LL Causing it's own biling issues to increase revenue?

[Clint Maggs]

  LL insists that I downgraded my account after the billing date.  I tried to sell off my mainland till the last few minutes, so I knew what time it was.  No wonder people are leaving SL like crazy.

Chat Started: 07-18-2011 19:57:45
Chat Log:
CoriR Scout: Thank you for contacting Linden Lab Support. My name is Cori. Please be patient with me as I may be handling multiple chats. How can I assist you today?
You: Hello Cori, I have a billing issue I hope can be fixed this afternoon.  I canceled my premium membership along with getting rid of any mainland holdings.  On the 15th of this month I was charged for both land tiers and premium fees.  I understand how your land teir billing works but I should not have been charged for the premium dues.  This charge on my account was $22.50.
CoriR Scout: Hi Clint. I'm sorry to hear that you were charged when you expected to be downgraded. Let me pull up your account.
You: Thank you
CoriR Scout: I'll need to verify some information with you first. Can you tell me what city you were born in?
You: Madison
CoriR Scout: Thanks. What's your date of birth?
You: 11-16-73
CoriR Scout: Thanks. How many L$ do you have right now?
You: L$ 9,736
You: and USD $.04
CoriR Scout: Thanks. :) I'm reviewing your account right now, just a moment.
You: My account summery also states I will owe treirs on Aug 15th is is false
You: tiers*
CoriR Scout: Thanks for your patience. I don't see that you had successfully downgraded your account prior to July 16th. Your account is currently in downgrade status and will downgrade on October 15th. As you had group donations during the current mainland billing cycle, you will be billed for tier on August 15th - mainland is always billed for the previous 30 days of holdings.
You: I did downgrade before the 16th.  I held off till the last 10 minutes in hope of selling my mainland, which did not happen
You: So I need to have it adjusted so that I am not charged again for teirs and also my premium fees returned plus late fee
CoriR Scout: According to the information on your account, you initiated the downgrade just after midnight SLT on July 16th. Your account had already been processed for your subscription which was due and billed on July 15th.
You: SLT in the viewer stated 23:55 when I downgraded
CoriR Scout: I'm sorry, but your account shows that the downgrade occurred after you were billed and at 00:02 on July 16th. Your account will downgrade normally in October and you are responsible for your current mainland usage for this billing cycle which will be billed on August 15th.
You: Those records must be wrong.  The time in the viewer stated 23:55
CoriR Scout: If you would like to dispute them, then please file a ticket.
You: But my account should show currenty that I do not hold any land
CoriR Scout: That is correct, at this moment, you do not hold land. However, you have held land during this billing cycle and your current peak usage is 2,536 which will bill you for $15 on August 15th.
You: the amount due to me is 23.00 due to being two days late calulateed at $.25 per day
You: I can file a ticket but in past experience, these are not seen the same day and more late charges my occur
CoriR Scout: Late charges? We do not assess late charges.
You: We do here.  My account was deducted 22.50 wich roughly comes out to .25 per day
You: When my funds are returned, LL wil have made interest on money held from me. 
CoriR Scout: To request a refund of the charges that were billed, you will need to submit a ticket.
You: ok, thanks
 

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Clint Maggs wrote:

  LL insists that I downgraded my account after the billing date.  I tried to sell off my mainland till the last few minutes, so I knew what time it was.  No wonder people are leaving SL like crazy.

Chat Started: 07-18-2011 19:57:45

Chat Log:

CoriR Scout: Thank you for contacting Linden Lab Support. My name is Cori. Please be patient with me as I may be handling multiple chats. How can I assist you today?

You: Hello Cori, I have a billing issue I hope can be fixed this afternoon.  I canceled my premium membership along with getting rid of any mainland holdings.  On the 15th of this month I was charged for both land tiers and premium fees.  I understand how your land teir billing works but I should not have been charged for the premium dues.  This charge on my account was $22.50.

CoriR Scout: Hi Clint. I'm sorry to hear that you were charged when you expected to be downgraded. Let me pull up your account.

You: Thank you

CoriR Scout: I'll need to verify some information with you first. Can you tell me what city you were born in?

You: Madison

CoriR Scout: Thanks. What's your date of birth?

You: 11-16-73

CoriR Scout: Thanks. How many L$ do you have right now?

You: L$ 9,736

You: and USD $.04

CoriR Scout: Thanks.

I'm reviewing your account right now, just a moment.

You: My account summery also states I will owe treirs on Aug 15th is is false

You: tiers*

CoriR Scout: Thanks for your patience. I don't see that you had successfully downgraded your account prior to July 16th. Your account is currently in downgrade status and will downgrade on October 15th. As you had group donations during the current mainland billing cycle, you will be billed for tier on August 15th - mainland is always billed for the previous 30 days of holdings.

