December 21st, 2011 | Published in Promotions
Dear Friends,
This holiday season, we’ve doubled your limits, again!
From now until 31 January 2011, purchase limits on all accounts will be doubled so you can easily purchase more discounted virtual currencies for your in-world gift giving needs!
Do let us know if it helps. =)
October 29th, 2011 | Published in Annoucements
Dear users,
We announced yesterday that we are working with IMVU to fix the virtual currency deposit glitch. The service has resumed now and you should be able to deposit IMVU credits into your FMX wallet without any problems.
We will still be monitoring the system however, to ensure that the service does not go down again. Please feel free to start a support ticket at http://help.firstmeta.com/ if you are still having problems depositing credits. We are also still working on replying to the users who have been affected by this glitch.
Your patience and understanding is very much appreciated. Thank you!
October 28th, 2011 | Published in Annoucements
Dear IMVU users,
We are currently experiencing a glitch with our virtual currency deposit function and are working with IMVU to fix this issue. Please hold off on depositing IMVU credits until further notice.
For those who have already deposited IMVU credits but have not received the credits in their FMX wallet, please file a support ticket at http://help.firstmeta.com/ under the category “Virtual Currency Not Received”. Please refrain from starting multiple threads as that will only slow us down. ALL missing deposits will be credited back into your accounts manually.
Thank you!
October 20th, 2011 | Published in Annoucements
Dear all,
Over the next couple of months, we’re on a mission to simplify FMX – to go back to basics, to make it better, more efficient, profitable, and therefore ultimately cheaper and better for all of you.
What this means in action, is that we will be stripping down the number of features on FMX, to focus on a few core features that the vast majority of you guys use, and to do those really, really well. Unfortunately, doing that means that some of our users could get affected in the process. However, we believe that this will ultimately benefit the community as a whole.
Our first “casualty” is Zong mobile payments. While we appreciate that Zong has allowed some of you guys to buy credits via mobile phone, the fees and operational costs associated with Zong payments have become incredibly high. We have therefore decided to terminate Zong from FMX.
If you have previously used Zong and would like to find out how else you can continue to get credits, please feel free to leave us a comment below, let us know which country you’re from and we’ll see if we can help you find the best way to get credits.
We’re looking forward to things to come in the next couple of months, and we hope you are too. 
Aileen
CEO, First Meta
October 18th, 2011 | Published in General
Dear users,
On 14 October, we realized that PayPal has updated their Masspay fee cap. The new fee cap is therefore now in effect on First Meta and will apply to all real currency withdrawals on our platform. Once again, this will only affect sellers and not buyers.
We are still evaluating the results of our Sellers poll to determine if we need to provide an additional cash out method, and hope to have an update for you guys soon. Sellers, if you haven’t already participated in the poll, would be awesome if you could take 3 mins to do so here.
For further information, please visit our previous blog posts:
Should you have further questions about this issue, please feel free to contact us at sellers@firstmeta.com.
Thank you!
October 12th, 2011 | Published in Annoucements
UPDATE (18 Oct 2011): PayPal masspay fee cap updated
—
So we’ve been monitoring the paypal masspay fees over the last couple of days. And the good news is that the fee has not actually been changed, even though the new policy was supposed to be effective 11 Oct.
Yay! 
We’ve decided to switch the fee cap from USD 50 / EUR 40 back to USD 1.00 /EUR 0.85 for now.
However, do note that since the policy is supposed to be effective 11 Oct, paypal has the option to (and will likely) change it without notice at any time. Therefore,
We’ll be sending out refunds on any difference in masspay fees by today.
Sellers, don’t forget to take a minute to tell us which cash-out method would be better for you.
October 10th, 2011 | Published in General
UPDATE 2 (18 Oct 2011): PayPal masspay fee cap updated
UPDATE 1 (12 Oct 2011): Good news! Paypal masspay fee cap not changed yet
–
Dear Sellers,
We’re sorry to break this news to you.
Effective 11 October 2011, PayPal will be increasing Masspay fees..
You can read more about this policy change here.
Please note that:
If you typically withdraw under USD 50 / EUR 42.50, the Masspay fee will be the same.
If you typically withdraw between USD 50 – 2500 / EUR 42.50 – 2000, the fee will be 2%.
