presume that someone is an adult (and able to access Zindra and Adult-rated continents).  As a pre-paid Visa debit card can be used by anyone of any age, continuing to accept them puts LL (and you, if you access adult regions) at risk.

And pre-paid debit cards likely use a particular series of numbers.  Just like a 4xxx number indicates a Visa, 5xxx indicates Mastercard ... one set of numbers (or more) in the sequence is reserved for pre-paids.

[Trewd Acer]

 

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Marx Dudek wrote:

"they stopped excepting pre paid cards? that is retarded!"

It's not.  Credit card on file is used as a means to presume that someone is an adult (and able to access Zindra and Adult-rated continents).  As a pre-paid Visa debit card can be used by anyone of any age, continuing to accept them puts LL (and you, if you access adult regions) at risk.

And pre-paid debit cards likely use a particular series of numbers.  Just like a 4xxx number indicates a Visa, 5xxx indicates Mastercard ... one set of numbers (or more) in the sequence is reserved for pre-paids.

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Then couldn't they just make it so Pre paid credit cards can't give people adult verification?

This sucks for us adults who can't get access credit cards or have no interest in owning a credit card

 

[Cabbage Acanthus]

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Trewd Acer wrote:

 

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Marx Dudek wrote:

"they stopped excepting pre paid cards? that is retarded!"

It's not.  Credit card on file is used as a means to presume that someone is an adult (and able to access Zindra and Adult-rated continents).  As a pre-paid Visa debit card can be used by anyone of any age, continuing to accept them puts LL (and you, if you access adult regions) at risk.

And pre-paid debit cards likely use a particular series of numbers.  Just like a 4xxx number indicates a Visa, 5xxx indicates Mastercard ... one set of numbers (or more) in the sequence is reserved for pre-paids.

---

Then couldn't they just make it so Pre paid credit cards can't give people adult verification?

 

This sucks for us adults who can't get access credit cards or have no interest in owning a credit card

 

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Adults who cannot get access to a credit card or do not want a credit card aren't "mainstream".  LL has no interest in those sorts of people anymore.

 

 

 

[Medusa Torok]

Does LL have any interest in people at all?

[Katerina Wylder]

I have also had problems trying to buy Lindens using my credit card. I live outside of the US (New Zealand). Friday night I was able to buy using the Second LIfe Cashier, but have been refused twice since except today when much to my surprise yes sucess for about 3 mins. Lindens were charged to my credit card, and then credited in US dollars in my SL account.

I wanted Lindens not US dollars, and why could they not credit back to my credit card?  I also have tier to pay in the next few days. I think Lindens are losing money not to mention in world merchants over what seems a total stuff up. I read this on the help page. 

Intially the new payment system will be available to NEW residents ouside the US, and to those who do not have existing payment information on file. Soon the system will be available to existing Residents outside the US who already have payment information on file.

This does not make much sense to me. What are we existing residents with payment info on file supposed to do in the interim

[Dogboat Taurog]

 

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Medusa Torok wrote:

Does LL have any interest in people at all?

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nope.

US$ only.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

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Roseysun Galicia wrote:

 

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Vladi Hazelnut wrote:

they stopped excepting pre paid cards? that is retarded! and how would they know? I thought pre paid cards and debit cards showed up just like a regular credit card.

There is no way in hell I would link a real credit to sl or any other site like it.

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The only way for them to know for sure which one you are using is if they ask specifically if it is a Pre-paid, Credit, or Debit card.

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That's actually not correct Roseysun. Each type of card is given a number within a specific sequence or range of numbers. The range used depends on the type. There are utilities available that know the rules and can tell you which is which by the card number. Many advanced payment systems use them, but not all do. I believe LL does use one though.

 

[Darrius Gothly]

 

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Roseysun Galicia wrote:

http://www.merriampark.com/anatomycc.htm

 

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One of the projects that I was involved in some years ago was a "shim" computer that sat between Credit Card processing systems and Credit Card accepting Merchants. Merchants were locked into 3rd party POS systems that submitted transactions using an older style (and less informationally rich) protocol, whereas the processing systems wanted the new style and very rich protocol. Most processing companies "urged" their clients to upgrade their systems by charging an extra override on every transaction submitted using old protocol. The shim converted old to new, and the company hosting the shim made the difference between override pricing (paying the processor the lower price for new protocol and billing the merchant the higher override for old protocol).

Since that time there have been a lot of changes in electronic funds transfer, not the least of which is the explosion of Debit/Credit cards and Debit-only cards. There's also pre-paid cards with no credit balance and credit-backed pre-paids. It's a scary world to be honest (from the back-end view anyway). To keep themselves sane and their computing / processing systems functional, processing companies have been very careful how they use the number space they have. Well, most of them have .. LOL

When all else fails, and the numbers lead you to an issuer without good "number space rules", there are means to query the processing center and ask it what type of card it is. Most POS (point of sale) systems don't bother .. they just let the bank sort it all out. But the facilities are there and are usable for those with enough traffic to warrant the effort. My suspicion is that someone with as many transactions daily as Linden Lab .. easily warrants the enhanced interface.

Now, with that said, they probably lease the service front-end from another processing service, but nonetheless the information is available to them should they want to use it. I believe the recent changes in the type and home location of cards they accept was brought on by "enriching" their interface use. If so, the best bet is to contact the billing center for Linden Lab, file a ticket (if that's what they say to do) and hope they can fix those "data errors" shortly.

[Medusa Torok]

really, why must we go through all this hassle just  to give LL money?  I really don't feel like entrusting them with my card info any more, since nothing seems to work properly. How do I know they won't mess it up?  They ought to make financial transactions as smooth and efficient as they possibIy can, if they expect us to pay for stuff. I  feel very insecure about the whole thing..  would you continue to want to use a credit card in a real life store, if there were major problems preventing you from making the payment? I think not.  My gut feeling now is, unless they fix this pretty **bleep** quick, my second life is going to be over. 

[Darrius Gothly]

 

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Medusa Torok wrote:

really, why must we go through all this hassle just  to give LL money? ...

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I'm not justifying, just understanding why. The number of fraudulent electronic transactions carried out over the internet these days is staggering. When you process a lot of transactions per day via purely electronic means (since no one has ever slid their CC through a Linden Lab machine) the potential for fraud is even higher. LL has to have a way to protect themselves against that. The highly precise ways of (doing your best at) making sure every transaction is valid are also very expensive. The cheaper ways throw away a higher number of valid transactions. Thus the curve runs from expensive and accurate, to cheaper but less reliable.

Recently they changed services, but I don't know which way on that curve they went. Considering they're now denying more transactions .. 

[Medusa Torok]

well I have been checking the website to see if there have beeen any changes... and today, I found I had an option to "delete and update credit card info".... so , I proceeded with caution and found that it worked...  so let's hope LL have listened and put it right. It then permitted me to purchase some L$ in the viewer, in world.. and I know my old card had expired so it would seem to have updated the info pretty quick. HOOOOOOOO.