Tilia takes over

[Monderas Bristol]

8 minutes ago, GabrielleVanDerMalle said:

i use my credit card, never ask for cash out from my balance. will tilla still want my Social Security number?? if so i will leave second life.

If you never cash out and only use your card to buy L$ then no, you don't need to provide any additional information.

[LadyCroc]

13 hours ago, animats said:

I've been reading the terms for "Tilia". Some notes:

• There's mention of some Tilia "token", as a store of value that doesn't have value. Is this the Linden Dollar? Or is LL getting into the cryptocurrency business, like some other virtual worlds. (That didn't end well.) It looks like they mean Linden Dollars, but it's not clearly specified.
• "Should either you or Tilia elect to resolve the Dispute by way of binding arbitration, the arbitration shall proceed in accordance with the then-current Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"), except that in no event shall the arbitration proceed as a class or representative action."   The fee for a commercial arbitration starts at $925.
• "NO VALUE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IS GUARANTEED OR WARRANTED WITH RESPECT TO ANY CONTENT, INCLUDING VIRTUAL TOKENS OR STORED VALUE BALANCES." "The Tilia Service is subject to scheduled and unscheduled service interruptions and loss of server data, which you do not own and for which you will not hold us liable."
• "Unless Tilia elects to refund the balance of your Stored Value Account, you shall not be entitled to any compensation or other payment, remedy, recourse or refund upon terminating your Account."
• "If you accumulate more value in your Stored Value Account than you need to pay amounts associated with the use of the Provider’s Platform, Tilia may, in its discretion and subject to its agreement with the relevant Provider, allow you to request a refund from the Stored Value Balance. Subject to your compliance with Tilia’s Terms, you may be permitted to request that Tilia process a credit from your Stored Value Balance, in an amount equal to all or a portion of the available funds associated with your Stored Value Balance, to your PayPal account or other account permitted by Tilia. Tilia, in its sole discretion, will approve or deny your request. "
• "Virtual Tokens may not be purchased or sold outside of any In-Platform Exchange. Any purchase of Virtual Tokens from anywhere other than the In-Platform Exchange is not permitted and is considered a violation of these Terms which may result in suspension or termination of your Account."

These are terrible terms for a financial service. It looks like they can take your assets whenever they want to. What this seems to add up to is that withdrawing money from SL is going to become much harder and much riskier. Anyone getting significant revenue from SL needs to talk to a lawyer. Now.

From the information shared here.  It looks like not only are we required to submit our personal identifying information to include social security number but we can not hold them liable if our information or transactions are compromised?  I understand the issue with complying with federal regulations especially for merchants who receive funds/payment transaction as they do business within LL and their funds are removed or exchanged from Linden currency to whatever form their country uses.  However, for those of us who are customers or consumers ONLY!! My bank or paypal has already confirmed my identity.  My credit card is ONLY used to MAKE purchases not to exchange Linden dollars for US dollars.  I believe the new Tillia system is doing a blanket sweep instead of appropriately identifying those SL residents who (for tax purposes) actually make RL income!  How many of these "secure" systems to date have been compromised and users personal information obtained by nefarious individuals?  Also, does this mean that every game I play where I purchase in world "gems" "gold" or other game "currency" requires me to give my personal information including my social security number.  I have an issue with this!

[TheaDee]

1 hour ago, Sabaat said:

I don't have to give this much information to Amazon, Steam, xbox live etc etc to use their services or be threatened with charges for inactivity. They expect me to give up my private information to this degree and tell me it will be safe when not even the biggest tech companies can even manage this or even the banking industry itself. They then tell me that they might refund unused funds in my account and may not even delete the information after requesting termination of said account? They can't even safeguard SL assets and they tell me the information I provide to them will be safe somehow.

You don't *as a consumer* - I have an Amazon Payments account because I receive income from Amazon and subsidiaries and I do have to provide them with this information.  If I make over a certain amount, I also receive a 1099 tax form from Amazon. 

In SL context:  if you only buy Lindens and make transactions in world you do not have to provide that level of information.  If you take money out of SL and have it sent to PayPal or equilvalent (receive income), then you do.  

[TheaDee]

For those who are newly arriving to this thread, there 2 are FAQ posts from the Linden Lab official account from late yesterday afternoon.  They can be found on page 5 and 7 of this thread.  The second ends with "We’ll be back tomorrow with more responses!"  

Hope this helps - I know there are lots of people who didn't see the replies and might miss them in the flurry of messages.

