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What happens to your land when you stop being a member?


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23 minutes ago, Foggypebble Muircastle said:

Would I have to remake everything if I were to become a member, stop being a member for a while, and then become a member again? or would everything be right where I left it?

if you mean on Linden owned estates like Mainland and Linden Homes then to stop being a Premium we have to sell/transfer/abandon our Mainland, or abandon our Linden Home first before we can stop being a Premium member

in either case then as we are no longer the owner of the land then our stuff is typically returned by the new owner if we haven't already removed it.  So yes, when we do come back as a Premium member we have to acquire a new parcel and mount all our stuff again on our new parcel

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1 minute ago, Mollymews said:

if you mean on Linden owned estates like Mainland and Linden Homes then to stop being a Premium we have to sell/transfer/abandon our Mainland, or abandon our Linden Home first before we can stop being a Premium member

in either case then as we are no longer the owner of the land then our stuff is typically returned by the new owner if we haven't already removed it.  So yes, when we do come back as a Premium member we have to acquire a new parcel and mount all our stuff again on our new parcel

To add to that, she could continue owning mainland but would have to pay tier instead of the free 1024.  You don't have to be a premium member to own mainland as long as you keep paying the tier, your stuff will stay there.

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6 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

You don't have to be a premium member to own mainland as long as you keep paying the tier, your stuff will stay there.

i think we do have to be Premium to buy tier, as tier only applies to Linden estates. We don't have to be Premium to buy an estate region

we can appear to own a Linden mainland parcel on a Basic account thru a Group.  Like our Basic account is founder and owner of group. Parcel is deeded to group. Our Premium account contributes tier to the group

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I stand corrected.  Thank you Molly.  I've been premium from the start so I never gave it any thought.  There's a gentleman who posts frequently who lives on mainland.  He always mentions too that he doesn't get any love from LL support because he is only a basic member.  I guess he must rent his parcel.  Personally, I'd never rent on mainland as I prefer private estates.

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Yeah, anyone is free to rent anywhere.  If you are a Basic member, you can only own land in a private estate.  If you occupy land anywhere -- regardless of whether you are renting or the owner, and regardless of whether you are Basic or Premium   -- and you stop paying for it, the owner will reclaim the land and toss your stuff.  If you are Premium, you will stay Premium until the end of the period that you have already paid for.   Remember that your Premium membership is prepaid.  So you can walk away for a while and still be a member.  As long as you still keep paying land fees for any land you own, it will still be there till you come back.

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10 hours ago, Foggypebble Muircastle said:

Would I have to remake everything if I were to become a member, stop being a member for a while, and then become a member again? or would everything be right where I left it?

Presuming "member" means "Premium" - then it depends on what/where the land is.  If you have mainland that you purchased, then you can't just "stop being a member" without abandoning the land first. Any objects you may have left on the land will be returned to your inventory. Once you've sold or abandoned your land, then you will be allowed to downgrade your account back to basic, though it will continue to be Premium and keep all the other benefits of Premium until the end of the period you've paid for.

If you are renting (whether on mainland or private estate), then nothing will happen; you can downgrade back to Basic and as long as you keep paying the rent you can stay on the land. If you stop paying, you will be evicted and again, everything on the land will get returned to you.  The same goes for if you "purchased" land on a private estate; that's not really purchase at all, it's still renting, and it's unaffected by your Premium status.

 

 

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What if you just let your Premium account expire? Mine will be up in April, and my plan was just to let it expire, and I was assuming my land 'ownership' would end and all my stuff would be auto-returned to me. This thread almost makes me think LL could somehow keep charging me for Premium unless I moved all my stuff and abandoned the land?

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Not just "somehow."   You agreed to the Linden Lab TOS, which says clearly (Sect 4.3): 

Upon your acceptance of these terms and submission of your order, you hereby agree that Linden Lab or an applicable Payment Service Provider (collectively, for purposes of this Section 4.3, "we") have the right to automatically charge your credit card or debit your account (or other payment method) for the applicable fees or charges, plus any applicable taxes that we are required to collect, and you authorize us to do so. Thereafter, if you have purchased or redeemed a subscription-based product or service, each time your subscription comes up for renewal, we have the right to charge your credit card or debit your account the then-current renewal rate plus any applicable taxes we are required to collect, and you authorize us to do so. 

So, your Premium membership is renewed automatically unless you tell Linden Lab that you do not want it to be. 

