The Short Life of "Merlyn Bailly"

TIMELINE:

• Sept 2005 -- joined SL as a BASIC account -- discovered freebies, money trees, camping, and started learning to make stuff. I was really overjoyed to find such a cool place -- I wandered around checking out houses, malls, beaches, interesting builds... found out about Project Quickstart, which was interesting for about a month, after which the owner of the land sold the entire place to a guy who wanted to build a mega-casino. Found another plot of land for rent, and was there for about a month (during which I dealt with a pack of jackasses running around in uniforms and packing weapons, all of whom I first banned and then muted permanently), after which the landlord told me he'd sold the land, but bought an island where he'd rent me another plot. The day after I set up my house, and just gotten the decorating finished, I logged on and discovered I'd been evicted without warning (and without the rent I'd paid 2 days earlier). It took a few days to get a refund from THAT asshole.
  
  
• 11 Nov 2005 -- upgraded to a PREMIUM account, in order to buy land for a house/shop, after my 2 bad experiences with SL landlords - paid for a FIRST LAND plot in Clearwing, put a freebie beachhouse on it, then decided to turn it into a shop rather than a residence. The beachhouse took too many prims that I wanted to use for sale items in the shop, so I went to a sandbox and built my own shop shell. I wanted to set up as an interior decorator, and started collecting image files for transfer to SL as sales items:
  • photos & art prints
  • rugs
  • frames
  • mirrors
  • fabrics
  • stained glass
  • wallpapers
  
  
• 31 Dec 2005 -- my roommate wanted to move in with a new girlfriend in DC, so I had to move, and no longer had access to quite such a good computer, so could not access SL, but paid my account for an entire quarter so as to keep my land, with intentions to return and continue building a small business in SL; found a temp place to live for a couple of months
  
  
• 2nd quarterly billing on 11 Feb 2006
  
  
• March 2006 -- moved in with a roommate whose computer allowed me to access SL, but needed a new graphics card and more RAM; low graphics resolution prevented any real activity in-world but I could at least sort log in, check my shop, chat with friends, and sort inventory.
  
  
• The next update, after downloading, just flat refused to load on the computer I currently use, so I cannot now log in to SL at all, even to chat or sort inventory.
  
  
• To try to maintain some connection to SL while trying to save enough to upgrade the computer, I started a website, SECOND LIVING. It began as a "fansite".   I started collecting links so that people would have a place other than the SL website to find other SL-related websites. I added a NEW PRODUCT REVIEW page to enable residents to find good new products (instead of junk).
  
  
• quarterly billing on 11 May 2006
  
  
• I decided in late June/early July that it didn't appear to be worth maintaining my PREMIUM account in order to keep my land, and was thinking about downgrading my account to BASIC. At that time, there was a checkbox on the MY ACCOUNT page which said "RELEASE LAND", after which one would presumably be able to downgrade one's account to BASIC, retaining a free membership.
  
  
• early July -- Decided to finally downgrade my account, and discovered that the "RELEASE LAND" checkbox on the SL website's MY ACCOUNT page had disappeared; now the Linden website insists one must LOG IN to release one's land before downgrading an account to BASIC -- unfortunately, since I cannot log in, I CANNOT RELEASE MY LAND, ERGO THEY ARE FORCING ME TO KEEP PAYING FOR LAND I NO LONGER WANT. I posted a question about it to the SL ANSWERS forum, and Torley "Linden" came back with "well, maybe people just weren't using it" -- a rather lame excuse for eliminating a feature that didn't take up anywhere near the bandwidth as the map on the SL homepage.  In fact, given the number of people who had posted in the Linden forums about their plans to either tier down drastically or downgrade completely from PREMIUM to BASIC, I'd say it was probably getting much more use than the billing department really wanted, and they thought that eliminating the ability to downgrade from the website without logging into SL itself would somehow halt the ever-increasing exodus of their paying user base.
  
  
• 22/23 July -- posted a request to the GENERAL forum about whether or not someone was selling freebies on SLX, and was viciously attacked by a number of the assholes who continually whine in the forums. Since my request was, given previous posts by very well-known designers and builders who had objected to freebie-selling, perfectly reasonable and polite, I did not expect to be attacked so viciously and was at that time suspended for a "personal attack" (in which I called one of the people ATTACKING ME a fuckwit, I believe). I deleted most of my website, putting my links page on another site for my own convenience. I received several requests to reinstate the site (and my NEW PRODUCTS REPORT), and did so.
  
  
• Early August -- At this point, I changed my billing data to monthly status, rather than quarterly (which actually results in LL making MORE money from continuing to bill my debit card -- $28.85 per quarter rather than $22.50).
  
  
• early Aug 2006 -- the Kin Keiko fiasco: which I protested on my site; I removed the official Linden Lab "fansite" screenshots from my website, and all links to the SL website as well, and added a new subtitle to the page, emphasizing that it was a RESIDENT/SUBSCRIBER site, NOT A "FANSITE". I included some passably succinct remarks about the direction that Philip Rosedale was taking SL's development. I then discovered that I could no longer update or access my website -- I believe with the connivance of Philip and his Linden-minions, who did not like my analysis of the Kin Keiko situation or my deductions/opinions regarding his plans for SL.
  
  
• I was notified by email on 17 Aug 2006 that I was suspended for 7 days for "intolerance" due to a remark I made in the GENERAL forum regarding a French griefer (who featured in an account by another resident of said griefer's asinine behavior)... not that suspending me made much difference at the time -- since my roommate's computer won't load the SL client, I still cannot log in even to change the clothes on my avatar. However, since the Linden forums were the only portion of SL that I could effectively participate in, this locked me out of "official" SL completely.
  
  
• The "suspension" of my account was, according to the official Linden email, supposed to end on 24 August -- however, it is now Wednesday, August 30, 2006 -- 04:12:48am, and my account is still on hold. Repeated emails to Linden Lab and Torley "Linden", the completely INTOLERANT forum moderator, have elicited absolutely NO RESPONSE.
  
  
• I finally found an acquaintance whose computer can load the SL client and will allow me to use it to access my account and release my land, but I cannot do so as long as my account is on hold.
  
  Linden Lab is, therefore, committing FRAUD by refusing to restore my account and allow me to downgrade my account IN-WORLD, refusing to allow me to release my land FROM THE WEBSITE and thereby downgrade my account, and refusing to allow me to delete my billing information and THEREBY downgrade my account.
  
  Tuesday, September 12, 2006 -- 15:20pm:

  Account Summary Your current plan: Premium Monthly Your billing rate: US$9.95 Monthly Your current status: On Hold Monday, September 11, 2006 Upgrade/Downgrade your Membership An error occured while processing your request: • You are not allowed to change your plan at this time.