Linden Lab Official:Billing FAQ

General billing issues

I can't update my payment information

Residents occasionally have trouble getting their billing agreements to update properly. This usually has something to do with the bank or card issuer.

If you're having trouble getting a billing agreement to update:

Try another card.
Wait a little while. It sometimes takes as much as 15 minutes (or as long as 30) to get approval back from your payment processor.
Contact the card's issuer and verify that charges from Linden Lab are allowed.
Contact us through the Support Portal or give the Billing team a call; to find out how, read the following Knowledge Base article: Linden Lab Official:Contacting Linden Lab Billing.

Have you had the problem described below?

Your credit card keeps failing. You've checked to insure the following information:

Your card number is correct
The CVV code entered is correct
The card is not expired
You're not at your limit
You've also called your bank and they say your card is fine

But you still can't update your billing information successfully.

What's the matter?

Linden Lab processes credit card charges using two processors:

A domestic (U.S.-based) processor
An internationally-based processor for our residents overseas

Some credit card companies default to automatically decline or hold for review international charges (or "online gaming" charges) as a safeguard against fraud. If you are located in the U.S., please try to delete and re-enter your payment method. This should make it go through the domestic processor, which diminishes the chances of your financial institution putting a hold on the transaction.

To check or correct this on your card, please contact your bank or credit card company. Ask to speak to someone in the Risk department and advise them that you wish to approve charges from Linden Research. Some companies' standard customer service departments may not have access to this information; their Risk departments should.

Once these holds are removed, you'll need to enter your credit card information into Update Billing Info in your Dashboard (shown by clicking Account on the left) on the Second Life website once more. You should receive the message "Your information has been successfully updated".

If you receive an error message instead, please contact Linden Lab's Billing Support through the Support Portal.

I'm having trouble paying—what's going to happen?

We attempt to bill your account for seven days from the first date of the billing failure (this is an automated process). If, at the end of that seven-day period, we're still unable to bill the balance due, we put your account on hold for an additional 30 days. During that 30-day timeframe, you can go to your account page and update your credit card information and manually push the charge through to immediately reactivate your account.

At any time, you can change your account status to Basic to keep it available to you at no charge. Please note that if you owned land, those charges are billed in arrears, so there may be one more payment due before fees cease to be incurred. All land owned and all land tier donations must be cleared to avoid additional fees.

I paid US$ for something, but it's not showing up yet

There are a few things related to Second Life that you need to pay for using US$. These things include:

When you've bought these items, you should be able to use them more or less instantly.

When something like your land fees are due, the charge is applied to your account. It may show as a negative balance until the next day, because the system hasn't processed it yet. In most cases, the charge is applied overnight in the form of payment on file.

If you're having problems that seem to indicate the system doesn't realize that you've paid for something, you should file a support ticket.

I get a "Not Authorized" message when entering billing information

The institution issuing the card you're trying to use has rejected the attempt to set up a payment agreement. You should contact the card's issuer to resolve this problem.

Why was I charged $1.00 on my credit card?

This is not an actual charge, but an authorization that we request from your credit card company.

Once the authorization is received, which confirms the account is valid, we then rescind the authorization.

At no time is the US$1.00 actually charged, though the authorization may appear on a credit card statement as such.

American Express

If you're an American Express customer, be happy: American Express is pretty vigilant about guarding your money.

If you're planning to purchase land or L$ through Linden Lab with an American Express card, you should first call American Express and authorize an open billing agreement with Linden Lab. Once American Express has enabled it, you should be able to use your American Express card to buy land or L$.

Why was I billed an additional transaction fee?

When payments are settled in a currency not native to your payment method, your bank may charge what is commonly called a "foreign transaction fee." This fee is not generated or collected by Linden Lab, and we can't control or cancel it.

If you're in the United States and are being charged the foreign transaction fee on your current credit card, you should try deleting and re-entering your current payment method at https://secondlife.com/account/billing.php. This process should stop the foreign transaction fees in most cases; if they continue, you should contact your financial institution to learn the details of your personal situation.

PayPal

How do I setup payment with PayPal?

