Chase Bank denies Visa purchase of L$

Claims Second Life is gambling site

by Surfdaddy Orca

Second Life resident Champion Valiant got a big surprise when he decided to purchase a rather large, undisclosed amount of Linden dollars on August 29th. Much to his chagrin, his transaction did not complete even though it was for an amount below both his daily and monthly purchase limits.

After trying 3-4 times to purchase the Linden dollars, he contacted Linden Lab and was informed that the transaction was submitted correctly from Linden Lab to his bank, Chase Manhattan. Champion decided to wait a couple of days to ensure that the transaction was processed by the bank.

Waiting for two days, Champion could wait no longer. He desperately needed to purchase Lindens in order to meet his monthly Second Life expenses (he is the owner/operator of the hugely popular Diegoland sim). He called the bank to inquire why the transaction did not clear.

He was informed that Chase Manhattan Bank could not approve the transaction because it considered Second Life (SL) to be an Internet gambling site.

After several unsuccessful attempts to convince the bank representative that gambling was in fact banned in SL, he asked to speak to a supervisor and was again denied. He then asked to speak to the supervisor’s supervisor. His persistence paid off when the supervisor’s supervisor finally approved the transfer of funds to handle Champion’s sorely needed purchase of Linden dollars.

This incident, an epilogue to the gambling coverage in the July/August edition of the Sun, raises questions about whether other such denials of credit occurred prior to the Linden Lab announcement of the SL gambling ban on July 26th. As reported by Reuters, the FBI visited casinos in SL at the invitation of Linden Lab as early as April. Were credit card companies starting to balk at SL gambling at such an early date? Were there other cases of fund transfers being withheld? And, to the point, did this ultimately influence Linden Lab’s decision to ban gambling?

The official Linden Lab explanation for the ban was “a variety of conflicting gambling regulations around the world.”Champion’s experience with Chase Manhattan suggests that there may be more to the story.

* * *