Newsflash: Linden Lab Bans its Best Customer!
by Alphaville Herald on 01/04/06 at 8:05 am
In a surprise move, Linden Lab has apparently banned the main account of its best customer, land baron Anshe Chung, after she tried to withdraw more than US$50,000 from one of her Linden accounts and dangled the idea of starting up her own virtual currency to compete with the Linden dollar. The Herald is even now speaking with Anshe’s alt, Anshee Chung, and will bring you more details as they emerge. It seems that a few too many land auctions had put Anshe’s account in arrears as of 29 March. But residents normally get seven days to clear up such arrears, while Anshe was given a day or two only before her account was put “on hold.” One thing is sure: the Anshe Chung account did not appear in the in-game Find interface as this newsbreak went to press. More details as they emerge, readers. It may be April Fool’s Day, but this is no joke.
Bob the Tomato
Apr 1st, 2006
Nice to see her reduced to her rightful level – just another customer, falling foul of exactly the same rules that every one of us is governed by.
There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye – sadly LL’s “Privacy Policy” will most likely mean we get nothing from there side, so Anshe gets the opportunity to rant without any of us knowing the whole story.
Bob
max headroom
Apr 1st, 2006
ooooo….quick, prok, what do YOU think???
Gabe Lippmann
Apr 1st, 2006
Best or Biggest?
Prokofy Neva
Apr 1st, 2006
It appears it is not an April Fool’s joke, but from hearing her side only, it’s true, we don’t have the full picture. Still, there is ample evidence that the Lindens have been gunning for Anshe for a long time because she constitutes a significant competition to them:
o they remove the function of island deeds to be in land-for-sale list just as soon as she opens Dreamland
o they put out too many $1000 sims on the auction, forcing her to bid against baby barons who don’t realize they can’t sell them
o they start reservations auction for your spot on the grid
o they compete with foreign language sim creation
It’s common for the Lindens to absolutely refuse to solve any billing problem by a transfer among accounts. This can be hugely infuriating if you have, say, one alt with his account payable off a debit card or PayPal or something — if it goes beyond 7 days in arrears, you can’t even sell the Lindens off it or use its Lindens and sell them on the Lindex to pay off its balance, and they refuse to shift funds even if you have plenty on another account. They are absolutely non-responsive on all billing issues. I personally have lost literally hundreds of US dollars because they refuse to move unused tier levels from one account to another, or to see logically that an account is not used and the tier should just be moved so as to avoid being whalloped with a bill for it again. Furthermore, just when you try to solve this problem by trying to reopen the account, and get in and move the tier off it, WHAM they suddenly bill not at the usual time of 11:45 pm, but some other way earlier time.
Double-tiering was also a common problem they simply refused to deal with. They’ve made out like bandits on this very common error where people would attempt to make groups, get error messages that there wasn’t enough “land credits” or tier in the group, think they’d lose their land if they didn’t put it in, click “yes” to the messages given on the website and find they were double-billed for the exact same piece of land, once when it was in sole ownership and then again when it was accepted into the group.
So I can say from repeated experience that the Concierge and the billing people just completely, flatly, full-out refuse to pay the slightest attention to requests. Not even tiering down and closing an account gets their attention — they just don’t care. Their default is: “There’s always another guy to buy the island.”
Normally they only close accounts after 7 days if in arrears. If they closed it after one day, they are overriding their own system manually. They told Anshe in person that she had a 1 pm deadline before closure with hardly any notice, and refused to accept the credit of one account to handle the debit of another (that’s the idiocy of their system, which they keep up, because they wish to keep up the fiction of alts being not one person but different members of a family or something).
I’m thinking there is an unseemly connection between the announcement of a separate fiat currency to compete with the Linden, and this “billing problem”.
It’s also true that Linden Lab may have met payroll on March 31, and had nothing left in the till to cash out Anshe on April 1 with such a big-ticket item, and they are just stalling til they can sell some stock Monday. I can see that Jeska will have to take in ironing and Philip had better go work the swing shift at the Home Depot to make ends meet. That’s what many others do to feed their game : )
Marsellus Wallace
Apr 1st, 2006
All I have to say is I warned her. Hey Anshe, remember that conversation me and you had that I warned you not to cross me? Anyway… Maybe this will teach you a lil customer service skills. hahahaha
Marsellus Wallace
Boss/Founder, The Sim Mafia
http://www.thesimmafia.com
Denise Domela
Apr 1st, 2006
I’m laughing at this cuz it is a fact LL does not resolve or look into any billing dispute whatsoever, even when provided with written documentation, bank statements you name it i tried it all to prove to LL they were paid in a billing dispute i had with them back in december, the end result was i lost my main account and was told there was nothing i could do about it, and mine was just $30.00USD lol.
Don’t get me started on the double tier shit too, thats another nice lil glitch LL has for themselves. I’ve been charged double tier more than once in the past as well and never has LL resolved those issues or even attempted too.
Marsellus Wallace
Apr 3rd, 2006
I had a billing issue once. Had no problem getting it resolved. Of course it took me e-mailing certain people at LL to get it resolved. I will say they are slow as hell about billing though.
Hey Denise, your phone workin?
Marsellus Wallace
Boss, The Sim Mafia
http://www.thesimmafia.com
Paris Vieria
Apr 7th, 2007
I have somewhat the same problem with linden.
I bought 250.000 lindens,(not from linden) and right after they transferred it to me after my payment my account is disabled.
For more then a month now. I phoned, emailed and all i get is. Ur account is under investigation.
Can they do this just like that. I dont think so.
They stole my money. And i will sew them if they dont give back my money.
The account they can keep, but my money.
Paris.
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