One of the big draws of Second Life is the ability to sell Linden Dollars and withdraw them to Paypal or other means. Some people don’t like the monetary side of Second Life but it is very much a draw. To withdraw your US dollars you go through a process which is called process credit, which is explained here.
Linden Lab aim to process credit within 0 – 5 working days, it has generally been 3 -4 working days in my experience. They note that during holidays and times when volumes are high it could be longer, which is currently where we are on January 12th, a while after the holidays.
A couple of threads have arisen about this, one in the merchants forum: Delay on Cash Out where the OP says:
I wonder how many of us are seeing big delays on cashing out the USD out to Paypal.
From what I hear LL are blaming Paypal for the delay and Paypal say its got nothing to do with them.
At the end of the day (as ALWAYS) we just have to wait on LL. I was just wondering how many are seeing delays and how long we can expect to wait. I have been waiting since 2nd Jan, 2013. Anyone waiting longer?
It would also be nice if Linden Labs actually informed customers of this problem, but that would fall under customer service which LL lack greatly on.
I have no idea what is causing the delay, but there is a delay, although people are managing to process credit, so speculation regarding Linden Lab’s cash flow is certainly wide of the mark and definitely unhelpful.
The other thread I’ve seen on the issue is in the answers section: Why is it taking so long this time to process my credit. It’s been 9 days now. Here the OP asks:
I do thise every week and it usually takes 3 to 5 days to process but it’s been 9 days now and still nothing. I really need that money.
Now in both threads, as I’ve already said, people are reporting success with processing their credit, but it’s a slower process than usual. The real issue here is not so much that processing credit is taking longer than usual, it’s that that Linden Lab are not communicating with their customer base, yet again.
Linden Lab should have made a comment in either, or even both, of those threads explaining that there is a delay in processing credit, that they apologise for the delay and are working hard to clear people’s credit. This really should not be difficult to do, it would not please everyone of course, but it would be acknowledgement of the issue, which in turn gives people a sense of reassurance that there aren’t bigger problems at play, it helps to nip speculation in the bud.
I appreciate that Linden Lab are treading carefully to try and mitigate fraud, people would not be happy if Linden Lab were careless in this area. However people are creatures of habit, if processing credit generally takes 3 – 5 working days people will time their cashing out, and if sensible add in a little buffer, for when they need the money. When there are delays like this, it’s really in Linden Lab’s interest to communicate this, it really shouldn’t be that difficult to do.
There are those who feel Linden Lab’s processing credit process is already too slow, rival cashing out services offer faster cashing out times. I’m not so bothered about that, as long as I have a decent idea of how long it will take I think that’s acceptable and I like the fact that Linden Lab are cautious, but when we have this sort of current situation, communication is King.
Reading the forum posts, I tend to agree with Darrius – the problem is that LL manually process payments at their end.
This, coupled with the Xmas / New Year periods & what appeared to be a somewhat extended Lab shutdown over Xmas (things effectively started winding-down for the break the week prior to Christmas), probably led to an internal processing backlog.
Nevertheless, and assuming this to be the case, it would have been preferable had LL had actually considered this to be the case and pushed out at least an e-mail on the subject to customers, if not a full blog post on the matter specifying what delays might occur and dates on which cash-outs should be processed. For example:
“Cash-out request submitted in the week commencing WW.2012 will be processed week commencing YY.2013; Cash-out requests submitted in the week commencing XX.2012, will be processed in the week commence ZZ.2013”
…or similar. It’s a common practice elsewhere – and part of both good communications and good customer service.
Yup they do seem to do it manually and if that’s how they feel most comfortable, then that’s good. I’m pleased that they take care with these dealings.
The point is really that they don’t communicate, as you highlight, it should not have been that difficult to address this.
In all honesty, this should be a perk for Premium membership. If they added an express lane form of processing credit for members, it’d sell like hot cakes. LL would get money in a reassured fashion, and customers would get their money in an orderly manor that would help in turn pay for the premiumship. Both sides get money with little changes to an already existing system, and both sides rejoice.
Usually it’s only your first payment that gets delayed, that has been my previous experience, surely if a second request matches the same email address for a cash out, the process should be quicker.
I can appreciate that LL need to be careful with this, but yes, a premium perk of faster cash outs would help merchants.
It normally only took 5 days to process the credits but currently I am on my 8th day of waiting.
Its strange Linden Lab charges go through instantly but if you have a credit it takes days to see.
Hi guys
Just wanted to say I sold my first amount of Lindens on 6th of April, they sent me an email that a Processing Credit is completed on 13th of April and I should see founds on my PayPal account. Well it’s 10th day and I still dont see money. Rly frustrating anoying grrrr