Second Life University 6: Linden Exchange Tips with Spots Linden

On By altathiemenIn Second Life

I’m way behind on writing up the Second Life University videos. Boston, in particular has been very busy. A batch of several tutorials came out just as SL19B was getting going. What can I say? I got distracted.

Tempting as it is to cover the backlog in a single post, the 6th installment here is significantly different from the rest and deserves its own space. This episode is a step aside from the basics like how to manage your inventory and customize your avatar. I think the audience for the this video is much broader than just new Second Life residents.

In this video, Strawberry chats with Spots Linden who heads up the billing support team. The topic is the Linden Dollar Exchange, what it is and how it works. I dare say most of us residents have only interacted with the Exchange through the “Buy L$” button in the viewer or on the web dashboard. Many get by without even doing that. But there’s a lot more to it than that. I’m hardly a newbie and I learned plenty.

As usual with SLU videos, there is a highly detailed table of contents in the description with timestamped links into the video for particular topics. Which include:

What the Linden Dollar Exchange or LindEx is:

  • An open market game token exchange
  • Rates and transactions are resident driven
  • Sources L$ from residents

Ways to purchase L$

  • “Instant” or market buys. This is the “Buy L$” button in the viewer or dashboard, i.e., the way most of us get spending money in Second Life.
    • Limit buy/best rate buy
    • Linden Dollar Exchange settings must be set to Advanced
    • Limit buys allow you set the quantity of L$ to buy and minimum exchange rate you’re willing to accept
    • Buy and sell orders are matched by the Exchange as they come in
    • Can take an arbitrary length of time before a matching order is found (it may never if the price is unrealistic)
    • Open orders may be reviewed to give an idea of the spot price
    • There are other trading data on the dashboard once advanced menu options have been enabled: daily highs, lows, best buy and sell rates etc.
  • This is all getting to be too much like work! (If you’re day job is day trading, this may be for you.)

The flipside, selling L$

  • There are Market and Limit sales options for L$ just as there are for buys
  • As with buys, there are Limit sales
    • Set a minimum exchange rate
    • Specify number of L$
    • The Exchange matches the sell to a buy order as soon as it can

How can I withdraw RL currency from my account?

  • The tool for this is the process credit request (PCR)
  • Prerequisites
    • KYC (Know Your Customer), managed by Tilia, laws & regulations
    • A receiving account
    • Established billing relationship
    • Submit a PCR
  • Transferring to real money requires compliance with laws & regs. That’s where Tilia comes in. You must provide Tilia with the relevant information required for compliance.
  • Receiving account: PayPal or Skrill. Must be added to your billing information settings. (PayPal accounts must be verified.)
  • Established billing relationship
    (If you’ve bought L$ before, you’re already set)
  • There are reasons for all these hurdles. Dealing transferring real life money runs into all kinds of laws and regulations. They must make sure all of them are complied with.

How do you issue a PCR?

  • All the hard work is in getting set up. This part is easy
  • Back to the dashboard
  • Account/Process Credit
  • Select a receiving account! Make sure it looks right!
  • It can take up to five business days to complete

Need support?

  • File the ticket under Billing
  • The more details the better
  • The fastest way is to go to support.secondlife.com or Help/Support History

Any other tips?

  • If something goes wrong, you ordered way more L$ than you intended for example. Touch nothing! Contact support immediately.
  • As in The IT Crowd: “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” That is to say, simple things like logging out and back in, removing a payment method and adding back can fix a surprising number of problems.

Only one question from the YouTube audience: What’s the turn-around time for support?

  • While not giving a precise promise, Spots mentioned that as of even date, his team is managing to respond pretty quickly to most requests.

That was a very busy 23 minutes! As I mentioned at the outset, a lot of this is way beyond newbie stuff. I’m not sure that I’ll use all of this new knowledge, but I’m glad I know.

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