Rude Idiots at Linden Lab
After I had a phone number to call, I reached Linden Lab’s customer support staff four times, and each time they hung up on me.
The first time I called Linden Lab, I spoke with a male support person who would only give me his first name, Jake. He told me that I had committed fraud against Linden Lab by stopping payment on the disputed charge, and then hung up on me when I asked to speak with his supervisor.
It is not fraud to dispute a charge on your Visa card. If my bank representative could have reached Linden Lab, there could have been a settlement on the disputed charge, and they could possibly even have charged Yaelle’s credit card for the disputed amount. At no point have I ever had intent of defrauding Linden Lab, only of removing this charge on my card. But Jake’s rude customer support was even more tragic for Linden Lab than just causing the permanent loss of one of their long-term customers. Jake pointed out to me how to rip off Linden Lab if that was my intent. The result of Jake’s stupidity is that Linden Lab will now need to defend against this kind of fraud in perpetuity.
The second time I called back the same phone number, I spoke with a woman who again would only give me her first name, Micki. I gave her my name and told her why I had stopped my payment to Linden Lab. I told her that I wanted to talk with her supervisor to resolve this matter, at which point she, like Jake, hung up on me. When I called back the same number for the third time, I was instantly disconnected, and any additional calls from my home phone line to this customer support number were blocked. Being rude is apparently the standard procedure for Linden Lab’s customer support.
After I tried calling Linden Lab several more times on my home phone, getting disconnected each time, I called them on my cell phone and spoke with this same woman, Micki. She told me that I needed to supply my original dispute number with Linden Lab. I told her that it would take me a moment to look this up in my email; however she told me she couldn’t wait for this, and hung up on me again. Linden Lab effectively has no customer support. If one customer support representative hangs up on a customer, this suggests an incompetent employee. If two customer support representatives hang up on a customer, this suggests a culture of rudeness supported by the management of the company.
A few minutes later, after I found the information: Linden Lab dispute: Abuse: E:7820 P:1 for the original fraud, and Linden Lab secondary report: Abuse: E:10009 P:1 for Yaelle’s defamatory claims. I called back Linden Lab, and again reached Micki. The fact that I got so few people when I called back Linden Lab’s customer support suggests that despite the company’s annual estimated income of $55 million dollars, they have very few employees. They also have no one answering their main phone number, and no one that my bank representative could reach.
Providing these dispute numbers to Micki, I asked how I could get Dante Portland reactivated. She said that I could have my bank pay the disputed amount. I asked Micki if I did have my bank pay this disputed amount, could I then call back and have my account reactivated. Micki told me that this was not something that she was capable of doing. I asked if I could talk with someone who could assure me that Dante Portland would be reactivated if I paid the disputed balance, and Micki told me that she could not. I asked Micki what I should do. Micki told me that I should create a new avatar so I could log back into Second Life. Naturally, without the assurance that I would have Dante Portland reactivated, there is no way I would have the disputed charge reversed.
Micki’s suggestion tells me that Linden Lab is not actually opposed to me using Second Life after I disputed the charge, but that their decision to deactivate Dante Portland was punitive. What Linden Lab wanted to do was to cost me the hundreds of dollars that I had spent on Dante Portland over the three years that I used him and ideally spend that money again on a new avatar. What Linden Lab wanted to cost me was the status of having an avatar with a last name Portland, as all new avatars now just have the last name Resident. And what Linden Lab wanted to do was separate me from the extensive online community that I had built. Linden Lab was not actually interested in having me stop using Second Life, they just wanted me to start again and continue spending money.
I did register another avatar and try to use Second Life again, but my trust in Linden Lab was permanently ruined. My new avatar looked crummy and I was never going to spend another nickel in Second Life to improve my look, now knowing that it could all be taken away from me at any time on the whim of Linden Lab. I did contact a few people who I knew who welcomed me back warmly, but most other people wouldn’t talk with me because I had such a young avatar. The spell was broken and I will never put the time and energy into Second Life that I did to create Dante Portland.