L$ exchange rate

[Lindal Kidd]

To the OP:

If you are looking at third party sites (example: eBay) to buy $L in order to get a better deal, I very strongly urge you to DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are several good reasons why you should not.

• There's a very good chance that it's a straight up scam. You send them your money, and that's the last you ever hear from them.
• The money is likely to be "stolen", taken from avatars via phishing scams or by using a stolen credit card to buy $L.
• There's an excellent chance that LL will track down those stolen $L. When they find out that you bought 'em, the very least that will happen is that they will take them from you.
• It's also very likely that they will permanently ban you from SL. They take violation of their financial policies VERY seriously.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

That used to be a good way to save money. But LL has now eliminated the fixed service fee. Both buying and selling fees are a percentage of the transaction.

Ok, IIRC the total they charge has a "max" per transaction (like a "cap"), right?

So still - the same logic applies.

One transaction where you purchase more L$ than the cap, versus

Multiple transactions where you purchase less L$ than the cap..

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok, IIRC the total they charge has a "max" per transaction (like a "cap"), right?

So still - the same logic applies.

One transaction where you purchase more L$ than the cap, versus

Multiple transactions where you purchase less L$ than the cap..

Effective today, we are changing LindeX fees as follows: Increasing the buy fee to 10% with a minimum fee of $1.49 and a maximum fee of $14.99USD per transaction Increasing the sell fee to 5%.Mar 7, 2023

The maximum fee was raised.  It used to be $9.99 per transaction before this recent fee rate increase.  The minimum fee was unchanged.

Edited April 12, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Perrie Juran]

1 hour ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Effective today, we are changing LindeX fees as follows: Increasing the buy fee to 10% with a minimum fee of $1.49 and a maximum fee of $14.99USD per transaction Increasing the sell fee to 5%.Mar 7, 2023

The maximum fee was raised.  It used to be $9.99 per transaction before this recent fee rate increase.  The minimum fee was unchanged.

Up till now I have been paying my rent in $L's. My landlord does offer a paypal option. Looks like I am going to need to switch.

This fee hike really (insert expletives here). They have us trapped in a closed system but really Linden lab, are you trying to squeeze water out of rocks.  You will be earning less from me after I switch to paying my landlord via paypal.

 

[EliseAnne85]

5 minutes ago, Perrie Juran said:

Up till now I have been paying my rent in $L's. My landlord does offer a paypal option. Looks like I am going to need to switch.

This fee hike really (insert expletives here). They have us trapped in a closed system but really Linden lab, are you trying to squeeze water out of rocks.  You will be earning less from me after I switch to paying my landlord via paypal.

 

You can pay via Paypal or Credit Card on Marketplace too.  Upon checkout after getting to the page where you would HIT the BUY NOW button, underneath that reads: (more payment options) click on that and then the options appear where you can enter an alternative payment method there rather than lindens.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

But LL has now eliminated the fixed service fee. Both buying and selling fees are a percentage of the transaction.

There is still the max fee of $14.99 for a Buy order.  The $14.99 max is hit when you spend at least $150 to buy the L$.  Thus I now don't buy L$ until I have at least $200 in RL $$ in order to reduce my fee percentage.  It took some discipline to not buy L$ in between and to learn to properly budget the L$ while saving for the next L$ buy, but now I've got that part down pretty good.

At $200 US, the fee drops to 7.5% of the transaction.  The longer I'm able to wait in between the L$ buys, therefore accumulating more RL $$ for the buy, the lower that percentage goes.

[Perrie Juran]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

There is still the max fee of $14.99 for a Buy order.  The $14.99 max is hit when you spend at least $150 to buy the L$.  Thus I now don't buy L$ until I have at least $200 in RL $$ in order to reduce my fee percentage.  It took some discipline to not buy L$ in between and to learn to properly budget the L$ while saving for the next L$ buy, but now I've got that part down pretty good.

At $200 US, the fee drops to 7.5% of the transaction.  The longer I'm able to wait in between the L$ buys, therefore accumulating more RL $$ for the buy, the lower that percentage goes.

I've been doing like that since the fees went up to $9.99. I just consider $14.99 outlandish.

It also adds insult to injury to those who deal with VAT.

But if they do something productive like investing that extra money in fixing the friends on line not showing problem I could be more accepting of the fee. Over six months and the problem is still not resolved. 

[EliseAnne85]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok, IIRC the total they charge has a "max" per transaction (like a "cap"), right?

So still - the same logic applies.

One transaction where you purchase more L$ than the cap, versus

Multiple transactions where you purchase less L$ than the cap..

