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I'd be happy to agree with you guys (you, @southy, @farnox), and you may well be right.
At the same time, as I tried say, there's also the other side: the customer's agreeing to a PayPal subscription, failing to cancel it (possibly after being reminded of it), and finally: the money paid isn't lost and doesn't expire and can be used for new services.
Isn't Paypal the one that needs to be sued?
They should have already implemented some trigger to auto-cancel subscriptions.
I tend to agree with this.
A provider could even be a bit stricter and say something like: "I refund at most once in a case like this. After the first refund request, I don't give refunds."
It is capable and I enabled that feature in WHMCS for about 6 months when it was released however the net result was that about 10 peoples servers got terminated and they lost their data.
They ignored their invoices thinking they had a subscription, what happened was they cancelled a product and their entire subscription was cancelled and the other active ones did not get paid for, it is dangerous.
So from now on my stance is, it is your money, your account, your choice, no one forces you to setup a subscription, you look after it, you accept the consequences if you do not.
I 110% understand it sucks when you realize you just spend money on something you did not intend to pay for, and your first reaction is to look for blame other than yourself, but if you look at it objectively.. you can only blame yourself.
You can't help fools no matter how you help them.
It's always others' fault.
Frankly, that sounds like a design bug of the implementation, but -- yes -- I can see that it wouldn't be straightforward to implement correctly.
While I understand the effort required (and frustrations thereof) of dealing with this kind of situation, I'm still thinking that it is reasonable to say there is a % fee to get a refund due to costs on the provider's side. At least that way I get most of my money to use to buy other idling VPSs now instead of having it locked up for a year or more. After all it is now the era of instant gratification
Isn't this something that can be politely negotiated over a ticket?
Is it just $0.30 the cost to refund?
Can the receiver return ($total - $0.30)?
At what level do you change your opinion on this? when it's 10's of dollars, 1000's, 10's of thousands? Would you still maintain your no refund policy if an ex-client who had spent 10's of thousands with you, sent a one month payment of 10,000 to you erroneously? would you really just say "touch luck, I'm keeping it because you agreed to it in the terms" ?
Are there any mitigating circumstances which you would accept?
Not having a go, far from it, just trying to understand yours and other merchant positions
9 out of 10 times yes, this by the look of it is the other 1
You forgot the part there was no service so there was no invoice (sonid guess no warning as well) which means that what happened to the OP would not fit your scenario.
Within the OP reported experience, I'll find it very odd If PayPal does not side with the OP.
I don't think PayPal cares about providers choosing not to cancel the recurring agreement themselves, specially when billing a service that was in effct canceled prior of the debit.
Already covered that above
and 1 below.
Mom, just do whatever you want. If it's not worth it for you, then don't.
People arguing against you have only one goal in their mind: getting their way.
well that would just mean about 8 reminders instead of 15, how many is enough 100? hehe.
Should and being obligated to, are different things
Specially as PayPal already provided a way for both parties to cancel billing agreements.
I've never received a reminder about an invoice that does not exist. Have you?
So I guess it's not 15, it's not 8, but 0.
From what I understand the customer [OP] did try asking via ticket for a refund for what happened and I'm really at a loss as to why (when there is no malice or abuse or other negative issues involved as in this case) a refund is denied (I'm sure that it would have been easier to just refund rather than go through the hassle of replying to tickets, leaving a bitter taste in everyone's mouth).
But bear in mind that the subscription is an agreement made between PayPal and the customer, not between PayPal and the provider or between the customer and the provider.
I have never set up a paypal subscription when I got no invoice, how about you?
common man, be sensible
Order of things:
Then because you cancel your VPS you dont get another invoice but for some reason you dont cancel your subscription. why?
I just dont believe in a nanny state sorry.
Neither did he, he set it up when he had a service then he canceled the service and forgot to cancel the PayPal subscription., And the provider didnt bother to because he figures that as long as he states that in the TOS that he is safe to collect indue money's.
This is one of those occasions that refund is sensible, and a good business practices. Not refunding looks like a tantrum to me.
I get it that OP should have canceled the PayPal agreement, but the OP was polite on his request and I really don't see the advantage of forcing anyone to have credit in ones service.
Btw, as far as I am aware, PayPal refunds their fee. Am I wrong?
//Want to add that I understand that it sucks of a provider haves to cancel the agreements themselves. It's not that I don't understand the provider. Arghhg now I feel conflicted lol
Edit/ too many typos, I'll blame the phone and ask for sympathy hehehehe
Well, I cant make my point of view or perspective any more clear, I accept some people will not agree, it is what it is.
/thread for me.
At the request of the provider to pay for an active service.
