• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

PayPal automated subscriptions

WebSlave

WebSlave

It is what it is, but certainly not what it was.
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A few moments ago I went into my PayPal account and cancelled ALL automated subscriptions that were set up there by various members through this site. That includes all paid membership levels and forum sponsorships. I know some people liked that this process was automated, and yeah it's good on my part to just have people sending me money every year, but honestly, it's proven to be more of a headache that I had expected when I first set this up. I have had LOTS of people forget that they had the automated subscription set up, and wind up making duplicate payments, that I have to go in and then manually process to issue a refund. Some people have even gone so far as to file complaints with PayPal claiming that I have defrauded them and stolen money from their accounts.

In some cases, before I removed the option at all when signing up for sponsorships and paid memberships, some people would set up MULTIPLE automated payments through PayPal, which was a real mess trying to straighten out when discovered. This was just getting to be a lot of work for something that was supposed to be easy. Yes, people did ASK for that option, and yes, it sounded like a good idea at the time. But the bloom is really off of that rose now.

So I find myself having to try to check each and every payment notice that comes in from PayPal to try to determine whether or not it is an automated renewal and the person has even been active on this site recently to indicate that they even WANT that payment made any longer.

I have enough headaches. This was getting to be a BIG one. Yeah, I know some people are going to be confused about getting that notice of cancellation, and yes, I got a phone call about it not 30 seconds after I cancelled them all. But I had to just bite that bullet and grit my teeth waiting for emails from irate people wanting to know why I cancelled their ACCOUNT on FaunaClassifieds.

Hopefully at least some people will read THIS thread first, though.
 
Just to clarify, the sponsorship or paid memberships have not been cancelled, only the process through PayPal that will automatically subtract a payment from YOUR PayPal account every year.
 
CarolinaClassicDragons said:
So will advanced notices of an upcoming expiration be sent out or is it up to us to stay on top of it?
Click to expand...

I will say that you SHOULD get a notice, but honestly I'm not sure whether it is via PM or email or both. It's not really something I have personally tested myself. Even so, some people have long abandoned the email addresses they used to set up their accounts here, so that is a problem unto itself. Not only will they not get an email notice but they won't get an email notice of a private message here, neither. Not much I can do about that, unfortunately. And then there is the problem of some ISPs such as Yahoo and Gmail sometimes blocking emails from this site.

Heck, I have sometimes gotten payments for sponsorships, and when I email them the info request I need to set them up, never hear from them again. And it's not like I'm going to actually remember to follow up later on.

You would think I would just be happy having people send me money every year, even if they have long gotten out of the business and no longer even frequent this site any more, wouldn't you? I have checked some automated subscriptions that were set up in 2009 and the people haven't even been here for the past 3 years. Maybe they just never check their PayPal account, or maybe they were OK with just contributing anyway, but I just don't feel right about taking their money over and over again this way.

All in all, I think I NEEDED to do this now.
 
Just for the record, I have never received a notification when my contributor subscription is about to expire. I learn of it only because I get a full inbox warning with my private messages, or because my edit button disappears on posts.
 
snowgyre said:
Just for the record, I have never received a notification when my contributor subscription is about to expire. I learn of it only because I get a full inbox warning with my private messages, or because my edit button disappears on posts.
Click to expand...

So that would pretty much indicate that the notice is sent out via email. Otherwise you would have a notice in your inbox here for your private messages. Figures. Email just isn't the reliable service that it used to be. The spammers have won by forcing spam blocking to do what they intended to do in the first place.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
Hey Rich,

I got this notice via email.

Where do I have to look to see my forum sponsor renewal date? Or can I just pay ahead to avoid missing my renewal? :)

Vickie
 
Dachiu said:
Hey Rich,

I got this notice via email.

Where do I have to look to see my forum sponsor renewal date? Or can I just pay ahead to avoid missing my renewal? :)

Vickie
Click to expand...

I presume you are referring to a sponsorship. I do audit them every now and again. If I see one that is expired, I first check the account record to see when it was that the member last checked into this site. If it is fairly recent, I will send them a private message asking about their renewal intentions. If no reply is soon forthcoming, I presume they aren't interested. If it has not been recent, I assume they are no longer interested in participating here, and delete the sponsorship. In cases where the sponsorships are filled to capacity, an available slot is made noted of as a notice of availability in the forum itself, available on a first come, first served basis.

For paid memberships, no, I do not audit those at all nor send notices to anyone.

As for checking to see when you sponsorship or membership is due, well heck, I don't know. Never used it myself. Sorry...
 
