Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Payment Issues

My former credit card expired in September and my bank sent me a new card for the coming three years well before the expiration date.

As the conscientious customer I am I immediately wanted to update my billing information with Linden Lab so that I wouldn't run into any problems with money in-world or tier payments for Southern Charm.

I am experienced in filling out forms of all sorts and foresaw no problems with doing this. It was easy enough to remove the old credit card, but when I got to the point where I wanted to plug in my new card there was no option to do that. The only option that was apparent seemed to be the PayPal. I did not want to use that option as I am at war with PayPal at the moment for their support of certain hate-groups.

Being a Premium Customer in SecondLife, I contacted the live support chat and was soon taken care of by a charming person with an exotic name that I cannot remember. I described my problem to him/her and together we tried to figure out a solution by looking at the form. Neither of us could find an easy or obvious way to add a new credit card to my account.

After a few minutes my support-person came up with the brilliant idea that I should log into SecondLife and try to buy L$ (the currency used in-world). When I followed the advice a form came up that allowed me to submit my new credit card information and get new L$. Mission accomplished both of us thought.

However, a few days later I received an e-mail from Linden Lab informing me with the following content. (Click to enlarge)


The e-mail is very friendly and understanding but obviously the information I had supplied once before was not enough it seems. 

Following the instructions I had soon added the new information and could authorize payment of the  tier I was due the next day. I also got an immediate confirmation that my debt had been payed in full and that my account status should now be active.


For some reason I cannot understand, it appears you must supply the same information for different uses with Linden Lab, one for buying currency in-world and another for paying tier. I don't know yet if Linden Lab needs the same information again for the yearly payment of my Premium Account.

It seems to me that Linden Lab should make it easier for the customers who are willing to pay for their services to do so without having to contact support or getting an e-mail about being late with payment.

P.S. And now I have started thinking I must have done something wrong when I removed the old credit card, but I cannot remember - and if the user makes mistakes wouldn't the payment system make allowances for that and let us easily correct the mistakes we make?

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