[Leannyn]

LL needs to publish a plain speak version explaining the changes *in the announcement*. Not everyone reads pages of forum posts.

LL needs to clearly state how much and what type of accounts are charged the inactivity fee and whom is impacted. Is it just those accounts that process credit? Or is it accounts that buy lindens as well? Is there to be another charge in addition to premium membership?

Are alt accounts that have never had payment info charged a fee?

I buy a good bit of lindens twice monthly. Until these changes are made clear, I won't buy anymore. If I make purchases, they will be direct from Marketplace.

I'll keep my two premium accounts but I need more info.

I feel really bad for the content creators. I think they will bear the brunt of these changes. 😥

Edited July 2, 2019 by Leannyn

[LadyCroc]

15 minutes ago, Monderas Bristol said:

If you only buy L$ you're not affected. If you want to CASH OUT for real world money then you are affected. LL replied at least twice in this thread I think.

Come August the 1st you'll have to agree on login to some new terms but that's the only thing that will affect the majority of people that don't cash out (process credit)

Thank you for clarifying this. However, upon reading the information posted on the pending changes and acceptance requirements this isn't made clear.  It states if you use a credit card or payment you must submit personal identifying documentation to include social security verification. As I stated in another post. As a customer ONLY makes in world purchases it's bad for business to "freeze" my option to make purchases to verify my identification. When my identification has already been verified.

[LadyCroc]

32 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

 

 

Emphasis mine. 

"Processing credit" refers to withdrawing a USD balance from your Second Life account to a real bank. Only that one type of transaction. Buying Lindens with real money is a transaction that will be handled by Tilia, but buying Lindens is NOT processing credit.

(See also; the recent increases in the credit processing fee.)

Thank you for clarifying this information.  Only time will tell.  Have a great day!

[LadyCroc]

6 minutes ago, Leannyn said:

LL needs to publish a plain speak version explaining the changes *in the announcement*. Not everyone reads pages of forum posts.

LL needs to clearly state how much and what type of accounts are charged the inactivity fee and whom is impacted. Is it just those accounts that process credit? Or is it accounts that buy lindens as well? Is there to be another charge in addition to premium membership?

Are alt accounts that have never had payment info charged a fee?

I buy a good bit of lindens twice monthly. Until these changes are made clear, I won't buy anymore. If I make purchases, they will be direct from Marketplace.

I'll keep my two premium accounts but I need more info.

I feel really bad for the content creators. I think they will bear the brunt of these changes. 😥

AGREED!!!

[amyalka]

@Linden Lab Will Tilia be able in the future to work with the banks directly, instead of Paypal? Because as I've mentioned on another thread, being in the EU and using the Paypal is really a pain. Paypal is doing the exchange from Dollars to Euro on a fee that I don't even understand it because it cuts out so much from the total of the money that I cashout, it feels like Paypal is stealing from the EU people so so so much that's getting tooo much. It would be good if you could find a way for the EU people to get their money exchanged on the current exchange rate w/o using Paypal.  

[Cackle Amore]

1 hour ago, Vanity Fair said:

THIS is what is bugging me! There is ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of what dollar amount the monthly inactivity fee is, in either the Tilia FAQ *or* the Tilia Terms of Service. So there's going to be a fee for inactive accounts, but they can't even tell us what that fee is going to be?!?? At least be up front about it, Linden Lab!

From how I've seen someone explain it, basically, after a year of inactivity, it's treated as abandoned and will steadily deduct it of any USD left in it till it's back to $0.

So, the only people that would effect is if someone sold some L$ for what ever reason and got it turned into $USD, then just forgot about it for a whole year and never touched it again in any way throughout that whole time.

The inactivity fee is a money sink basically.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Digit Gears

[sarynaGareth]

What pisses me off about this, is the demand for my SSN. Hell...i did not have to give my SSN to open a paypal account.! WTF should i have to give it to ....an real unknown? just a "service" started by LL to probably skim more money off of unsuspecting users.

 

[Vanity Fair]

11 hours ago, Cristal Kenyon said:

If it doesn't affect my use of SL, I'm not opting in with Tilia.

I don't think you have a choice in the matter.

[ChinRey]

12 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

Hi! We're putting together an FAQ (first asked questions!), which will go up on the blog shortly.  Please KEEP CALM AND ... oh just kidding.  Anyway, clarifications in response to your questions in this thread and elsewhere coming shortly. 

Ok, here are my questions then.

