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AFAIK, paypal does have a "cancel subscription" option in their API. I have no idea why WHMCS isn't automatically cancelling subscriptions when someone cancels their service.
Same boat as so many, nobody has a clue why WHMCS does some of the things it does.
Until they do, feel free to use the addon.
Are you all drunk? @kuJoe just gave the code to do that.
Edit: Yeah...
As someone who had recurring charges after canceling due to not knowing how Paypal subscriptions worked, I can easily see how people can be confused and frustrated by it. I canceled a hosting account, received an email notification of a new charge, assumed that I canceled it right on the billing cycle, and got another notification a month later. I contacted the host and asked why I was still being charged after canceling. He was fairly terse and said that I didn't cancel my Paypal subscription.
I went and canceled it on Paypal and asked if he could refund the amount (around $20) as none of the details about signing up or canceling mentioned anything about how a Paypal subscription functioned and that I would be responsible for stopping it. He said that it was my fault and refused to refund. I said that I would accept a refund of half the balance as it was my fault for not canceling but his fault for not putting any details about needing to cancel the subscription. He refused to do this as well and suggested that I use the credit to get additional hosting from him. This upset me enough to cause me to create my first and only Paypal dispute. Paypal was unsympathetic in my claim and refused the dispute.
To me, as a customer, this was just a crap situation. In no way did Paypal try to educate me about how this "feature" of theirs worked. In no way did the provider try to educate me about how the recurring payment would be my responsibility. And in the end, I gave this guy an extra $20 for nothing.
I can see how this can be a very frustrating problem for providers, but from a customer perspective, I know first-hand how confusing it can be.
I think the primary issue is that the entire Paypal feature is extremely user-unfriendly both from a customer and merchant perspective. Why would anyone want to keep sending money somewhere when they aren't getting the services any longer? And why would someone want to keep receiving money when they aren't providing anything any longer? Of course, I'm sure that some people like it as they get free money, but why should Paypal encourage jerks that want to just skim money off of accounts due to a misunderstanding? The whole design simply doesn't make any sense.
Plus, why does Paypal have to make it so hard from a UX perspective to find these subscriptions? If you asked me where to put such a section, I would say that it should be prominently displayed on the My Account Overview page and should have a top-level nav entry so the discoverability is high. Making a user go to My Account, Profile, My Money, and click the "Update" link in the "My Approved Payments" section to find these subscriptions is just a pain in the ass. It's like they don't want people to find the details so they squirreled it away where no one would be likely to find it.
As a customer, if you are able to automatically cancel my subscription for me when I cancel my account/service, I would be very happy if you would do so. To me, it simply doesn't make any sense to leave it active.
I wonder if people would have the same attitude if you substituted paypal with 'My Bank' as a provider I can honestly say is amazes me that people do not look after their own bank accounts, would you expect me as a provider to tell you 4 times how your own bank account works, and then resolve your problems for you?
I really dont see how this is any different.
I have a load of paypal subscriptions myself and have had for years so I know first hand that the only way you can not realise what your doing is if you are paying no attention at all while signing up.
1) You get taken through the paypal subscription set up which makes you confirm the payment twice
2) You get an email confirming this
3) I have it in my terms
4) I send out an email about it
5) it is in your VPS server details email
6) it is in the knowledge base
7) paypal email you when you send a payment
8) Details are in your payment confirmation emails from me.
9) Request for you to cancel your paypal subscription is also in the cancellation request confirmation email
10) Details are in every new invoice creation method informing you that if you have a paypal subscription it will pay this for you.
So you have to blindly sign up without paying attention then ignore 9 more bits of information telling you what is going on with your own paypal account.
As such, sympathy = 0
Sorry if that sounds harsh but you have no idea how frustrating it is dealing with cases of people not being bothered to look at what is right in front of them over and over again, it costs us time and time - money.
No one is stealing your money you are welcome to take service with the credit.
I pay my invoices manually now, I have a debit card for my small transactions and accidentally over-drafted because I forgot to cancel a subscription once. >.< Not gonna happen again.
I'll admit to screwing up subscriptions on my own and then forgetting about it. I paid burstnet for a year. Bottom line is the provider can turn it off and by no means should they be expected to do so, but we do it. I should say, Ryan does it. I don't expect others to clean up my mess, but handling billing is part of the business we started and so we try to do our best to keep up.
It's not a big deal really, just miscommunication and we all make mistakes.
