Without subscribers, this blog wouldn’t exist and I’d be homeless.
What I didn’t expect about subscription is that of the twenty to thirty I lose every year, only two or three are because people cancel.
Instead what happens is one month I get a notice that “payment has failed.” This is almost always because credit card details like the number or expiration date have changed. PayPal doesn’t tell subscribers, so I try and let them know, but most of the time I don’t get thru.
So, if you subscribe, I’m asking you to check if the subscription is still active. You may think it is, but don’t be so sure. You can do this by checking your credit card payments for the last month, or if you have a PayPal account, thru them.
If you find you aren’t subscribed, and you want to be, you’ll need to start a new subscription, which you can do on my subscription and donation page.
And to all subscribers and donors: past, present or future—Thank you.
shagggz
Subscribed!
Jan Wiklund
Craig Calhoun has lost half his subscribers, without them knowing it. Apparently Paypal cancels, for one reason or other. They cancelled me, for example, because I moved over a country border.
I wouldn’t trust Paypal any more. Better use ordinary bank transfers.
Joan
Checked and verified. I was going to up the subscription amount a bit, but paypal wouldn’t let me do it with them. Any ideas what to do? Thanks.
Ian Welsh
Joan, you’d need to cancel, then start a new subscription. The button to cancel is at the bottom of the donate/subscribe page.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/donate/
Mark Level
I recently had to change my Credit Union Card. This happens to me at least twice a year (if not more frequently) because corporations with which I have subscriptions are legally allowed (I suppose more by indifference than by design) to steal from me, & it’s hard to get my money back.
In the most recent case, I had been supporting 5 or so podcasters on Patreon for quite some time. My Firefox crashed and I had to reinstall it, so all my browser history was gone. I went to Patreon, & . . . there was no account for me!! They have literally NO customer service. There is NO phone # to call. You can email them (though not so easily when you are locked out of your account) and they claim they will respond in 5 days. I emailed, no response, so the 5th day I told them I didn’t want to be charged the over $20 monthly I was paying for an account I could no longer access, so please CANCEL!! Well, come the 2nd of the following month they billed me again. (Meantime I had opened a new account with only 2 of the 5 I’d previously supported, $10.)
So my credit union WAS able to do a dispute & get the stolen $20.30 back (but not the amount of access I’d lost for the remainder of the month), but ONLY after they warned me that those clowns at Patreon could keep charging me monthly for days & years unless I canceled the current debit card and waited over 2 weeks for a new one to reach me by mail. Sigh!!
And don’t get me started on PayPal. I used it once, 15 or more years ago, & the first time I tried to use my account again it had been put under the name of a woman (I’m a guy) I don’t even know!! Just obviously criminal.
The last time I tried to re-up on Patreon with Ian (a couple years’ back) because of this kind of nonsense, I tried to subscribe for $5 a month. It raised the amount to $20 for the first month (incl. their 25% cut) even though that’s not what I clicked!! I immediately informed PayPal & Ian of my concerns. I never heard back from Ian, but PayPal did fix it, even sent me an apologetic email.
I will check to see if I’m no longer enrolled with Ian, & email him in case I need to resubscribe. But Late Capitalism ripoffs sure suck.
Ian Welsh
Mark,
I don’t recall ever seeing that email. I definitely would have responded/helped if I had. I’ve never been on Patreon, though.
All of the payment services suck, unfortunately. PayPal at least takes a smaller cut.
For Canadians who want to subscribe it’s simple enough to set up monthly Interac payments, which are usually free and straight bank to bank.
But money from other countries is not so simple.
Net Neutrality
Ian, I’d support you if you started a Patreon.