2013 BIZ: Are Linden dollars just play money?

Are Linden dollars just play money?
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Yes and no.  You can buy Linden dollars with real dollars.  And you can exchange Linden dollars for real dollars.  To see the approximate buy price, click on the BUY L$ button at the top right of your screen.
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Click on the screenshot to enlarge
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Standard viewer screen, right side

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Viewer 2.6, Main ScreenRight, Side

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You will get an offer to sell you some amount of Lindens for a specified price in dollars (or possibly in your local currency).   You can cancel the transaction.  The exchange rate fluctuates, but is about 260 Lindens for a dollar (USD).  It will be higher on the buy side (when you are the buyer)   Of course, you can only buy Lindens if you have set up a way of paying for them.  Normally, this is with a credit card or with Paypal. 

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You can also sell Linden dollars, but this is more complicated.  Here is information on that:

Lindens to cash. Here is how to sell Lindens

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Cautions 

You may see offers to sell you Lindens at a low price.  These appear occasionally as multiple postings (spam) in the forums.  Some of these may be legitimate, but they look suspicious to me.  I always wonder if I could find them next week.  I have heard of lots of scams from things like this, where people paid for Lindens and got nothing.  Then they could not contact the people to complain or ask for a refund. 
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On a few occasions, people using these source have gotten into trouble because there was some illegal activity involved, such as stolen Lindens or money-laundering.
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The only safe way to buy Lindens, as far as I know, is directly from Linden Labs, through your account with  them.  

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Don't accumulate a large number of Lindens under the assumption that you can convert Lindens into dollars. Test the entire route by making a small conversion.  

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