Follow these steps:

Log in to your PayPal account.
Click the My Account tab.
Click the Profile subtab.
Under the Financial Information section, click My preapproved payments.
If you have any existing billing agreements with Linden Research, select and cancel them.
Go back to the Profile subtab again.
Under the Account Information section, update your information where needed (your PayPal agreement may silently fail if your Second Life account lacks a billing address and email).

Then create the PayPal agreement with Linden Lab.

You must have funds available in your Primary funding source (PayPal balance) for any purchase to go through. If you do not have enough funds in your Primary, the remaining balance will be drawn from your Secondary funding source (bank account or credit card).

Note: Regarding PayPal passwords and security: The page where you log into PayPal is a PayPal page. We do not receive this information; PayPal does.

Why is PayPal payment failing?

The cause may be the default monthly maximum limit of US$250.00 set by PayPal. To change it:

Log into Paypal.
Click the My Account tab.
Click the Profile subtab.
Under the Financial Information section, click Recurring payments dashboard.
Click My preapproved payments page link.
Click Linden Research from the Merchant list.
In the Bill Term section, click Edit Billing Limit.
Enter the total maximum dollar value you want to set.
Click Save.

LindeX™ Exchange

I bought Linden Dollars (L$) but my balance hasn't updated

If you bought Linden Dollars (L$) through the LindeX, they should show up in your balance more or less instantly. So if they don't appear instantly (or after a reasonable wait time), something may be wrong.

As a first step, you may want to check the Second Life Blog to see if we're already aware of the problem and working to fix it. Chances are good that if it's something that affects a large number of Residents, we're already on it.

If it looks like a problem that only affects you, then open a support case.

I was not charged what expected when I bought Linden Dollars (L$)

The rates quoted on the LindeX are approximate estimates, and not a guarantee of an exact transaction amount.

When a market order is placed, the order is filled with the lowest-priced L$ available at the time the order is placed. The market is very active, so an order seen as available might be gone by the time you place a new order.

If you'd like to purchase L$ at a specific price, consider placing a limit order.

I can't buy anything on the LindeX because of billing and trading limits; what do I do?

See Billing and Trading Limits to check your limits and ensure that your difficulties are actually related to your billing and trading limits. Your level will be highlighted if you're logged in.

If this does appear to be the difficulty, you may request a review of your account to increase your limits by submitting a ticket.

Premium account holders select:

Billing and L$ ticket type
LindeX Tier Review billing type

Basic account holders select:

Special Questions - Basic account or Guest Login ticket type
LindeX Tier Review

We'll review your request and get back to you within five business days.

I can't tell how many L$ I have; it just says "Loading"

Don't panic! If you just logged in and your L$ amount, shown in the upper-right corner of the screen, says "Loading", it just means your L$ balance hasn't been loaded yet and will eventually appear. Sometimes, this is due to server issues, when we're experiencing heavy load and the data can't be retrieved quickly.

Remember, while you wait inworld, you can also check your Linden Dollar balance on the Your Account section of our website.

Note: This is different from your balance unexpectedly appearing as "L$0", which does in fact mean that all your L$ are gone. To prevent such an unfortunate incident from happening, please familiarize yourself with our Terms of Service and don't share your account.

Tips

If you have waited five full minutes and your L$ balance still reads as "Loading", you can try the following tricks to try to force your balance to appear:

Try teleporting to another Region.
Try logging out of Second Life, and then log back in, preferably in a different Region. Giving the viewer a second chance to load your information often resolves the problem.
Ask a friend to pay you L$1. If you're really nice, give it back afterward!
Try bulk uploading a single image, sound, or animation. Make sure only to try to upload one item! Each attempt costs you L$10.

Obviously we don't expect you to spend large sums of Linden dollars in order to find out how many you have; if your problem persists, you should file a help ticket via our Support Portal.

Is it possible to view transactions older than 30 days?

It is not currently possible to view Linden dollar (L$) transactions older than 30 days. You can download all transactions in the past 30 days as an Excel spreadsheet for later reference. To download your transaction history:

Go to https://secondlife.com/account/transactions.php
In the From field, choose the earliest possible date
Click the download button
Save the .xls file to your hard drive