Well, yes, of course it would, Love, but there are a lot of us who don't spend that much money in SL and/or do not have, let's say, $200 a month to spend on lindens.  But, for those who do, the land fees also went down $20 dollars a month until September, I think it is, so in that price bracket with savings for those who own land, the extra $4.99 raise fee isn't that much.  Plus, they could use LIMIT BUY.  Right now LIMIT BUY is reading 255 linden to the dollar.  So, I went 1 linden lower at 254 and there is a considerable savings.  See screenshot below.   There are ways to reduce that fee raise but one does need to be realistic when bidding for a LIMIT BUY.  

[Alwin Alcott]

6 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

You can pay via Paypal or Credit Card on Marketplace too.  Upon checkout after getting to the page where you would HIT the BUY NOW button, underneath that reads: (more payment options) click on that and then the options appear where you can enter an alternative payment method there rather than lindens.  

did you have a look at the exchange rate there? .. buying L$ will save you a lot of money ....

[Gwin LeShelle]

Ok maybe I'm weird and maybe this sounds harsh but.. who can afford to buy enough $L, what's not more than virtual play money, to hit the maximum of 14.99 doesn't need to complain about that tiny amount.

Maybe and probably I'm just lucky enough, to earn good money in my RL job and so does my husband. But we also had hard times, during university years and such x3 and I know when I could afford something unnecessary like $L back then for 200 RL dollar than well I wouldn't have complained about 15 extra dollar, even back then. Because let's face it, when 15 dollar on top is way too much for a person, they shouldn't have spent the 200 in the first place anyways.

It's fun and luxury and free time to be in SL, but you don't need any money in SL if you are honest. You CAN use it for free, I did many years as student in the beginning.

Now I'm P+ and even buy $L often, and maybe some day the servers close and yet I still had a nice time here that I will miss but never regret because when you regret things just don't do them. 14.99 bugs you? Well go and buy something nice in RL for your 200$ then and enjoy that instead then ...my inner 5yo can recommend plushies and icecream you never regret those ♪⁠ヽ⁠(⁠･⁠ˇ⁠∀⁠ˇ⁠･⁠ゞ⁠)

And many complain because RL prices went up and such but seem to forget that for LL the prices went up too and they have people to pay, for their employees prices went up too

My husband owns a small business in RL now and I know what a small increase in prices (and it's small for us as individuals) can make for a difference for a company to pay their bills and pay their employees fair money. So I enjoy SL and want then around a little longer, and I am sure as soon as they can afford it, when prices go down much they would also lower fees.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Gwin LeShelle

[Candide LeMay]

LL charges fees at every step of the process. Let's use an example with the exchange rate 250L/1USD for both buying and selling so it's easy math:

1) Person A buys 25000L, pays 110USD (buying fee is 10%)

2) Person A spends all those L$ on marketplace buying from Person B's store

3) Person B receives 22500L (marketplace fee is 10%)

4) Person B sells 22500L on lindex, gets 85.5 USD (selling fee is 5%)

5) Person B cashes out 85.5USD to paypal, receives 81.22USD (cashout fee is 5%, there might be additional paypal fees etc)

 

In summary:

Person A spends 110USD to buy stuff

Person B sells stuff and receives 81.22USD

LL pockets 28.78USD, that's around 26%.

 

You can work a bit smarter and buy/sell at different exchange rates but LL still gets a significant slice of the pie and it's totally legitimate to ask what level of service we get for it.

[Gwin LeShelle]

22 minutes ago, Candide LeMay said:

 but LL still gets a significant slice of the pie and it's totally legitimate to ask what level of service we get for it.

All prices went up, like Netflix, food and ALL.

People here mope so fast I always wonder if you go into a supermarket, wield the butter which is more pricy now and yell "what level of service do I get for it?!" Like automated butter bread robots? That butter your bread slices for you? C'mon let's just be realistic LL is no different from every company and they need to make money, to function. 

And their employees btw need to buy butter too

And while I need butter and bread, I actually don't NEED SL, I want it but really no one NEEDS it. So too expensive? Easy to cut back on it tbh. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Gwin LeShelle

[Alwin Alcott]

21 minutes ago, Candide LeMay said:

LL pockets 28.78USD, that's around 26%..

time after time .. because L$ creation costs nothing, and the L$ keep circulating till they hit a sink. 

[Gwin LeShelle]

2 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

time after time .. because L$ creation costs nothing, and the L$ keep circulating till they hit a sink. 

Yep and that's what SL makes money with, the Linden Dollar. That's what they pay rent, servers, lawyers and employees off. They don't earn money any other way, period.  That's their business model. 🤔

I don't know what the minimum wage in the USA is but 28 dollars from 100 people are probably needed to pay one employee a fair amount of money. So yeah. 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

27 minutes ago, Gwin LeShelle said:

Yep and that's what SL makes money with, the Linden Dollar.

i don't mind they make money this way ..  it's announced for years they wanted to turn to less land based income. 
And we individually can decide if we want to pay a lot, or keep our wallets a bit tighter.

