Warning: PayPal will cancel your subscriptions

If you need to change your credit card soon, please read below to prevent the loss of your PayPal paid subscriptions.

Did you know PayPal has an Escalations Agent? An Executive Escalations Agent? They'll need one, I'm sure.

es-ca-late [es-kuh-leyt] –verb (used with object), verb (used without object), -lat-ed, -lat-ing.
1. to increase in intensity, magnitude, etc.: to escalate a war; a time when prices escalate.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1). Retrieved November 03, 2006, from Dictionary.com website.

So generally to escalate is to make things worse than they already are, and not by a small bit. Interresting customer service strategy. Interresting way to perceive your clients as well.

As a Design and Usability firm we consult with corporations how to Design websites and web applications for clarity, transparency and ease of use. The user-interface needs to radiate its function, its meaning. The more that interface succeeds in making clear what you can expect to happen when you interact with it (and then if exactly that same thing happens) the more that interface will be perceived as friendly by your customers.

On the other hand, if say, you just want to change your credit card, which you have to do once every few years, and you find that after you've done that all your subscriptions have been canceled is generally not experienced by any customer as friendly. It is a completely hostile move that has complete disrespect for a payment services' merchants and it's customers.

Especially if this happens completely without warning.

PayPal users take note!

According to PayPal (translated from a Dutch reply to my raising the issue):

To change the fund source for a subscription log into your account and click "history". Now try to find the subscription you want to change the payment source for. If you want to use a new credit card as a payment source for this subscription you first have to add it through your profile into your PayPal account!

Hey, if I translate it back to English word by word, it makes perfect sense again. There's more, but I don't really understand that bit, I think it is trying to say the same thing, but it goes on about having to search account information over two years in the past...

I think what PayPal is trying to say is if you want to change the credit card that you use for paying subscriptions (like your month-to-month Plan for 14Dayz time registration) you need to:

• First Add your new card
• Find your existing subscriptions
• Change the funding source on your existing subscriptions to the new card
• Then it is safe to remove the old card

Some simple instructions or a warning message if you have any subscriptions and you're trying to remove your card would be sufficient to address this issue.

For example:

You are about to remove a credit card that you use to pay for the following subscriptions:
If you remove this card, the above subscriptions will be cancelled by PayPal automatically without your consent (or knowledge). If this is what you want press the button below called: "Yes delete this credit card and all related subscriptions!". If however, you want to change your credit card please add a new one first by clicking add credit card here before deleting the old one. Thank you.

On the other hand, when your credit card expires, PayPal maintains a certain "grace period" in which they allow you to take steps to amend the situation. You have between 5 to 9 days to correct the payment source before your subscription is cancelled. It would be best to treat the removal of a credit card in the same way.

• When you remove a credit card, you keep your subscriptions.
• If after a day or so you have not provided alternate means of payment you get a warning email.
• If this situation continues, vendors also receive a warning mail.
• If at the end of the grace period no new payment source is provided, subscriptions can be cancelled, if only as a final measure.

This describes exactly the same process PayPal uses for expiring credit cards (or bounced cheques). If PayPal continues to treat their loyal customers the way they do now, I feel they are punishing those customers who are trustworthy enough to change their credit card well before they expire, while they're being very lenient to those that write uncovered cheques, use maxed-out credit cards or are too lazy or undisciplined to change their credit card when it expires. To me that makes no sense.

Anyway, we apologise on behalf of our payment provider and hope you can forgive their ignorance. We've got quite a lot of complaints about this in the past week so if this has happened to you for your payment source of 14Dayz please contact us at support@14dayz.com and our executive vice-president of de-escalations, that's me ;), will do his very best to help you remedy the situation as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

UPDATE: When you transfer some funds into your paypal account before canceling your old card this will carry you over the time PayPal needs to approve your new card. Thanks Olaf!

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