On Monday, March 6th, Linden Lab has published a blog post on faster credit processing and pay-out, together with changes to fee structure for processing credit and paying real money to users’ PayPal and Skrill accounts, and on the fees charged for purchasing L$ on the LindeX. both of these fee changes coming into effect as from Tuesday, April 5th, 2016.
This is an important notification, and one which should be read in full. However, the core changes the Lab are making are quoted below:
Faster Credit Processing
We’re happy to announce that we will significantly improve how quickly we’re able to process a majority of credit requests.
Based on current data, we estimate that the upgrades we’ve made will allow approximately 75% of process credit requests to be completed within 2 business days.
For a minority of requests, the process may still take 5 business days. Because we’re dealing with sending real money to users around the world, we may require additional information and perform other processes that could impact the time needed. A good rule of thumb is that the better we know you as a customer, the more likely it is we’ll be able to quickly process your credit requests.
Changes to the Fee Structure
In addition to taking time, processing credit and paying real money to users’ PayPal and Skrill accounts incurs costs to Linden Lab. Each transaction actually costs us more than the $1 (USD) fee we have been charging. To address that and in light of the significant investments we’ve made to improve the related systems and processes, we will be making some adjustments to the fee structure, beginning next month.
As of April 5, 2016, instead of charging a flat fee of $1 (USD) per transaction, we will charge a fee of 1.5% of the transaction value, with a minimum fee of $3 (USD) and a maximum of $15 (USD). Additionally, the fee for purchasing L$ on the LindeX will increase 10¢, from $0.30 (USD) to $0.40 (USD) per transaction.
Compliance and improved processing has been one of the core focus areas for Linden Lab over the course of that past 12+ months. Work which has involved, among other things, the formation of a subsidiary company, and which is intended to support both Second Life and Project Sansar. As such, the post from the Lab would seem to indicate the major part of this effort is now complete, and that, as promised through various discussions such as Lab Chat, users will be able to enjoy faster payouts, albeit it with increased fees.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
You are writing “slightly increased fees”. They are increased from 1 USD to something in between 3 and 15 USD. That is an increase of between 300% and 1500%. I wouldn’t really call that slightly. Consider that there are significant transaction fees when using LindeX as well. The money that goes to my PayPal account first has to be bought by another resident, who pays LindeX fees. That resident then buys one of my products at marketplace, from which LL takes a big cut. When I exchange that Linden Dollar for USD, I pay a LindeX fee and on top of that the increased cash out fee. They state that they are very profitable and at the same time charge us more and more money. Maybe they should finally consider that it is time to lower the ridiculously high land costs or the grid will collabse soon. I am on an estate with 40 sims. 70% of the land is empty and for sale. I don’t know how my landlord can affort that. I suppose at least he gets a big discount from LL already.
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Actually, my apologies. I’m not sure what happened there, but the last sentence was supposed to read, “albeit with increased fees”. As it was, I mangled it to “albeit as slightly increased”, which actually doesn’t make sense. Now corrected.
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Do these fees apply to all transactions, such as the marketplace? Am I reading this correctly in saying that if i were to buy an item that is 500ls on the marketplace and use either paypal or skrill I will be charged an additional 3 dollars for that transaction?
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The fee changes are in respect of cashing out L$ balances for actual currency.
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Ok thanks Inara! After reading and doing some calculations it would better for a person to just cash out once or twice a month, if cashing out more and meeting the $15 dollar threshold they could be on the hook for alot of fees.
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s of April 5, 2016, instead of charging a flat fee of $1 (USD) per transaction, we will charge a fee of 1.5% of the transaction value, with a minimum fee of $3 (USD) and a maximum of $15 (USD). Additionally, the fee for purchasing L$ on the LindeX will increase 10¢, from $0.30 (USD) to $0.40 (USD) per transaction. [unquote]
So , I buy 5 USD of Lindens and pay 3 USD and 0.4 cents ? Nuts to this .
I guess, Ebbe spent too much on his stupid idea headset engineering team and needs to cover the salary cash outlay STAT. [ “Stupid” IMO this is a tiny part of customers , most of us are in RL most of the time]
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No, the only fee charged for BUYING $L is the $0.40. The other fees are for transactions going the other way…selling $L and transferring the $USD proceeds back to your PayPal account.
Still, buying just $5 worth of $L is not your best move. The $.40 transaction fee is too large a percentage…almost 10% of your purchase! I would never buy less than $20 worth of $L at a time.
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well … pretty discouraging to say the least …. and aggressive. Time to go through the pro and con list again for how realistic it is to keep a presence in Second Life. I’ve never understood the LL business plan with all the failed attempts to branch out into new areas then gouge those who like myself decided …for better or worse .. to stick with it (Second Life) …just one more time
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sorry…I meant to clarify in my response above that I do have to cash out our visitor donations regularly to try and keep up with the already costly monthly LL fees for our 10 regions of Calas Galadhon Park. An additional $3 to $15 for each of those cash outs is considerable.
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