I don't think my bakcground is that unusual for small time merhcants/landowners in SL. I've never withdrawn a single dollar from SL, everything I make I spend on tier. Every now and then I have to cover a little bit of the tier from my PayPal account.

The main reason I keep going on here, is that I've spent so much time and money over the years buying and developing my land I can't bring myself to just let go of it all. It's a close call though and if the cost in RL money increases significantly or I have to waste a significant amount of time and effort to comply to these new rules, I'm out and I will no longer have any need for premium membership.

I've just paid premium fees for all my alts, all of them are now paid up for more than a year, two of them for almost two years. LL's total income from my activities in SL amounts to about 500 dollars a month.

1. Does this change mean I'll have to pay LL more?
2. How do I sort the transition out with no more than five minutes of easy work?
3. If you can't give satisfactory answers to those two questions, are you willing to refund the premium membership few I paid only a week ago?

[Looloo Beck]

I'm a content creator and I cash out at least once every month its been 13 years. I have no choice but trust LindenLab and opt in Tilia. But I'm afraid these changes will affect  SL economy dramatically.  Sadly I'm not positive with the future of SL and consequently my own business. 

[Fox Wijaya]

typical LL announcement

thy shall
you will
you have to
you must
give us
send us

oh yeah we forgot to tell you why.... we'll come with that later

advice: hire a marketing expert or real customer representive

Edited July 2, 2019 by Fox Wijaya

[Salt Peppermint]

@Grumpity Linden maybe you could post the official FAQ post from here on the original announcement post, so people don't have to scroll through so many pages to actually find it. 

[Cackle Amore]

2 hours ago, QueenGalaxia said:

Thank you for your quick response. that is helpful to know. Also, I don't feel right about having them know my social security and address, to me that feels like a violation of my privacy and potential risk of unknowns to come and be. *shrugs*  T_T i dont plan on ever converting lindens into money also so. i feel like having a Tilia account would be irrelevant for me. but ah well. 

I believe it would only be required info if you did want to cash out from SL. Should be able to safely leave your tilia account collecting dust in the corner otherwise.

[ChinRey]

9 hours ago, Larree Quixote said:

I can't justify giving my SS# to some company I have never heard about before today for a lousy donut!  

It's not that bad. From what I can see this is only a reorganisation of LL with the money transaction bit split off as a separate entity. As others have pointed out they've already sued the Tilia brand for a while. In other words, we have all reasons to expect that the security and trustwortiness of Tilia is the same as LL's and we already trust them.

(Useless tidbit for those who wonder about the name, Tilia is simply the latin name for Linden.)

[Cackle Amore]

Gonna give a small boost to the two Linden posts for any late comers

 

12 hours ago, Linden Lab said:

 

We are still reviewing and addressing some of the other questions that have been posted in this thread. However, here is some additional information on some of the questions we have seen so far. We continue to work on following up on questions that have yet to be addressed and will continue to update and monitor this forum thread over the next few days.

Is this an extra fee on top of the recently changed credit processing fee?

No. The credit processing fees remain unchanged for you as a Resident. You will not be charged anything extra for a credit processing fee by Tilia. The only other fee which may apply is an inactivity fee. This fee would only apply to those accounts with USD balances which have not accessed their Tilia account in any way (for example, to check balance) or had any credit processing transactions over a period of 12 months or more.

How long will it take to process my credit request? Is it going to take longer than usual with Tilia?

We anticipate that the usual time to process credit, currently two to three business days, will not change for most Second Life Residents once your identification documentation has been verified.

How is this change compliant with GDPR? 

Tilia is fully compliant with GDPR. For more information, please see the link to our Privacy Policy where it reads:

OTHER INFORMATION
See our online Privacy Policy to learn more about information collected through our website and how we use and disclose it. That Privacy Policy should be regarded as part of this Privacy Notice.

Can you clarify the relationship between Tilia and Linden Lab? 

Tilia Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Linden Lab. 

Can you clarify whether there are ID requirements and fees for basic Linden Dollar purchases?

These changes apply to USD credit processing and do not have any impact on the routine purchasing of Linden Dollars. Only Second Life Residents who Process Credit (cash out) of their USD balance to their payment method (e.g. PayPal)  are impacted by the ID verification requirements (which are necessary for compliance with U.S. laws and regulations).  The inactivity fee applies only to those accounts with USD balances which have not accessed their Tilia account in any way or had any credit processing transactions over a period of 12 months or more.

Will Residents outside the U.S. still need to provide verification or ID for credit processing transactions? 

Yes, anyone who processes credit will need to present a government-issued ID. 