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10 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Not just "somehow."   You agreed to the Linden Lab TOS, which says clearly (Sect 4.3): 

Upon your acceptance of these terms and submission of your order, you hereby agree that Linden Lab or an applicable Payment Service Provider (collectively, for purposes of this Section 4.3, "we") have the right to automatically charge your credit card or debit your account (or other payment method) for the applicable fees or charges, plus any applicable taxes that we are required to collect, and you authorize us to do so. Thereafter, if you have purchased or redeemed a subscription-based product or service, each time your subscription comes up for renewal, we have the right to charge your credit card or debit your account the then-current renewal rate plus any applicable taxes we are required to collect, and you authorize us to do so. 

So, your Premium membership is renewed automatically unless you tell Linden Lab that you do not want it to be. 

Holy crap, I did not know that. I am glad I saw this thread, thanks! :)

So, I guess I need to remove all my stuff, abandon my land, and then somehow formally quit Premium? I assume via downgrading to Basic, which was mentioned above?

PS: Btw, I doubt I have ever actually read a TOS in my life...

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Yup.  That's exactly right.  I suggest waiting until a week or so before the renewal date, though.  You can't decide to downgrade to Basic without first abandoning your Linden Home or property on the mainland, but you'll still be Premium right up to the last second.  You might as well still enjoy the land as long as you can.  All your other Premium perks will continue to the end date, so you will still get your weekly stipend, access to Premium sandboxes and Support Case categories, etc.

And yes, it's a good idea to read the TOS.  It will clear up a lot of misunderstandings, and you may find powers and rights that you didn't know you had.  ;) 

Edited by Rolig Loon
Cleaner wording
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16 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Yup.  That's exactly right.  I suggest waiting until a week or so before the renewal date, though.  You can't decide to downgrade to Basic without first abandoning your Linden Home or property on the mainland, but you'll still be Premium right up to the last second.  You might as well still enjoy the land as long as you can.  All your other Premium perks will continue to the end date, so you will still get your weekly stipend, access to Premium sandboxes and Support Case categories, etc.

And yes, it's a good idea to read the TOS.  It will clear up a lot of misunderstandings, and you may find powers and rights that you didn't know you had.  ;) 

Thanks for your help! I will wait until closer to time, but seems likely you don't get a notice, and I don't want to be charged. Really, though, I rarely go into SL anymore, and having my stuff all set up or not makes more difference. It's a good reminder, though,I have no need of Lindens anymore, so I donate my allowance to my sister's clan. It has been a while, I probably need to log on and do that.

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2 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

What if you just let your Premium account expire? Mine will be up in April, and my plan was just to let it expire, and I was assuming my land 'ownership' would end and all my stuff would be auto-returned to me. This thread almost makes me think LL could somehow keep charging me for Premium unless I moved all my stuff and abandoned the land?

It's VERY VERY IMPORTANT to downgrade your account on the SL website befroe cancelling the payments from your bank/card/paypal. Because if the account isn't downgraded, it'll try to collect the renewal payment and if it fails, you'll be locked out of SL until you've paid.

You don't get notified. I keep a note in my google calendar to remind me a week before renewal, so I can make sure the card is up to date and there's sufficient funds in the account.

Edited by Maitimo
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6 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

It's VERY VERY IMPORTANT to downgrade your account on the SL website befroe cancelling the payments from your bank/card/paypal. Because if the account isn't downgraded, it'll try to collect the renewal payment and if it fails, you'll be locked out of SL until you've paid.

Thanks! I don't much care about getting locked out of SL, but I don't want to have to pay for more Premium, for which I have zero use. I don't even plan to update my browser anymore, will just uninstall it when the version I have gets locked out. Guess I need to make sure to get all my stuff off my land and abandon it before that, too.

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9 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

It's VERY VERY IMPORTANT to downgrade your account on the SL website befroe cancelling the payments from your bank/card/paypal. Because if the account isn't downgraded, it'll try to collect the renewal payment and if it fails, you'll be locked out of SL until you've paid.

You don't get notified. I keep a note in my google calendar to remind me a week before renewal, so I can make sure the card is up to date and there's sufficient funds in the account.

This reminds me of an embarrassing but funny incident I had one time I was trying to purchase L$ on the website whilst I was also logged inworld. Tried it... nothing delivered. So I tried again... still nothing. On the third attempt, one of the Lindens (I forget who) IM'd me and said "psst.... your card has expired!"

I'm lucky that wasn't my premium renewal payment.

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20 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

I don't much care about getting locked out of SL, but I don't want to have to pay for more Premium, for which I have zero use. I don't even plan to update my browser anymore, will just uninstall it when the version I have gets locked out.

I'd hate to see you just vanish.  I continue to be impressed by how many people take a vacation from SL and then return years later.  Lives change. Kids go off to college, people retire, medical issues and family responsibilities make us less mobile, or we just get curious about what's new. The vacation comes to an end and people drift back to SL.  If you're a Basic member, you can come back half a decade later and find your inventory and your account balance intact. Your avatar will need to be spruced up a bit, and you'll want a more modern wardrobe, but that's half the fun of SL.  It'll be like being reborn.  There's a good chance that some of your old friends will be here too.

