AyelaNewLife

For what it's worth, as a new resident not yet ready to commit to a proper house or flat I wouldn't have looked inside the renting section of the forums. Something like this seems perfect for me, so thank you for offering your service.

I think gating this through paypal is a better long-term solution for self control, as I only use it for minor purchases anyway. Thanks. I'd just like to confirm what Ethan said, for the sake of anyone reading this in the future - my limit did get increased to $100 per 24 hours and per 30 day period, although for me it was after 48 hours from my first transaction. Problem solved! Thanks all for your help.

Thank you both for your detailed answers. I knew about the fraud protection reasons and the need to prevent money laundering, but I hadn't considered the new player protection angle, so thank you for that extra insight - I completely agree with it. If I am honest, I am considering asking if my limit could be lowered once the $1999 monthly limit kicks in, purely as a safeguard against rash over-spending. For my avatar, I drew together a preliminary wish-list budget that came to the equivalent of $70. Partly through my own culling and with the advice of multiple experienced residents I halved that without any drop-off in quality; which unfortunately was still slightly over the limit. My avatar is still functional (and gorgeous), so I don't regret the purchase. At the same time, I don't imagine that most newcomers will spreadsheet out their entire planned avatar spending before buying a single L$, so I know that my experience was not typical. The exact wording used by the customer service rep I spoke to implied that there could be steps between $30 and $1999 that will kick in during that first 30 days, but if that's not the case then I'll just need to be patient. Not necessarily a bad thing.

As a quick summary of my situation; I am a new player who has been here for around two weeks, and yesterday I took the plunge and bought L$ to buy myself a mesh avatar. I'd researched it in advance and I had a budget planned out, to keep my spending reasonable and controlled. I go to purchase L$ and I find that there is a $30 per rolling 30 days spending limit on my account, as I have no transaction history with LL; almost enough for the avatar I had planned, but missing a component and I only have the one fitmesh outfit so far. I tried filing a petition to have my limit increased to $50, as that still abides by the spirit if not the letter of the initial limits, but that was declined. Of greater concern is the fact that the customer service rep openly admitted that they did not have access to the rate at which my transaction limit would increase, other than the fact that it would reach $1999 after 30 days. I don't want to spend $2000, I want to spend $20, but I have no idea if I need to wait the full 30 days or if there will be a more gradual increase, and if so what timeline that follows - the implication from their words was that it would be gradual. Does anyone have any clue at all as to how and when my transaction limit will increase? I am fairly confident that the next step up is all I will need in the medium term, so simply knowing if I have to wait two days, seven or fifteen would be a great answer. Thanks in advance. Editing in the answer for future readers: after 48 hours my 24 hour and 30 day limits were both increased from $30 to $100.