I am not a US citizen, I do not drive & have no passport! We also do not have an official photo ID in the UK so how on earth will I qualify?

For non-U.S. citizens without a driver’s license or passport, we will need an equivalent government-issued ID to verify your identity for credit processing. If this is an issue, please contact our customer support team or continue to check our FAQ for additional guidance after Aug. 1. 

Will you expect me to scan my ID? Will you expect me to send a photocopied version over via snail mail? 

Yes, you would need to scan your ID for Tilia to verify after Aug. 1. We do not expect anyone to use “snail mail” for verification.
 

 

9 hours ago, Linden Lab said:

Lots of good questions and comments! For those who missed our first round of follow-up responses on page 5, you can view those here. We’ll continue to monitor this thread actively over the next few days for further questions and comments. Please note that we may not be able to respond immediately to all questions but we are continuing to actively read and review this thread.

Here are some more answers to some of your questions:

If I’m only using Linden Dollars, does this impact me at all?

No. If you are only using Linden Dollars, and do not have a USD balance, the ID requirements and the inactivity fee has no impact on your ability to continue using Second Life. For example, it doesn’t impact or change your ability to pay for Land Tier or other activities with Linden Dollars.

Does this inactivity fee apply to the Lindens I have stored in my account?

No. This fee would only apply to those accounts with USD balances which have not accessed their Tilia account in any way (for example, to check balance) or had any credit processing transactions over a period of 12 months or more.

Will this impact our Premium stipend? (No more L$300 per month? Will we get a token or is this on top of the L$300?) 

This will have no impact on the Premium stipend. 

I do have a cash balance, but I am not an SL content creator. I upload money, which goes towards my Premium payments. So does that mean it will affect me too? 

This should not affect you if you are only using your money for Premium payments. For those who are carrying a USD balance to pay Premium, you would need to be active on that account at least once in12 months to avoid the inactivity fee. Thus, paying your annual Premium qualifies as activity.

Will our information be stored in plain text?  

No!  We treat the security of any personally identifiable information with the utmost care.  Your information is encrypted and locked down to only be accessible by specific people who have a business need to access your information. Our practices are compliant with applicable U.S. regulations and laws. 

Will EVERYONE who uses Second Life have to agree to the new Tilia TOS and Privacy Policy - or just those who use credit processing to cash out USD?

Beginning Aug. 1, all Second Life Residents will be asked to agree to the new Tilia terms of service and privacy policy upon logging in.

I have already provided my personal info to Linden Lab in the past. Do I need to provide it again? Many of us have already provided such ID information for verification, are we exempt from having to provide it again because the information is already on record?

In general, most Residents will not need to resubmit the information if it has been previously provided. However, there may be some instances where Tilia may need to collect and verify the documentation again. 

Do I REALLY need to provide my social security number? I just want to enjoy Second Life and I’m not comfortable sharing that information.

The verification requirement applies only to Second Life Residents who process credit (cash out) of their USD balance to their payment method (e.g. PayPal). The ID verification requirement is necessary for compliance with U.S. money transmitter laws and regulations, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the Prepaid Access Rule. For those Residents who are not U.S. persons, they will need to provide a government issued ID. 

Can Tilia transfer our funds directly to our bank accounts/direct deposit? 

No, Tilia cannot transfer directly to bank accounts at this time.

Will Residents need to use Tilia to buy Linden Dollars?

No, Residents can continue to use the payment method on file to buy Linden Dollars. In this case, since there is no Tilia involvement there is no need to provide ID or SSN.

We also acknowledge that there have been some inquiries asking for more specifics about the Tilia ID verification process, procedures, and timing. Stay tuned for more details in the near future.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more responses!
 

 

[ChinRey]

2 minutes ago, Digit Gears said:

Gonna give a small boost to the two Linden posts for any late comers

Thank you! I suppose the questions in my post at least are answered then.

[Raevyn Addams]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But very small businesses of the type that are run by anonymous avatars with PayPal accounts that don't clearly hook up to any known business may face difficulties. Yes, it seems that LL will make it harder to cash out. But if you can't provide a real name, government ID, address, and tax ID number to a business providing you a payment, why do you imagine that you can go on existing in the real world? 

^ This is me. And yes, I get the why. I get the need to comply with local laws and regulation. I get all that. It just stings. And the fine print isn't comforting either (though rarely is unless you're legally savvy). It now means as a non-US citizen I can't pay out into a PayPal account as I have been all these years without needing to send the required information. It's one thing to agree to terms and conditions. It's another to send my social security number or ID to another country (and please tell me if I got any of that wrong. I don't mind at all being proven wrong under the right circumstances). That really, sincerely, does not sit well with me. But not much I can do about it. Everything is headed online now. Adapt or get left behind, right?