I just noticed, I also took time to write information requesting customers cancel subscriptions in all cancellation request emails and I have just added a note about it to every outbound service and payment related email.
Yes they do. It also doesn't get recorded in the WHMCS transaction log. We have to manually edit the table to reflect the right amounts after a refund for when we do our accounting.
PayPal subscriptions are horrid. Same concept as storing your credit card with a provider and having them autobill.
I once had a company that kept autobilling for a service years after the fact, even though the service was long gone and the location where we had service. Finally tired of trying to get them to stop and fix the situation and I shuttered the account they had access to. That was probably $4k later.
PayPal subscriptions are rather buried in their control panel. I routinely go in and squash the subscriptions, abort them, terminate, whatever. It wastes my time and I resent providers who lured me into that.
Providers who are default luring folks into these at purchase price need to rethink the logic. Going to be disputes, arguments, chargebacks, etc. Nature of VPS is that credits may be due and often are issues where customer may not be thrilled or wanting to continue services; very fluid market.
You'd probably rather have a disgruntled customer terminating an account cleanly, or someone slow paying than getting stuck in a dispute/chargeback.
I really think this is one of the biggest issues. PayPal has a huge problem with this. The subscription page is virtually inaccessible by someone who logs in, knows their basic way around PayPal, and hasn't visited that page a whole lot. As many years as I've been using PayPal, I can't even tell you off the top of my head how to get to it right now.
How true... Some hosts offer subscription as only paypal option to pay for service and everytime I order such service it require digging and searching in menus to find option to cancel subscription.
Send Payment
Request Money
Merchant Services
Products & Services
--
Add Funds
Withdraw
History
Resolution Center
Profile
--
My money Banks, credit cards, more.
My settings Notifications, customer ID, more.
My selling tools
--
Debit and credit cards
PayPal balance
My preapproved payments
And then finally...
Use this page to manage your payments for:
No it really is not the same, you have 100% complete and total control over this, as a provider I cannot initiate the payment or take it from you, your absolutley have to authorise and send it.
That could not happen with a paypal subscription.
No one is luring anyone, people just dont take 10 seconds to read the details, you initial statement about it being the same as storing and charging cards actually backs this up as everything in this whole thread goes against that.
It's easy, go to My Account -> Profile -> My Money -> click on Update next to "My preapproved payments" and you're almost there!
Seriously, I can find it now but the first few times I had to cancel a subscription I had to use google to find my way.
Me too. Seriously
---> This is wrong. You get people roped when they buy initially. I see checkouts where subscription is the only option. I can't then elect not to subscribe.
Once you get customer roped on the initial buy with subscription, you are autobilling and deducting. Same as credit card on file scenario, just with PayPal, you send request for funds to them via the subscription. Same outcome to buyer though.
----> Maybe. Jumping through hoops in PayPal is a MFer. Lots of newbs and people with liquidty will allow the payments to go for months on end before taking the time to locate the CANCEL mechanism, which PayPal intentionally buries.
Well if you give customer at initial purchase the option to purchase as one time payment via PayPal or Subscription then, no, no luring. If your only purchase option is via the subcription then luring.
@pubcrawler
Nope, you as a customer are auto sending, which is not the same, it is not a pull it is a push. which is not the same as a company holding your card details and charging them, which is a pull not a push, I hold none of your paypal information that allows me to 'take' money
There is no arguing this point it is absolute fact.
Not my problem at all, if you dont want to look after an account I can do nothing about that, it is in your complete control, if you choose to ignore it that is just not sensible I provide a service that in no way includes management of your life and attitude towards your finances, I do however as mentioned previously take paypal and make users very aware of subscriptions with the 10 points I outlined, if this is ignored then once again I can not help you with this.
I do sort of agree with this which is the reason I make it very very clear what a paypal subscription is and give you every opportunity possible to look after your own account, and thus the double edge sword comes in to play, before I used subscription payments I honestly got 50+ tickets a month asking why service was suspended etc as I said earlier.
I think what has come out of this whole thread is that people dont know how paypal works as well as they should or as well as providers, but is the responsibility of education on the provider? no I dont think so, fair warning should be given but if you use a paypal account it is yours, your bank account is no different it is yours, look after it because it is not fair to expect others to do it for you.