If you typically withdraw more than USD 2500 / EUR 2000, the fee will be capped at USD 50 / EUR 40.
Sellers, so we can better address your cash-out needs, do take a minute to participate in this very short poll.
This will not impact you directly. You can buy credits as per normal. The price that you see on the ‘Buy’ page is the price that you pay.
The new policy will take effect Oct 11, 2011. Supposedly.
In some parts of Europe, the policy has been in effect as early as 7 September. However, the fees on European PayPal accounts have not yet been changed till today. Therefore, there is no need to rush to make withdrawals.
There is no way for us to ascertain exactly when PayPal will make the change since they have the right to do so any time after 11 October. Therefore, we will be implementing a masspay fee refund feature:
E.g. You withdraw $204 from your FMX balance.
Masspay fee is expected to be $4.
FM will send you $200 via masspay.
If masspay fee is $1 instead of $4, we will credit $3 back to your FMX account.E.g. You withdraw $5000 from your FMX balance.
Masspay fee is expected to be $50.
FM will send you $4950 via masspay.
If masspay fee is $1 instead of $50, we will credit $49 back to your FMX account.
Masspay fee refunds (if any) will be processed once a day for transactions in the previous day. We will follow up with another announcement when the new fee cap is actually live.
PayPal rolls out their policies to different countries at different times. At this point, the policy has been announced for pretty much all of Asia and Europe, and from our sources, we believe it will be announced for US soon. (You can read the PayPal legal agreements for the various countries here.)
Again, in some European countries, the policy has been effective since 7 September, but the fee has not actually been changed.
Rather than spring a surprise on our users when the fee actually changes, we prefer to address it in advance so you guys have time to make the necessary arrangements you need.
We try as far as possible to keep our fees low and to make our service as affordable to everyone as possible. We have looked and will continue to look into ways to reduce the cash-out fees for sellers.
We investigated incorporating a US company and PayPal account.
After numerous conversations with PayPal, tax attorneys and accountants in the US, we have determined that it is not a feasible option in the near future.
Taxation in the US (>45% for foreign companies) is significantly higher than in Singapore, where we enjoy a very low tax rate. Incorporating in the US also introduces additional costs and operational complexities that could significantly drive up the company’s operating cost, which would then make it difficult for us to keep our fees competitive for you.
Moreover, it is likely that the policy change, even though not yet announced, would also be implemented for US PayPal accounts in the near future, which would then make it even more expensive for sellers.
Thus, we believe that maintaining our PayPal account in Singapore, despite the increase in the Masspay fee cap, would provide the biggest overall benefit to our community.
We are evaluating alternatives to PayPal Masspay and getting sellers feedback on cash-out methods.
We have initiated discussions with several alternative e-wallet services including Moneybookers and Alertpay. We are trying as fast as we can to complete careful evaluation of the services.
Sellers, to help us make a better decision and thus better serve your needs, please do take a minute to fill up this poll.
We are implementing a Masspay fee refund feature.
As mentioned above, we do not want to overcharge, and thus the new Masspay fee refund feature will refund any differences in fees.
We are pre-funding our PayPal account with a higher than usual amount of funds.
As a company, it is not wise for us to keep all our funds in PayPal. We spread our funds out over several accounts, including PayPal, bank accounts etc. to minimize risk. To cope with withdrawals during this period, we have added a higher than usual amount of funds into our PayPal account.
In the rare event that the PayPal account is overdrawn and you do not receive your funds instantly, please do forgive us, and do not panic. First Meta has many times more than all of FMX balances in liquid funds. We guarantee and will honor all withdrawals, even if the transaction might not be processed immediately.
We are working directly with our sellers who withdraw large amounts to try and help them reduce the impact of this change, by offering concessions and alternatives that may be more economical at large volumes.
If you fall into this category, please contact us directly at sellers@firstmeta.com. We would also really appreciate if you could give us your feedback by answering this short survey.
We realize that making this announcement ahead of the fee change actually taking effect may result in a frenzy of withdrawals. i.e. we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.
However, we believe it’s the right thing to do.
I’d like to seek everyone’s cooperation to not panic. We’ve taken every precaution we can and we will honor all withdrawals.