You: I did downgrade before the 16th.  I held off till the last 10 minutes in hope of selling my mainland, which did not happen

You: So I need to have it adjusted so that I am not charged again for teirs and also my premium fees returned plus late fee

CoriR Scout: According to the information on your account, you initiated the downgrade just after midnight SLT on July 16th. Your account had already been processed for your subscription which was due and billed on July 15th.

You: SLT in the viewer stated 23:55 when I downgraded

CoriR Scout: I'm sorry, but your account shows that the downgrade occurred after you were billed and at 00:02 on July 16th. Your account will downgrade normally in October and you are responsible for your current mainland usage for this billing cycle which will be billed on August 15th.

You: Those records must be wrong.  The time in the viewer stated 23:55

CoriR Scout: If you would like to dispute them, then please file a ticket.

You: But my account should show currenty that I do not hold any land

CoriR Scout: That is correct, at this moment, you do not hold land. However, you have held land during this billing cycle and your current peak usage is 2,536 which will bill you for $15 on August 15th.

You: the amount due to me is 23.00 due to being two days late calulateed at $.25 per day

You: I can file a ticket but in past experience, these are not seen the same day and more late charges my occur

CoriR Scout: Late charges? We do not assess late charges.

You: We do here.  My account was deducted 22.50 wich roughly comes out to .25 per day

You: When my funds are returned, LL wil have made interest on money held from me. 

CoriR Scout: To request a refund of the charges that were billed, you will need to submit a ticket.

You: ok, thanks

 

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Really? You like included your personal info and everything and then like waited till the last second and then asked for a refund. Awesome.

[Clint Maggs]

Yes, like I did like wait till like the last minute.   Not like I was going to abandon all my holdings days beforehand.  I ended up at .2L/meter and then abandoned it.  If it was 30 minutes or 30 seconds, doesn't matter.

As far as personal info, my date of birth and born in location?  Nobody rally cares.  Residents inworld know how I am IRL anyways. 

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Clint Maggs wrote:

Yes, like I did like wait till like the last minute.   Not like I was going to abandon all my holdings days beforehand.  I ended up at .2L/meter and then abandoned it.  If it was 30 minutes or 30 seconds, doesn't matter.

As far as personal info, my date of birth and born in location?  Nobody rally cares.  Residents inworld know how I am IRL anyways. 

 

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Cool!

[Peggy Paperdoll]

The mistake I believe you made was using the viewer time.  That time is keyed off your computer's time, not LL's servers.  I believe if you will check you'll find your computer time is 5 mins slow (or there abouts).  LL uses their server time for all transactions, not what your viewer states (which could be anything).

[Clint Maggs]

  If that is the case and viewer time is pulled from the operating system, I would have to say LL's server was out of time sync.   This PC and the rest here pull time updates from the server here which gets it's time from   time.nist.gov .    Just checked server logs here and this PC was not updated on the 15th which means the time I see now is correct.   

  So just have to wait to see what the person reading my ticket will do.  In hindsignt, I suppose cutting it that close was not the best thing to do but I did did'nt take in account for LL's server time to be off.  Live and learn or I'll get my refund but as a general rule of CS, they should see I was not trying to cheat the system.

 

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Clint Maggs wrote:

  If that is the case and viewer time is pulled from the operating system, I would have to say LL's server was out of time sync.   This PC and the rest here pull time updates from the server here which gets it's time from   time.nist.gov .    Just checked server logs here and this PC was not updated on the 15th which means the time I see now is correct.   

  So just have to wait to see what the person reading my ticket will do.  In hindsignt, I suppose cutting it that close was not the best thing to do but I did did'nt take in account for LL's server time to be off.  Live and learn or I'll get my refund but as a general rule of CS, they should see I was not trying to cheat the system.

 

 

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At the very end of your live chat they said, we don't asses late charges, and you said, we do here. Ha! That's spectacular. I am certain they will never even dream of thinking you might have been trying to pull one over on them. Good for you!

[Clint Maggs]

All you can do is ask.  A few months ago, they messed up when repairing my inventory and after I asked, they gave me 3k for my troubles.  You don't get anything if you don't ask.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Really? Wow. That's a neat story. I am glad they were able to do something about recouping you for your loss, that was cool of them.

[Clint Maggs]

Well, I really wasn't expecting to get anything for my troubles but I asked and I guess she felt bad for me.  And for this situation, it's only $22.50 but hey.... every dollar helps now days.   I went from noob to having a couple sims, downgrading to some mainland, and now I'm basicaly homeless.   I'm co-owner of a club that rents on a private sim but times are tough and not enough time nor money for all the extras.   I used to be a regular on these forums but just no time and it got to be a joke really with all the bickering between everybody.  Questions and Answers became Questions and Bitching. 

[Dresden Ceriano]

I remember you Clint, you might want to give the forum another shot. A lot less bickering these days now that we have some moderation. Some might say too much moderation, which I would have agreed with at the start of the new system, but it's toned down a lot.

