Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Subscribers: Cancel Your Subscriptions (Sort of...)
Posted by Jason Dunn in "UPDATE" @ 09:36 AM
A little over a year ago when we first launched the subscriber services, I had the option to set it up as a one-time billing or an auto-recurring charge. I dislike how I have to renew my Maximum PC magazine subscription every year, and often I miss an issue because the processing time is so long. At any rate, I thought that doing the same thing with the Pocket PC Thoughts subscription would be a good thing, but it turns out it wasn't. Because of a breakdown in our email system, subscribers aren't being notified that they're going to be billed again via PayPal. And because of the way PayPal works, I neither have the ability to check which people are going to be re-billed, nor do I have the ability to cancel the auto-renew. 2checkout, our credit card processing company, at least sends out messages telling customers they're going to be billed, but it doesn't give the customer a way to cancel the transaction - they have to file an "issue" with 2checkout, then I have to go in and cancel it. 8O Worse yet, our system for activating subscriptions only works well when the person is paying - the renewals really complicate things. This whole thing has given me a headache, and I'm trying to sort it all out.
So here's what I'm asking all subscribers who paid via PayPal to do: log into your PayPal account, then click on the MY ACCOUNT > HISTORY tab, then do a SHOW: SUBSCRIPTIONS. You may need to adjust the date to show you all of 2003 - the goal here is for you to find your Pocket PC Thoughts subscription, which will show up as being from Thoughts Media. What you want to do is click on the DETAILS of the subscription, then CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION down at the bottom. This will have no impact on your actual subscription to the site. The only thing this will do is stop you from being billed automatically again. When you want to renew your subscription, you'll do so by paying for it again.
If you paid for your subscription via credit card, I'm in the process of going through and cancelling all the 2checkout recurring orders - I should have this complete within the hour. You should receive an email from 2chekcout indicating that the recurring charge has been cancelled, but remember this doesn't impact your actual subscription on our site. To prevent any further recurring subscriptions from being set up, I've temporarily broken the 2checkout links - we'll be transitioning them over to non-recurring charges.
There are still a few people who paid from a recurring charge that I still have to process (both PayPal and 2checkout), so I'll get those in order today. If you're having any subscription issues by tomorrow, drop me an email (subscriber@) and I'll look into it. Thanks for your patience - once we get this straightened out, our next focus is the subscriber benefits page, the PDAmill codes, and all that jazz.
UPDATE: This includes you lifetime subscribers who paid via PayPal. PayPal has a bug with their subscriptions that I believe will try to bill you again for the lifetime subscription. Everyone who subscribed via PayPal should be cancelling the PayPal portion of their subscription to ensure that the auto-renew will not occur. Thanks!
UPDATE #2: If, when you're looking at the PayPal subscription details, you don't see a CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION button, that means that you aren't set up to auto-renew and you have nothing to worry about (most of you lifetime subscription people will be in this groups). My apologies for this being so confusing. :?
So here's what I'm asking all subscribers who paid via PayPal to do: log into your PayPal account, then click on the MY ACCOUNT > HISTORY tab, then do a SHOW: SUBSCRIPTIONS. You may need to adjust the date to show you all of 2003 - the goal here is for you to find your Pocket PC Thoughts subscription, which will show up as being from Thoughts Media. What you want to do is click on the DETAILS of the subscription, then CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION down at the bottom. This will have no impact on your actual subscription to the site. The only thing this will do is stop you from being billed automatically again. When you want to renew your subscription, you'll do so by paying for it again.
If you paid for your subscription via credit card, I'm in the process of going through and cancelling all the 2checkout recurring orders - I should have this complete within the hour. You should receive an email from 2chekcout indicating that the recurring charge has been cancelled, but remember this doesn't impact your actual subscription on our site. To prevent any further recurring subscriptions from being set up, I've temporarily broken the 2checkout links - we'll be transitioning them over to non-recurring charges.
There are still a few people who paid from a recurring charge that I still have to process (both PayPal and 2checkout), so I'll get those in order today. If you're having any subscription issues by tomorrow, drop me an email (subscriber@) and I'll look into it. Thanks for your patience - once we get this straightened out, our next focus is the subscriber benefits page, the PDAmill codes, and all that jazz.
UPDATE: This includes you lifetime subscribers who paid via PayPal. PayPal has a bug with their subscriptions that I believe will try to bill you again for the lifetime subscription. Everyone who subscribed via PayPal should be cancelling the PayPal portion of their subscription to ensure that the auto-renew will not occur. Thanks!
UPDATE #2: If, when you're looking at the PayPal subscription details, you don't see a CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION button, that means that you aren't set up to auto-renew and you have nothing to worry about (most of you lifetime subscription people will be in this groups). My apologies for this being so confusing. :?