Dachiu said:
Hey Rich,

I got this notice via email.

Where do I have to look to see my forum sponsor renewal date? Or can I just pay ahead to avoid missing my renewal? :)

Vickie
Click to expand...


I'm not sure if a forum sponsorship is the same, but I think it should be. If so, you should find it by clicking on the User CP button and on the User CP dashboard page, scroll down to the bottom and on the left hand side is the option to paid subscriptions. Clicking on that will take you to a page that should show everything that you pay for and the start and end dates of it.
 
I never signed up for auto pay, and I get a notice every year through email, maybe a week before it expires, when my membership needs to be renewed.
 
Somehow I missed the first several posts on this thread ... For notifications, I've gotten an email about 5 days beforehand from this site, letting me know my contributor subscription is expiring both times, in fact I had to renew just a few days ago and got a notice email about it.
I'd guess that anyone not getting one, it's either being blocked by their spam filters, they have certain email notifications blocked from this site or they are just plain getting lost in cyberspace, as I've had a few emails fall into a black hole before.
For fixing the first two, check your spam folder, see if emails from this site are in it and if so, generally your email service has a way to mark mail from that sender as not spam going forward.
For the other possibility, you should check your settings on this site. Click on User CP and on the left hand menu of your User CP dashboard, under Settings and Options, is a button for Edit Options, click that. It will give you all kinds of options for when and how this site or the members on it can contact you or not, the one you want to be sure is enabled is the very first one, under Messaging and Notification, receive email, in the center of the screen. You want to make sure that you've enabled the option to receive email from Administrators.
Not much that can be done about the third issue, except sometimes getting a new email service provider.

As to canceling the auto renew, I'm actually pretty happy about that, as I can never remember if I chose that option or not and then worry about it the next few days after I get notified it's expiring, and it's a bit hard to figure that out on Paypal's website. So I end up waiting until it's expired and does not renew for awhile before doing it manually, just so I don't pay twice, now it's not an option, I don't have to worry about it.
 
Charis said:
As to canceling the auto renew, I'm actually pretty happy about that, as I can never remember if I chose that option or not and then worry about it the next few days after I get notified it's expiring, and it's a bit hard to figure that out on Paypal's website. So I end up waiting until it's expired and does not renew for awhile before doing it manually, just so I don't pay twice, now it's not an option, I don't have to worry about it.
Click to expand...

You and me both........ :thumbsup:

Thanks for the help guides you posted. It helps....
 
Charis said:
As to canceling the auto renew, I'm actually pretty happy about that, as I can never remember if I chose that option or not and then worry about it the next few days after I get notified it's expiring, and it's a bit hard to figure that out on Paypal's website. So I end up waiting until it's expired and does not renew for awhile before doing it manually, just so I don't pay twice, now it's not an option, I don't have to worry about it.
Click to expand...

I took the other path. Every year I'd get concerned the subscription wouldn't work and manually renewed. Sure enough, the subscription would later kick in and add on another year. I think I'm paid through mid 2017 which is just fine with me :thumbsup:
 
Jabberwocky Dragons said:
I took the other path. Every year I'd get concerned the subscription wouldn't work and manually renewed. Sure enough, the subscription would later kick in and add on another year. I think I'm paid through mid 2017 which is just fine with me :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

If everyone had thought of it this way, then I wouldn't have had such headaches stemming from this.
 
I was afraid that the second payment would not carry over and just extend it a second year. If that's how it works, then I really don't see what the problem is?! Wouldn't bother me.
 
I never use automatic subscriptions (too suspicious of anything taking money from me I haven't authorised each time) so it's no loss to me.

However, re the notification when payment is due - sometimes I have received an email, and sometimes either not, or I have missed it. In that case I have only noticed when my coins disappeared.

Would it be feasible to set up a process where the coins turn a different colour with the words "Subscription renewal due soon", or something similar, in the month or week before the annual payment is due? I think I'd notice that maybe better than an email.
 
Helenthereef said:
Would it be feasible to set up a process where the coins turn a different colour with the words "Subscription renewal due soon", or something similar, in the month or week before the annual payment is due? I think I'd notice that maybe better than an email.
Click to expand...

Sure, it is feasible, but I'm not sure about it being practical. It would take some substantial custom programming to implement, and I'm not really sure how many people would notice, much less influence their decision to renew or not. Maybe if things turn around in the future I may consider such a mod, but for the time being I would prefer to not make such an expenditure.
 
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