This is an odd one. Skrill, an online payment company, released a press release last week : Skrill Connects with Linden Lab to Expand Payment Options for Second Life:
New York, NY – 8 January 2015: Leading digital payments company, Skrill, today announces a collaboration with Linden Lab to integrate the Skrill Digital Wallet as a payment option for users of Second Life, the Internet’s largest user-created virtual world.
I’m not going to copy the whole of the press release, follow the link for the full information, but it does contain a quote from Linden Lab’s CFO, Malcolm Dunne :
At Linden Lab we are constantly looking for new ways to provide exceptional service to our customers. By integrating with Skrill, we’ve expanded the options for Second Life users to process their online payments, which is a critical piece of our product. We’re excited to offer this new functionality, giving our customers anothersecure, quick, and convenient way to participate in the Second Life economy.
The reason this is all a bit odd is that there is no announcement from Linden Lab about this. There may well be many reasons for this, such as Linden Lab haven’t decided on how to intergrate this or that they are waiting for technical solutions to deliver the service.
At this point, some of you may well be wondering what the bloody hell Skrill is? Skrill is an Online payment system and from their about page they tell us :
Our worldwide payment network lets businesses extend their reach globally with over 100 local payment options. We already meet the needs of over 156,000 businesses with everything from a simple one-step integration to a fully-tailored payment solution.
Linden Lab have used payment partners before, in the past they had a deal with Dragonfish for payment processing for Non US customers. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here in terms of what Linden Lab have planned but they will almost certainly be making a deal such as this with one eye on payment options for their next gen virtual world too.
This may mean that more people can pay in their local currency, it may mean something else. We’ll have to await Linden Lab’s announcement, which will surely happen at some point if it means a change in payment options.
Last time Linden Lab did this back in 2011 I ran into lots of problems. ClickandBuy was the provider I had to use. After a couple of monthly payments ClickandBuy suddenly blocked my account. Italian customers were supported by a French rep who spoke poor Italian and was unable to resolve my problem and said I had to contact customer support in UK.
After contacting customer service I was informed that I had to provide a color scanned image of my identity card (in an unrelated email I received at a later time they even asked for a copy of my passport), a copy of my bank statement and a copy of an utility bill. The request was irritating enough but I complied.
Two weeks later, 5 emails with the documents they requested and 2 phone calls and not a single answer on their side I never had my account re-enabled. I was in the position that I risked losing all my land because the provider did not let me pay the tier I regularly paid for years. And to add insult to injury, after a while I started receiving spam on the email account I used with ClickandBuy. Several other people reported the same in the forum.
I hope LL makes a wiser choice in choosing its payment provider this time. Also, I don’t see why LL needs to add another provider to the payment options we have today. If credit cards are not an option for some, PayPal is a good alternative and works quite well.
Well hopefully this time they won’t force people into it. Last time they pushed us in that direction.
There are people for whom Paypal isn’t viable, so from that angle it’s a good move but it should really be about user choice.
As long as they don’t cut off Paypal, if they do, then it is the end of SL for me as i don’t use any other payment method. Im fed up of having to pay 16pct vat already, do me more warm and loose a customer and premium member.
They won’t cut off Paypal. As for your VAT, you’re getting it cheap at 16%!
Ciaran I think this is the reason…
As a Skrill affiliate you get…
Increased revenue share of 25% when you refer 10 or more active players within your first month
A chance to win a €100 reward every month as an active affiliate
LL just became one huge affiliate…. There is a kickback on all transactions
Ah that’s interesting, I never really thought of it as an affiliate relationship due to the way the announcements were handled, but I suppose it actually is and both companies will see this as beneficial.