When I purchase an item lately, I get a message saying L$536 will be deducted from my account. Why?

[Luciana Florian]

I have only noticed this lately, but I get the message before I make a purchase, and then I get the following letter in my e-mail immediately afterwards.

Dear Luciana,

Thank you for using the LindeX Exchange to buy Linden Dollars.

Your account has been charged US$2.50
You purchased L$536

Thanks again - we look forward to seeing you in Second Life!

Linden Lab and the Second Life Team

[Rolig Loon]

That's not what that message says at all.  It says that L$536 has been added to your account, not deducted from it.  Your account has been charged $2.50 for the purchase.  If you had $2.50 in the account's USD balance already, Linden Lab would use it.  If you didn't, they would charge your credit card, PayPal, or Skrill account.

By the way, each time you make a L$ purchase, you pay a 40 cent fee, no matter how large or small your purchase is.  In this case, you paid $2.50, so $2.10 of that was used for L$ and the other 40 cents was the fee.  That means the fee was 16% of the cost.  If you had bought $25.00 worth of L$, that same 40 cent fee would be only 1.6% of the order.  You'd get way more L$ for your $.

ETA:  Aha!  I see.  You are buying things in Marketplace and paying for them with $ instead of using L$.  That's a very costly way to buy things, for the reason I just pointed out.  When you buy small amounts of L$ at a time, you pay a huge percentage of the  cost in fees.  If you know you are going to be buying things in Marketplace, it is much smarter to buy a large amount of L$ on the LindeX first.

[Lindal Kidd]

Do you have money in your $L balance?  Check your Account on your Dashboard page.

If there are no $L in your balance, if you buy something, the minimum amount of $L required to cover the purchase will be bought for you and then the cost of the item will be deducted from your $L.  The minimum amount of $L that you can purchase is $2.50 USD worth, or about $L536 (depending on the current exchange rate of $L for USD).

If there's no money in your $L balance and you think there ought to be, check your $L Transaction History.  Look for any recent payments that you don't recognize.  For possible reasons why $L may be taken out of your account, some legitimate and some not, see my blog post here: http://acrossthegridwithlindal.blogspot.com/2011/09/disappearing-dollars.html