And I'd bet, facilitated by the provider own systems.
Any provider can cancel the agreement, it's not like PayPal will say "oh nooooo that between us and jonhy"
Not sure it's exactly black or white. There are hosts that will use the PayPal API to cancel the subscription when the service is cancelled or suspended. Zero reasons not to automate this. Then, there are other hosts. The question here is not who is at fault, but what is the business accepting the money for in this case? No service is being rendered.
except the specific reasons I already gave.
The most common request I get is "sorry I forgot to cancel the subscription X months ago can I have a refund, I have not used the server, you can check the logs" this is way more common than people requesting a refund for a cancelled service.
This almost always results in an argument, 5 - 10 back and forth in tickets usually followed by 6 months of paypal dispute claims because they did not get their money back so they try and claim the maximum they can back.
I am sure if people read the above they thing "wow, that's not right they did not cancel their subscription and had services even if they did not use them" so I don't see why me saying "HEY I told you this would happen 15 times and then reminded you several more times later" is really looked on as any less of the end users responsibility.
Unfortunately this is not how swedish law works and in fact the term "ond tro" loosely translated to malicious faith was introduced as to counter companies that tried to use this exact "loophole" or a more appropriate term, abuse it.
Again I don't see this ever being ruled in favor of mikho in Sweden.
Anyway, this thread just got trumped, this one is way more fun: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/154070/host4fun-com-terminated-my-account-on-fifth-day-after-invoice-overdue
And lets be honest, the stamps to post the legal claim in would be more than the OP lost I bet, as he sells €3.50 p/year services.
fair enough, but usually all (european) states do exactly this, be a nanny for customers and their mistakes.
and most likely it does not matter how often and how bold you inform people about the need to cancel their subscription. if they pay any kind of money on whatever way by accident to you, I don't think any rule or definition you write or state somewhere, will protect from your legal obligation to refund that money if the customer demands exactly that.
not saying you can't claim damage compensation, but usually courts are very strict on this, fees you'd get covered. 'effort' for reading a ticket and two clicks in a panel? quite certain that's just daily business work and not even close to be considered 'damage'.
as someone already pointed out earlier in this thread (in our nanny states) companies have to take more risks than customers - even financial ones.
it's the same as with Fernabsatzgesetz... if you buy something with a value >40€ and issue a Widerruf you will get your full money back, including shipping costs and even return costs have to be paid by the seller. so the seller will always lose money in this scenario... and here we are debating about refunds for not rendered services? again...
IMO the host should refund them.
Some things that might come out of it:
This is just my perspective as a user, I'd prob have a different perspective if I were a provider (see Anthony's post about about what happens if auto-cancel is enabled in WHMCS)
Can not be the case because: timeline.
1. contract was terminated and ended.
2. automatic paypal payment
3. I opened a ticket, requesting refund (see here)
4. THEN the hoster created an invoice for the amount and manually credited it (apparently because they changed their name recently credits are not processed automatically)
So my intent was totally clear at the time when he processed and chose how to react.
FYI: their T&C are clear on this: http://mrvm.net/policies.html
-> Money flowing in without a contract, will be credited to customer account.
I do not doubt that they have clear policy about this.
Which does not mean that it's legal or reasonable.
Also thanks to you, @AnthonySmith for opposite opinion.
Even though I find it strange that you consider a payment from a customer to be
But back to topic:
Is all of this my fault? Yes, of course! I never indicated anything different!
Yes, a year ago there was plenty of emails around the setup of the subscription.
Yes, I did not pay enough attention once I cancelled.
I never denied that.
But all of your argumentation is pretty self-centered basically saying: "if you're too stupid, then it's your problem" and everything else is "nanny state".
That is - no offense intended - really a bit simplistic.
There is no active service or contract, thus the hoster has not grounds to claim money.
Could the host claim compensation for his work? - Probably.
But should he just be able to keep 100% without ANY service in return?
Come on, that is not about being a nanny, this is to find a fair balance of interests.
But this option is not on the table from provider-side. (in fact, it is mentioned in their T&C in chapter 7; but it is 25 USD witch I do not consider reasonable as the amount in dispute is 31 USD).
This is just why in germany for recurring payments such as phone bills etc. you usually use "direct debit" payments which are maintained by the supplier. Thus very very few errors happen. (combined with a very generous check and disapprove period, this system is known for very little abuse and errors).
I was commenting on the case where a service is already canceled. I completely agree with you on the rest.
@southy just for clarity i am trying to be general on the topic, I don't mean to insult or upset any individuals. this is one of those things where 2 strong opinions exist and I cant say either side is wrong.