Eye on the Blog “On the Road to Local Payments”

In March 28, questions were raised about Linden Lab’s “Local Payment” system. Bugs were preventing some European residents from making their payments, putting their premium status, and their sims, at risk of cancellation. About a month later on April 29th, Linden Lab finally admitted there was a problem. F J Linden posted the following:

We recently began beta testing a new system that enables our international customers to use local currencies and other local payment methods when purchasing Linden dollars and conducting other financial transactions with Linden Lab. ... Based on our beta testing to date, we’ve learned a lot and discovered a few issues that we want to change and improve. So, I wanted to share our progress and what to expect as we roll this capability out to all international users later this year.

F J Linden assured that these “recent billing issues” would not affect their account status, and the Local Payments system would be accessible “in all supported viewers.” He also acknowledged a “need to make the Local Payments system easier to use:”

On the usability side, we have beta tested local payments with new and current international customers and we’ve found we need some additional usability work to ensure that purchasing Linden dollars (and other transactions) is an easier, intuitive experience. While we are doing that, we will not add any new or current Residents to the beta system instead they will stay on the standard payments system. But if you have already been using the local payments beta version, then you will continue to do so while we continue getting ready for a wider roll out.


F J Linden stated they would be ready to open the system for more International residents in “late July.”


In the forum thread, most of the responses were favorable, though one lady wished her country’s money was on the list of those the Local Payment system could handle.

For the blog post in it’s entirely, Go Here.

For the forum thread, Click Here.