As for your situation, it may very well be that your downgrade request was delayed at some point going through the system. You were cutting it a bit close. Still I hope you get it resolved to your satisfaction.

...Dres

 

[Maryanne Solo]

If i had a mixing console like the one in your profile I wouldnt be playing much of SL

[Magnus Brody]

Although I'm not going to attempt to claim that I can explain the time difference between your computer and the Lab's computer, I have been fascinated by how much difference there can be, from a few seconds to several minutes, in the time between countries.

For many years, I used several computers which synchronised time with the server based in the US, which MS applies as the standard time server in Windows.  Once I joined SL, I always thought, being in the UK, in GMT or zero Universal Standard Time, I was exactly eight hours ahead of PST or Second Life Time, but no.

When I first noticed there was a time variance of between 20 seconds and 3 minutes, and not an exact 8 hours, was when I was given one of those radio-controlled clocks which receives a signal, from the UK time laboratory based in Rugby, once every day.  At about 1:15am, the 3 hands of the clock whizz around to exactly 12, then about a minute later, the red seconds hand starts moving again.  The hour and minute (or second hand, which is always confusing because it doesn't do seconds: I was the kid at school who asked why it was named wrongly) hand then move until they reach about 1:17am.

Now, as I have often been at my computer when the clock starts whizzing round, I started looking to see if my computer clock was exactly matched to the radio controlled clock and it never was.  Even if I reset the time on my computer, calling on the US server to resynchronise, there would still be a difference and the difference varied every day.

This prompted me to find a UK based time server, and I found one run by Manchester University: ntp2d.mcc.ac.uk

Once I synchronised with this UK server, rather than the Windows default US server, the clock and my comp were exactly matched.

I found it interesting that, not only were the UK and the US not exactly (to the hour) time matched, but that the difference would vary by as much as plus/minus 3 minutes.

Apparently, it's not good enough to rely on the very reliable oscillations of the caesium atom, all sorts of adjustments have to be made for things like gravity (!), temperature, altitude and so on.

Before I bore everyone to tears, those who are a little fascinated, as I am, with what "time" really means, like for example, a second is faster in orbit (because of the difference in gravity) and caused chaos with early satellites, can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time and here, where you find out it requires algorithms and all sorts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_synchronization

What really got me started was a trip on Concorde, in my teens, which, because it could cross the Atlantic in about 3 and a half hours, I arrived in New York one and a half hours before I left London.  It was great to have a full English breakfast on the plane and arrive in time to have another huge breakfast for lunch, uhm breakfast, in New York.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Fascinating. I always found it interesting when persons wanted to know the exact time. The exact time according to which time keeping device/method/theory/belief?

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Fascinating. I always found it interesting when persons wanted to know the exact time. The exact time according to which time keeping device/method/theory/belief?

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time is relative to you.

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

I know, right?

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

I know, right?

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sorry but from your previous post it didnt appear like you did.

just trying to help...

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[Charolotte Caxton]

Oh no, not at all. I understood you were further adding to the discussion of time. I was agreeing with you. I apologise if I made it seem like I wasn't. I was saying, yes, it is relative, right? When we are speaking about time of course when I ask someone, what time are we meeting for dinner? It is understood that we will be agreeing on the current local time. Then there are those that are obsessive on having every single clock in their space synchronized down to the last millisecond. Then of course we have cultural differences, belief differences, geological differences, etc. So yes, time is indeed relative and quite fascinating, right? I thought it was even more interesting when factors like gravity, orbit and such were added to the consideration of time. I never even considered anything like that! It's amazing how much time affects us in ways we didnt even realize.

[Dogboat Taurog]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Oh no, not at all. I understood you were further adding to the discussion of time. I was agreeing with you. I apologise if I made it seem like I wasn't. I was saying, yes, it is relative, right? When we are speaking about time of course when I ask someone, what time are we meeting for dinner? It is understood that we will be agreeing on the current local time. Then there are those that are obsessive on having every single clock in their space synchronized down to the last millisecond. Then of course we have cultural differences, belief differences, geological differences, etc. So yes, time is indeed relative and quite fascinating, right? I thought it was even more interesting when factors like gravity, orbit and such were added to the consideration of time. I never even considered anything like that! It's amazing how much time affects us in ways we didnt even realize.

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erm, right.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Lol, I know, right? It's crazy

[Ayrea]

I agree that LL should go good on this deal, as even the support were able to see you only went 2 min over into the new cycle. I also see it as a foolish thing to do on your part, if the money ment that much to you, why on earth would you let the clock get so close? Let this be a life lesson to you, luckly it was only 20 bucks.

[Clint Maggs]

    I may pop in here now and then but honestly I just don't have as much free time anymore, hence my unloading of all my land.  

   As for the forums, I agree that moderation can be a bad thing.  I deal with a forum for my part time job and thinking by removing certain comments your doing a favor but it end up looking more like favoritism or just wanting to block the negative comment. 

 

Thanks for remembering me

Clint