So, lighten the load by downgrading, but leave the door ajar on your way out.  😉

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1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

I'd hate to see you just vanish.  I continue to be impressed by how many people take a vacation from SL and then return years later.  Lives change. Kids go off to college, people retire, medical issues and family responsibilities make us less mobile, or we just get curious about what's new. The vacation comes to an end and people drift back to SL.  If you're a Basic member, you can come back half a decade later and find your inventory and your account balance intact. Your avatar will need to be spruced up a bit, and you'll want a more modern wardrobe, but that's half the fun of SL.  It'll be like being reborn.  There's a good chance that some of your old friends will be here too.

So, lighten the load by downgrading, but leave the door ajar on your way out.  😉

Sorry, I have told this story before, and on top of that I know it is OT for this thread...

I have actually been in SL for 13 years. I spent huge amounts of time there the first few years, then about 2010 or 2011, SL starting changing in ways that made it less and less attractive to me. The biggest issue was that the places I loved and saw as home withered and died one by one. Also, so many people I knew and liked left. I struggled on for a few years, and finally gave up. A couple years years ago, I came back and tried again, very hard. I tried to stop complaining about how all the stuff I loved was gone and tried to find new interests. I even tried SL photography. Really, to me though, it is all about the places and people and I just could not find anywhere I liked and fit. Plus, lag is still just as bad as ever, and that ruins it for me. I think I have just spent too much time in SL, most people seem to reach that point eventually. SL has just changed so much, and I am not able to adapt. Every time I logged in I spent 30 minutes to a couple hours just trying to find something that interested me. Plus, I have more interests than time, and SL has to compete with that.

Obviously I still look at the Forum every few days (which, ironically, I didn't even know existed until I came back to SL and tried to get a house in Bellissarria), and participate in the rare thing that catches my interest. But I cannot see ever getting active in SL again.

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I appreciate hearing your story, Caerolle.  You and I are the same age in SL.  Although we've followed different paths, we both remember what things were like during our first years, when we were part of a great wave of new members.  We also remember the days that followed some unfortunate decisions by Linden Lab that led to the exodus of educators and the collapse of some business partnerships with giants like IBM.  We've seen friends come and go too, and some favorite venues. 

You're very honest about how hard it is to stay enthusiastic when so much of those early days has faded.  The difference between us, I think, is that I was lucky to have a core of very good friends who stayed with SL -- a smaller group than when we started, but still a close team.  I also discovered these forums early on, and found that they offered me both an opportunity to pay back for the support that I was given as a newbie and the chance to be part of a witty, thoughtful (and often rowdy) community.  I've never taken a vacation from SL.  That isn't to say that there haven't been times when I thought about it.  There were just always more reasons to stay than to walk away. And now, I'm having more fun than ever. Who knew?

As I said earlier, I am impressed by how many people have come back to SL after length time-outs.  You did it yourself.  Not all returnees stay the second time, but many seem to.  It will be interesting to see what things look like post-CoVid19, when fewer of us are cooped up indoors.  In any case, I continue to recommend keeping the door to SL open, no matter what you decide this autumn and winter.  People keep changing, life conditions are guaranteed to change, and SL keeps evolving.  There may be a time when you'll be glad that the door is still open.  If not, that's fine too, but at least you've kept the option alive for that unforseeable day when you wonder what's going on in SL now.

So much for my own off-topic rambling.   😉

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1 hour ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Does anyone understand what LL's rationale for locking premium accounts for which renewal payments fail instead of downgrading therm to basic accounts and returning any objects they have on land they own?

They treat lapsed premium accounts worse thanbasic accounts. Why?

I think it's probably because when a payment has been cancelled by a user with their card provider without informing Linden Lab first, there's no way for the Lab to tell the difference between "I just don't want to pay for SL any more" and "My card was stolen, what is this transaction?" So it's part of the anti-fraud process. I deal with similar situations at work with customer accounts, though in our case we allow 28 days before freezing them whereas Linden Lab does so much more quickly.

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7 hours ago, Maitimo said:

I think it's probably because when a payment has been cancelled by a user with their card provider without informing Linden Lab first, there's no way for the Lab to tell the difference between "I just don't want to pay for SL any more" and "My card was stolen, what is this transaction?" So it's part of the anti-fraud process. I deal with similar situations at work with customer accounts, though in our case we allow 28 days before freezing them whereas Linden Lab does so much more quickly.

I have a far more cynical take on it, but perhaps you are correct.

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