My Affair with Billing Support: Confession Time

[Willow Danube]

I've been issues with my billing account for more than a month now. I've submitted a ticket and I've been transferred from Scout to Billing Support with a new Incident number but they weren't able to solve my issue. The last person who responded to me informed that my case has been transferred to another department and I will be contacted within 5 working days. That was about 3 weeks ago.

I submitted another ticket a week ago and I was replied by a Linden to refer to the person who last contacted me and she was referring to my first submitted ticket which by the way, was "Closed" by them. I replied to her that my case has been submitted to Billing Support with a new Incident number. She never replied back and my newly submitted case was erased from my history. Nice going...

Well now... I have just realised, on top of not being able to use my credit card (which was working fine and dandy for the past 2 years.. I've also used the same Credit Card as PayPal for my other accounts) and not being able to use PayPal, I have not been receiving my weekly stipends since my last submitted ticket. My premium account is still active for another 7 months or so...

I've done almost everything I can... Revised my paypal, create an alt with the same payment, revised my account details... I even got my poor old man (he is less than 60 :matte-motes-big-grin:) to create his own account with his credit card but he was having the same issue himself. I do not have any other credit card and I do not live in the U.S of A, so I can't maximised the use of PayPal. Worst of all, I think my dad (who loves me unconditionally) may be thinking that I'm nuts for getting sand in my knickers because I was not able to waste my money in SL.

I did resubmitted another ticket today. That Linden girl will not be happy.. now.

Another problem is, in 6 days, if my issue is not solved... I will definitely have to abandon ALL my parcels that I've put up so much of money in it. I've already done half of it a few weeks ago because I couldn't generate enough lindens in my account to convert to USD. Now, I won't be able to generate any cash at all.

I don't want to start creating things so I can sell it in Marketplace. You all don't need extra crap in there especially from me. I just enjoy building stuff... and I enjoy SL in general. But it seems like my only option now is to start becoming a ... MERCHANT!!... Have you seen any *happy* merchants in this forum? Which is kinda ironic, I guess, because disposable RL income is not an issue here. Disposing it in Second Life, is the issue. 

So, now... to get my freak on... I've gone to another virtual world (no.. not *that* world) to start a new life... make them a little richer... using the same Credit Card that LL had rejected. At least I'm happy and content for the time being.. But I still want my stipends back in SL... and I still want my Billing Account solved... with the same and the only credit card I have.

I'm wondering if this is happening with other people as well?

[Willow Danube]

What friggin happened? I was going to reply to Randall's post..

It was out of topic and I'm pretty sure he had a different agenda if not sentiments about my OP (or myself, personally), but he made some good "bottom line" points that I would love to disagree with.

Anyways... bygone...

[Qie Niangao]

I couldn't really follow all the detailed history, but bottom-line:  Are you sure it's LL rejecting the banks's credit card, and not the bank rejecting charges from LL?

[Willow Danube]

Yep! I called the bank and insist on speaking with a person who works in the fraud/security department. They confirmed with me that they have not blocked LL/SL or Global Collect from making transactions with their bank. Furthermore, whenever I removed and re-registered the same credit card to my account, it will deduct 1USD from my CC. That should tell me that LL or the Bank accepted my Credit Card/transaction. Problem happens when I tried to buy some lindens. And as I stated above, I don't even receive my weekly stipends anymore when I paid for a full year premium. My premium is still active.

 

ETA: Does anyone knows which Linden is in charge of the Billing department? I'd like to post in their Feed. Otherwise,I'll have to "trend" my issue in my own feed to get my message across.

[Qie Niangao]

Oh.  Yeah, that US$1 transaction was what I thought might be blocked by the bank, but if that's going through, then there's certainly something screwed-up with your SL account.

I asked because a year or so ago I had extraordinarily good support from Billing, after I decided to simply ignore what regular Support was telling me to do, and instead call Billing directly.  Indeed, they're very likely the only reason I'm still in SL, after some dreadfully confused treatment by first line support.  Of course, YMMV, and "my" Billing support guy may not even work there anymore.

[Thinkerer Melville]

This is probably not relevant, but here is a bit of advice that solved a credit card problem for somebody else:

If you are doing business with Linden Lab and run into problems, first be sure that you are accessing the site via the current standard LL viewer.

There have been problems with entries from various browsers (possibly due to keystroke interpretation).

TKR 

[Willow Danube]

I appreciate your help, Think... I have been a faithful user of LL's Viewer and yes it exist in V3 too.

I had a chat with my neighbour in-world and he thinks that it might have been the issue of my IP and I might end up having to use a new credit card from another bank. I think this is too much of a hassle to go through just so I could keep my land in SL. Someone had insisted to cover for my tier at least for another month but with all that anxiety I had gone through... I have no desire to keep my land any longer.

Now if only they could pay me back my stipends...

[Sigren Panthar]

My advice - bearing in mind you are no stranger to LL, and are well aware of their ....*coughs*....customer ambivalence - is to send a message right to the top...

Companies hate that, be they RL or LL, and I sincerely believe old 'Bumble' does not have a clue just how much his ship is sinking; I suspect he is surrounded by 'yes' men and the only posts he seems to have responded to swarm, as ever, with the ubiquitous LL apologists and shills.

Try and contact him every which way, at least once a day.  He is doubtless still languishing in the belief the grid is super efficient and the shills in the forums speak for everyone, so give him some food for thought and maybe even a little indigestion. 

Going through standard LL channels is an exercise in futility, as LL is such a catastrophe as far as paying customers go. 

No CEO would be happy at the experience you relate in your OP, let us hope Bumble may yet pick up the ball.

Good Luck 

 

[Rihanna Irata]

if you need money for your parcels, why dont you use the alternative exchange services? I have forgotten the names for them but you can buy lindens from them.

[Demonizer Extraordinaire]

while it has been a while since this post, but

i understand the principle of the thing 

but if she is now in anther world and not continuing in sl

why does she need the stipends???

Also if she is from anther country and linden labs is not fullfilling its requirements, ie fraud

http://www.fbi.gov/contact-us  the web can be an intersting equalizer.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

Demonizer Extraordinaire wrote:

while it has been a while since this post, but

i understand the principle of the thing 

but if she is now in anther world and not continuing in sl

why does she need the stipends???

Also if she is from anther country and linden labs is not fullfilling its requirements, ie fraud

http://www.fbi.gov/contact-us

  the web can be an intersting equalizer.

---

I'll be gentle, but don't be surprised if you see some vultures descend here soon. You said, '...a while since this post..."? In Forum time, that's a massive understatement. Even a couple of months after a thread has gone quiet it's unusual to see a post. After a year and half? I'm afraid you've necro-posted. Rather severely.

Also, I have it on quite good authority that the OP has in fact NOT entirely abandoned SL, even if she did find other ways to occupy her time. That quite good authority would be my virtual eyes and ears; I saw her and chatted briefly with her inworld a few weeks ago, so her stipends might well come in handy.

I don't know if she got her billing issue fixed (although I am going to guess that she did). If you'll notice, the OP post date preceeds the recent flap regarding TPE's and possible fraud/money laundering by well over a year.

 

ETA quoted post