Credit Cards, PayPal, and Automatic Payments

Today I had to call 3 places to figure out was up with a spurious charge.  You see last year I made a subscription to a sports game service 2009.  I won’t name which one but it ran its course and that was that.  They stopped billing  me, and I (apparently incorrectly) assume that the service was done and over after 6 months of them not billing me.  Apparently season billing is A-OK with PayPal however.

First off let’s take a look at PayPal’s subscription system.  Got any idea how it works?  After today I am not even certain they do.  In the last year I’ve gotten several messages stating you can’t even have a subscription without a backup funds source.  Inquires to PayPal were responded to with an Automated robot that didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about.  Now then, noting that this subscription had no backup funds source at the time (in as much as the stopped billing me November 4th, and I didn’t even open the account they just tried to bill until late December) I am confused how it could even have been billed.  Further when one subscribes to a service that has a YEAR in the name one would assume that the subscription is for the year in question.

How should subscriptions work?  Well, Apple isn’t SO bad at it; they send you a slew of emails two months in advance reminding you to renew (now granted they don’t tell you the total including tax & fees when you click renew but that’s a topic for another time).  Here’s a little hint though assuming that everyone who subscribed last year intends to again with months of no notifications or content and then billing them without even saying so is not a way to keep customers.  I would mentions the franchise specifically but I honestly doubt they are aware of PayPal’s subscription stupidity.  Suffice it to say that even after years of saying PayPal (and parent eBay) care about customer service and promise the ability to speak to a human are as always lies.