6 days and counting for PayPal $75 cash out from Second Life

Last week I mentioned being puzzled that I tried my first cash out from Second Life since being a resident December 2005 and wondered why it was taking a couple days? It seems clear that Linden Lab moderates payments to residents, even very small payments like $75 USD. I’d heard stories from other residents that it was slow getting money out of Linden Lab but here it is six days and the $75 USD payment still says “In Progress.” WTF?

You might note from the screenshot that the pending cash out is actually $74 USD. That’s because Linden Lab charges $1.00 for the privilege of cashing out the money. After PayPal fees, the amount actually received will be less.

My tolerance for Second Life issues, delays and problems has reached an all time low. I’m not just “playing” in there, I’m also trying to run a business. Yesterday was the worst day ever trying to teleport and experiencing client crashes and grid slowwwww down. Is this what people trying to visit my store inside Second Life are facing?

I gave up trying after the fifth or sixth login. I’m clearly not alone as fellow VTOR author Darius wrote earlier today in Second life client instabilities keep coming and coming.

Back to the money. If it’s a deposit into Second Life only or primarily — and that’s sure how it seems to me at this point — that even makes it more like a game than a business to me. I’ve already got my dice IP up for sale and if/when that goes and if these issues continue I might not be far behind it. I don’t understand delays taking $75. It’s not like I need the money or anything, it was done as a test mostly and so I’d see how the process went. I could have transferred more than $75, but I was curious how long it would take.

Also, why are they charging a $1 USD processing fee when it takes this long to process the money? They should be paying residents a fee if it takes longer than 72 hours. What about interest on the money? Yeah, that’s not a very valid complaint with $75 USD, but what if it was $7,500?

I figured a couple days tops and the money would be in our business PayPal account. My faith in Linden Lab continues to deteriorate.

On January 23, Zee Linden wrote:

Of the people who have processed LindeX credits, ~94% used Paypal. More than half would like to have a SecondLife branded debit card. That’s good feedback, we’ll work on setting that up. I understand that it may take a while to get a bank on board with it, I wouldn’t expect it before midyear.

If a Second Life branded debit card would eliminate this strange delay in cash outs, it would be welcomed, even if I don’t use it again for another 15+ months.

I didn’t think this would be a full week, and hope that later today it’s processed. Tomorrow shortly after 2pm PST it will be a week. How long is this going to take? Who is handling the cash out process, Rip Van Winkle? Barney Fife?

Just signed the Project Open Letter (thanks Darius) as #909 which covers issues such as: inventory loss, friends list related problems, grid stability and performance, build tool problems, transaction problems (!!!) and more.