Back in 2007 when there were massive bank runs in Second Life, and subsequently resulted in Linden Lab shutting down the “banks”, First Meta was the only one that did not even experience an abnormal level of withdrawals. We honored every single transaction, and became the only bank that was officially allowed to continue operations.
Lastly, I’d just like to express my heartfelt gratitude to some of our largest sellers partners who have been extremely supportive and understanding.
We will be updating on this issue here on our blog so do check back. Or if you have any questions about the policy, feel free to email us at sellers@firstmeta.com.
Aileen
CEO, First Meta
October 3rd, 2011 | Published in Second Life
Dear Second Life users,
Please note that we will be increasing our Linden Dollar spread from 1% to 2% with effect from 5 October 2011 (PST).
As we grow, we’ve had to incur more expenses in order to keep up with the additional demand. While we will always try our best to absorb additional costs in order to keep our prices low for you, we are certain that this increase in our spread will go a long way in helping us improve our service to you. In addition, even at 2%, you will notice that our spread is lower than the fees on most L$ exchanges.
What does this mean for you?
If you purchase L$ on the Currency Shop (the ‘Buy’ tab), you do not need to do anything. The price quoted is the price that you pay*.
If you sell/trade L$ on the exchange, do note that the spread is added to the final price to buyers, so you may want to adjust your offers accordingly.
In an effort to minimize the impact of the increase on you, all orders (or parts of orders) filled before midnight 5 October 2011, 00:00:00 (PST / SLT) will still be filled at the current spread of 1%. All orders filled after (even if the order is submitted before 5 Oct midnight) will be at the new spread of 2%.
We sincerely appreciate your patience and support as we grow and change. Thank you!
September 16th, 2011 | Published in Annoucements, Second Life
UPDATE: The issue has been fixed and service re-enabled! Thank you for your patience!
Dear FMXers,
We’ve temporarily disabled the withdrawal of Second Life Lindens in order to fix some security issues. This is temporary and will only affect users who are trying to withdraw Second Life Lindens from their FMX wallets. Lindens purchase will still work as usual.
We’re sorry for this inconvenience and hope you’ll be patient with us. Do keep a watch on this space as I will be posting another update once we’ve fixed and re-enabled the withdrawal function.
Thank you!
August 23rd, 2011 | Published in Promotions | 4 Comments
If you haven’t already, please contact Tushar at tushar@firstmeta.com to collect your Paysafecard vouchers! =)
The contest is still on, so for more chances to win, find out how to participate!
Dear users, We announced yesterday that we are working with IMVU to fix the virtual currency deposit glitch. The service has resumed now and you should be able to deposit IMVU credits into your FMX wallet without any problems. We will still be monitoring the system however, to ensure that the service does not go [...]
Dear IMVU users, We are currently experiencing a glitch with our virtual currency deposit function and are working with IMVU to fix this issue. Please hold off on depositing IMVU credits until further notice. For those who have already deposited IMVU credits but have not received the credits in their FMX wallet, please file a support [...]
Dear all, Over the next couple of months, we’re on a mission to simplify FMX – to go back to basics, to make it better, more efficient, profitable, and therefore ultimately cheaper and better for all of you. What this means in action, is that we will be stripping down the number of features on FMX, [...]
Dear users, On 14 October, we realized that PayPal has updated their Masspay fee cap. The new fee cap is therefore now in effect on First Meta and will apply to all real currency withdrawals on our platform. Once again, this will only affect sellers and not buyers. We are still evaluating the results of our [...]
UPDATE (18 Oct 2011): PayPal masspay fee cap updated — So we’ve been monitoring the paypal masspay fees over the last couple of days. And the good news is that the fee has not actually been changed, even though the new policy was supposed to be effective 11 Oct. Yay! We’ve decided to switch the [...]
UPDATE 2 (18 Oct 2011): PayPal masspay fee cap updated UPDATE 1 (12 Oct 2011): Good news! Paypal masspay fee cap not changed yet – Dear Sellers, We’re sorry to break this news to you. Effective 11 October 2011, PayPal will be increasing Masspay fees.. from 2% to a maximum of USD 1 / EUR 0.85 [...]
follow us: RSS Tweet with me