[Gwin LeShelle]

7 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

i don't mind they make money this way ..  it's announced for years they wanted to turn to less land based income. 
And we individually can decide if we want to pay a lot, or keep our wallets a bit tighter.

Indeed. That's what I said above already. We don't need SL to survive so yeah cutting back on it if needed is easy and should be a no-brainer if we need to 😊

[Candide LeMay]

It's easy to cut back yes, but that's also true for the people who create and sell stuff. Some of your favorite creators might/will decide they are not getting enough butter for their efforts and stop. The total amount of butter in SL is not growing, only LL's share of it.

[Gwin LeShelle]

30 minutes ago, Candide LeMay said:

It's easy to cut back yes, but that's also true for the people who create and sell stuff. Some of your favorite creators might/will decide they are not getting enough butter for their efforts and stop. The total amount of butter in SL is not growing, only LL's share of it.

That's how economy works. Everyone needs to decide for themselves, and I really hope that for no one SL is their main household income, because that would be really ...not so clever. And if they decide it's not worth it anymore, well be it. And then maybe LL realizes they earn less if people that sell stuff and pay them percentages leave, and then they'll adjust the fees accordingly...or not. But yes that's economy.

 

And people atm probably buy less in SL, just like in RL, so in reality probably LLs portion of butter is staying the same thank to the adjustment or got smaller too. Because in RL I have to eat and buy food, SL is not needed so that's where people cut back first.

In RL I pay now like about 400 or rough 500 dollars for food alone..per week, there's no internet, tv, Netflix, kids school stuff and fees and so on included just the food. I could totally cut back and buy cheaper stuff, but atm I'm still buying everything we used to buy x3 but it's my decision. Of course it sucks to pay like double or even more for some things now, even here in Japan things got more expensive. But that's what we all have to deal with sadly. I could cut back on some unnecessary things like candy and such but I don't. But I surely won't blame the supermarket for my bill. Because they pay more for the electricity, employees and stuff they sell too so yeah...it's not LL being evil and trying to hurt us, I bet they really didn't made this decision fast because they knew this will be hard on their residents.

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Gwin LeShelle

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

20 hours ago, manekineo said:

Why such a difference between the Exchange Rate sites and the instant official rate of Secondlife?

It's all about time. If people need to sell their L$ instantly, they have to do it at a higher exchange rate. The lower the rate, the longer it takes to sell it all (if at all). That's the biggest factor as to why there are different rates. SL's official rate is higher to guarantee an instant exchange. Time is money. The money will be worth less the longer it does nothing.

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Candide LeMay said:

It's easy to cut back yes, but that's also true for the people who create and sell stuff. Some of your favorite creators might/will decide they are not getting enough butter for their efforts and stop. The total amount of butter in SL is not growing, only LL's share of it.

You mean the ones who have had the amount of butter they have to pay to Linden Lab in "land" costs cut several times?

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

You mean the ones who have had the amount of butter they have to pay to Linden Lab in "land" costs cut several times?

It is definitely hard for me to feel sorry for those who have various "grandfather" benefits who now want to see their fees go down too!

[EliseAnne85]

8 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

did you have a look at the exchange rate there? .. buying L$ will save you a lot of money ....

No, I never have.  I always check out with lindens.  

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

You mean the ones who have had the amount of butter they have to pay to Linden Lab in "land" costs cut several times?

Plus, you don't need to have land to sell in SL.  That is an option and a luxury, not a necessity to sell.  

I have a small skybox-like store - 800 lindens a month, and I sell on MP.  

Look how small some of these "stores" are (aside from Maitreya who also sells clothes and stuff), their store is a small skybox, like Legacy for one.  Legacy has a very tiny "store"; little tiny skybox is more like it.  Legacy's inworld skybox store is way smaller than mine, way smaller.

Edited April 13, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Rowan Amore]

19 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Plus, you don't need to have land to sell in SL.  That is an option and a luxury, not a necessity to sell.  

I have a small skybox-like store - 800 lindens a month, and I sell on MP.  

Look how small some of these "stores" are (aside from Maitreya who also sells clothes and stuff), their store is a small skybox, like Legacy for one.  Legacy has a very tiny "store"; little tiny skybox is more like it.  Legacy's inworld skybox store is way smaller than mine, way smaller.

The Meshbody (Legacy) group actually have 3 full estates that they own so that's a big chuck of money.

[EliseAnne85]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

The Meshbody (Legacy) group actually have 3 full estates that they own so that's a big chuck of money.

Yeah, but I'd assume that's a choice, they don't need it.  They don't have that many items to sell.