@AnthonySmith PayPal is more confusing than a bank account IMHO. You can add all the warnings you like, but do you really believe most peeps read the docs? We get you think we're all idiots
@AthonySmith, problem with all "technology" are the subtle differences in how something works. PayPal is a payment "technology". So while a customer or even myself might not use terms that indicate what PayPal or industry calls something, doesn't change the perception and end outcomes.
Push vs. Pull is of zero concern to someone. All they see as customer is money flowing from their account into yours.
It sounds like your flow of payment reminders was broken or your suspensions were aggressively quick. I could be wrong there.
My recommendation as a frequent customer of many services and companies here and on WHT:
I pay things like many folks, in batches during my free time. Typically weekends. That means at some times I might be really late on pay. I mean on a monthly basis between the emails, reminders, etc. I have hundreds of emails to go through, it's a PITA.
One of the reasons why I try to buy quarterly and annual plans where I can.
As for subscription payments in PayPal, in recent months (due to problems and lack of tracking/controlling subscriptions) I've disabled all subscriptions on my accounts. Any new service that requires subscription, I won't sign up for. I go buy elsewhere.
I'm not sure this is a major problem. If the customer contacts you refund, if the customer disputes with paypal take action straight away and refund.
I believe that the major gripe with this wasn't about the customer being "roped" in, it was about the customer opening a ticket claiming that the company was "stealing" their money. I, personally, would be more than happy to issue a refund IF they're nice about it. Such as, "Hello {company name}, I realized I forgot to cancel my PayPal subscription I'd created, and I accidentally paid you {some amount of money}. Would you please be so kind as to refund me?" rather than "OMG WTFS YOU STOLED MY MONIES EVEN TJOUGH I CANCELLED UR SERVICE! IMA REPORT YOU TO THE FBI AND BBB! AND IMA DISPUTE UNLESS U REFUD ME!"
I don't think the OP and customer at face value was a rope in. The customer though, probably sees it that way.
I've had accounts on PayPal auto siphon and had the payment come and money taken before I could deal with the provider. Meaning I had sh!t service and due credit likely but fully auto-deducted.
One provider on here noticed when I canceled all my "subscriptions" and asked if I had a problem with the service. I thought that was rather nice and proactive. I expect more of that as most "companies" here aren't swimming in customers.
Just a heads up, the plugin is working nicely. Top entry is somebody upgrading their plan (had a subscription), bottom entry is a termination (didn't have a subscription).
Received a "Profile Canceled" e-mail from Paypal at the same time to confirm this.
We flat out refuse subscription cancellations because it has to be done manually, but 2CO handles this if customers ask.
I dont think anyone is stupid.
I dont think anyone is trying to rope anyone in.
I dont agree that it is the same as a company charging your card as it is a push from your side not a pull from mine and that is a big difference.
I do think that it is the customers responsibility.
I do think if you choose to use paypal or any financial processor you are the only one responsible for making sure you know what you are doing.
Bottom line, your account, you look after it I simply am not going to have it be made my problem, it has nothing to do with me if you cannot be bothered to look after your own money, you are given so many chances to cancel.
I also think that paypal should make it easier to find, but again that is nothing to do with me, take it up with paypal.
I am sorry if people don't agree with me but that is also not my problem, I try to have a bit more faith in people to pay attention precisely because I don't think people are stupid and I assure you less hurt is caused this way than assuming everyone is stupid and taking no subscriptions at all and people loosing data. I wont argue this point, I have been there and done it for the last 2 years.
You just cant win, your damned if you don't and your damned if you do so it is just damage limitation.
Sure, it's their problem however we just had a client overpaid €60 (due to cancellation of their service) and just not refunding the €60 is stealing to me. Some people may disagree, but for me it doesn't feel right to keep their money.
So yes, refunding overpaid money.
Did you send them 3 emails asking them to cancel their subscription and also include this request at the point of cancellation and also tell them how to cancel a subscription 7 times at day 1?
That might be the case but a normal customer doesn't expect a magazine they cancel to still keep charging them without delivering the actual magazine. This seems to be the only case when you have to stop your own payment for a service that has been cancelled. I don't like it either.
This is stealing, in my country, if there's a business involved.
I remember when I was with newwebsite VPS provider ( the one with the free DA ), they actually gave 5% off or something if you were late. This kept surprising me so much that I actually paid it while I wasn't planning on keeping it, but I'm not sure if every customer would feel like this. Some would feel a little scammed for ever paying on time.
Okay, GOD. I hope your boyfriend is nice to you as well.
Why is this thread still going? A solution has been provided. Problem resolved. End thread.