Provider taking PayPal payment for cancelled service?

rustelekom

@jenkki said:

@rustelekom said: Many data centers require subscriptions. That's because they didn't need a one-time customer.

Let the client decide what to do with their money. Pawning your finances is not the best idea, since naturally the other side will always try to take them at any opportunity under the pretext that he himself left them to the seller.

Of course, it's always better if you ask me, but some companies think otherwise.

Advin

PayPal Subscriptions are dumb, and I find it weird when hosting providers don't refund these accidental payments as long as the request for refund is made within a reasonable timeframe. If someone accidentally paid me with a PayPal subscription for an already cancelled service, I would (and have in the past) refunded them.

I've stopped accepting PayPal Subscriptions as a payment method now, recurring payments are either only done through Stripe or done through PayPal Billing Agreements. Both methods of payment allow me to bill clients flexible amounts on flexible dates, meaning that there are no accidental payments & clients don't get charged when a service is cancelled.

The only issue is that if you're a small hosting provider, it's hard to get accepted for PayPal Billing Agreements as PayPal requires you to be transacting over $5k+/mo (number changes depending on the PayPal support representative that you ask).

I also accept PayPal one time and Stripe one time payments (through Stripe Checkout) for folks who don't like automatic payments.

Maounique

@Advin said: I would (and have in the past) refunded them

The problem is that those will keep coming and you would have to keep refunding because the customer does not bother to cancel. This creates costs with the fees and handling. It is NOT the right way to do it.
We have also disabled subscription in the UK branch, but kept in Italy as an option, not default, people can click separate option with "subscribe".
Still there are many issues with that, even as we clearly write in red and bold font in the cancelling email that they have to cancel the subscription, people fail to do that. Also, even more often, they get the invoice, forget they have a subscription, pay manually then open ticket we charged them twice, some even chargeback if they paid with the card or even with paypal call us thieves and get aggravated their service has been terminated as a result of the chargeback, threats with police, courts, collectors, etc.

And what about price changes?
Yeah subscription sucks.

rustelekom

Subscription itself is a popular trend - even car manufacturers (e.g. BMW) or software vendors (e.g. Microsoft) are starting to use it.

But the PayPal subscription processing method is too ancient and inconvenient. The customer must manage their PayPal subscription in their PayPal account. This is the main problem.
The client should have a simple and clear way to enable/disable the subscription only in the client panel of their provider without additional actions in PayPal.

In Russia, we have several PayPal analogues - QIWI, YooMoney, as well as direct bank cards - and all systems require separate subscription confirmation by customer (via SMS or push code). To cancel the subscription, the client can simply delete the subscription from his personal account at any time without any additional actions.

But, to tell the truth, even with a convenient way to enable/disable subscriptions, some customers become enraged when they discover that money has been withdrawn from their purse/card. I think because they are from a group of customers who push all the buttons during the order without reading what it means.