Buying Lindens

[inymae]

Will there be a time when pre-paid credit cards will be accepted as payment for lindens? Many of us are in the position of not being able to have our Linden accounts attached to our bank accounts. Please help. I have purchased a pre-paid Master Card to buy lindens and am unable to.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Quick Answer: Probably Not

Longer Answer: Read on...

Just to be clear on what is happening.

Linden Research Inc, when presented with a new Payment Method for your account [that is not immediately rejected from a list of known non-compliant card types] will perform a verification debit of up to $1.00 USD. I remember when this used to be 0.30 cents. Then Linden Research Inc, will reverse the Debit transaction and Credit your account.

If you are presenting a gift $$ card, it will usually fail as the immediate credit transaction is not allowed. This is when you get the "An Error has Occurred" message. Later in the evening during the normal daily clearance batch processing for all electronic transactions, Linden Research Inc, will request a cancellation of the $1.00 USD debit which can take up to 72 hours depending on the Gift Card product.

Linden Lab requires that your payment method will honor all debits & credits immediately without any delay. This is also one of the ways Linden Lab uses to filter out potential Money Laundering attempts.

This is the only way Linden Research Inc can determine that an attempt to use a Gift Card product was tried as a payment method. Some Gift Card products have a unique range of card #s which make them easy to reject before this test, most don't. If you do nothing else, the $1.00 will be credited back to the Gift Card eventually by an automated process the issuer uses when reconciling the transactions.

Many people try the same Gift Card a few more times causing more test debits to be drawn from it. The results are still the same. This is when most folks finally contact the Linden Research Inc, Billing department.

Unfortunately, the card reject message from the CC companies is not 100% clear on why the credit transaction is rejected. LL can't always assume that this is because the product is a pay out only Gift Card thus the need for the generic "An Error has Occurred" message.

There are many other reasons for a Bank Card debit and credit transaction to be rejected as well.

This is why you'll need to contact the Billing department of both Linden Research Inc. and/or your own Bank Card company.

P.S. - Even if you have a refillable Gift Card please understand that the only company that can refill the Gift Card is the original issuer. This is why, when Linden Research Inc attempts to reverse the Debit transaction by Crediting your account, it fails.


If you want the painful details as to why, here is a link to a post I did a few weeks ago...

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Linden-Dollars-L/i-have-a-big-pb-because-i-m-in-belgium-and-no-possible-to-buy/qaq-p/2950159