The one line that made this whole thing "easier" to understand was that comparison about trying to withdraw a money from a bank without ID (I don't know who said it, but thanks anyway). Up until now I have been. That make me a bank robber all these years? (Injecting levity. Sue me).

In the grand scheme it doesn't overly matter since I don't rely on the kind of money I had been cashing out up to this point to make a RL living from. It was a nice cash-injection on a good week. But now it remains virtual currency - unless I send that info. Great for the game and economy of SL/LL, not so much me or others like me. I can't speak for anyone who does rely on cash-outs from other non-US countries and don't feel comfortable sharing this level of information either, but the public consensus seems to be "sucks to be you, then". 

SSDD.

[QueenGalaxia]

1 hour ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Luckily you (and me and the vast majority of the SL playerbase) won't need to hand over such personal details. It's only the 1% of the 1% that make real money off of SL that will need to do all this. Remember, if all you do is use your SL income to subsidise your SL expenses, then you're not taking $ out of the ecosystem and thus are not affected.

So basically creators or people who use SL as a real job who make content/do things to aquire Lindens to convert into real money for an Income? 🤔

 

 

[Chocosis]

While I can understand the need for photographic government ID for the purposes of Tilia and complying with US law...you've specified that countries outside of the US will require government-given photographic identification.

I'm in the UK. The government doesn't give out photographic identification. The DVLA gives out driving licenses, which are photographic, but not valid under these terms as it's not quite the full government, it's a separated arm of it. Please consider this for creators in other countries, as I don't know the details of Liechtenstein's government, or Sweden, or wherever.

There's also the whole thing where giving Tilia the (what should be) very private information that is your unique identifier as a citizen of your country is a very bad idea. You claim that it is encrypted and secure, but not of how. Sure, the trick to keeping things encrypted is to not tell people how, but I'd like to know at least if you're not just keeping these extremely important documents underneath one layer of probably already cracked security. The US is the exception to this example, since you're using your social security number for...everything. Which is really, really bad. Over here, only three parties should ever get your personal identification number. The government (who gave it to you in the first place, as well as the DWP for tax and benefits purposes), your current employer (if you have one), and you. That's it. Otherwise, that number stays hidden, since anyone with it can fully steal your whole identity. This is why we don't use that number for everything, like the US does. (Though to expand on the UK identity theft, they've gotten a lot better at multiple forms of ID these days, so it's a lot safer in the rare case that you do have that number stolen.)

The point is, your Tilia lawyers will need to check on which forms of photographic ID are valid in what countries. I know that international law is real messy and vague, but it's worth doing. It'll streamline the process for consumers, and won't be so much hassle when trying to identify some Bolivian school club ID as "government-issued".

 

You may also want to reword your news post, as it took me reading this whole thread to understand that the ID was only needed if you cashed out any USD. The news post is vague, and feels as if everyone needs to send in ID. @Leannyn said the same thing not too long ago in this very thread. Fix that, or this thread will get a lot bigger than 12 pages.

 

For the FAQ, or tl;dr:

• What form of security will our documents be kept under?
• Will this apply to people who only buy L$? (i know this has been answered in the thread already, but it may as well be in the FAQ too)
• What will you do for countries whose governments do not give out photographic identification?
• Do these changes mean no more fees when buying L$?
• Will Tilia work directly with banks, instead of with PayPal, as using PayPal is an issue for many European and Asian users?
• Are you supplying sufficient support to the creators, who will likely be the ones most affected by these changes?

I hope you are able to fix this mess.

[QueenGalaxia]

14 minutes ago, xxSaltandPepperxx said:

@Grumpity Linden maybe you could post the official FAQ post from here on the original announcement post, so people don't have to scroll through so many pages to actually find it. 

Took the words right out of my mouth ^ One of the many things LL is not very good at imo. Making things more confusing then it needs to be  

[Elvina Ewing]

2 hours ago, Vanity Fair said:

THIS is what is bugging me! There is ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of what dollar amount the monthly inactivity fee is, in either the Tilia FAQ *or* the Tilia Terms of Service. So there's going to be a fee for inactive accounts, but they can't even tell us what that fee is going to be?!?? At least be up front about it, Linden Lab!

I strongly suspect that this has not even been decided as of yet.