Dialing for L$s
by Alphaville Herald on 26/09/07 at 10:47 pm
Buy L$s without a credit card or PayPal – use your phone
by Jessica Holyoke
While investigating the current Euro to Linden trade rates in light of the decline of the US dollar, I found an operation called Telelinden. A resident makes a phone call to a German number, costing 1 Euro if you are under Deutsche Telekom and you get paid 200 linden dollars in your avatar account. Ibizia bank is selling $315L per Euro, and the pure exchange rate is $378L per Euro.
The stated advantage of buying Lindens through Telelinden is that you do not need a credit card or PayPal. A resident makes a phone call and pays for the Lindens through his phone company.
Commissions are also available if a terminal is placed at your location, with commissions paid out based on how many times an avatar uses Telelinden if they first use the terminal on your land. So if Johnny Avatar first uses Telelinden on your land, you receive a commission for each time Johnny Avatar uses Telelinden, no matter which ATM he uses.
Telelinden is the product of in-world professionals, the most successful Web 3.D designers in Europe according to their web page found at www.inworldprofessionals.com. Lislo Mensing owns both inworldprofessionals and Telelinden.
G Wendt
Sep 26th, 2007
Pretty cool idea, somewhat unfortunate that billing things over the phone hasn’t caught on here in the states yet as much as in Europe. I hope that eventually a company does something like this catering to US as well as other country’s residents.
shockwave yareach
Sep 27th, 2007
What a terrible exchange rate. If you bought it straight, you’d have 378L for your Euro. Using this, you get 200L. So 47% of your money dissappeared, presumably as a commission to telelinden. It’s a great idea in theory but they are taking way too much of the users’ money for what little service they provide. Nobody is going to call and call and call again to get the funds necessary for a silk outfit or some furniture.
Now if they offered different amounts put in at a straight 325L/euro conversion via the keypad (press 1 for 325L, press 2 for 1625L, press 3 for 3250L, etc) then it would be much more useful and people would transfer more. A 1625L purchase (5euro) would net the operator a 265L profit for that one call instead of 178L. 1US$ profit, just like that.
Lislo Mensing
Sep 29th, 2007
Thanks for covering our service that is well received in Germany. And, you know, the Germans are everywhere
@G Wendt, I admit the rate is terrible but most of the money is lost at the telephone company and, yes, VAT (19%). It is a secret that I share because it keeps competitors away: From 100 Eurocents we get about 61. We pay 200 L$, that is about 53-55 cent. We give away about 3 cent in commition to our affiliates (10L$). That leaves about 4-6 cent with us. Not much, eh?
But believe it or not, German people really love this service. There are people how did call 760 times in a row.
Check out our website: http://www.telelinden.de/en/partner.htm and our blog at http://telelinden.blogspot.com/ (see stats tag)