Something that has been bugging me for awhile is that all new subscriptions are given two extra days before there 2nd installment payment is processed.
For example: I had a subscription created today (7.27.2009)…It is set to rebill every 6 months which would bring us to a 01/27/2010 rebill date. The problem is, 2 Checkout is showing the rebill date as 2010-01-29.
Why the 2 extra days? This happens with all subscriptions that I have seen. After this 2nd installment, rebills happen at there normal intervals.
8 Comments »
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The date fluctuates on a recurring orders second installment because of the 48 hour delay that we put in place before the first installment deposits. This delay is put in place on all new orders to insure that the order has plenty of time to go through fraud review and the supplier has plenty of time to cancel the order without having to pay transaction fees.
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I was unaware of this and its causing us a problem. We make and host websites and our clients who pay annually by subscription.
But the domain renewal will be due 2 days before their subscription occurs?
Example: ClientA subscribes on the 1st August We register their New domain name on the 1st August and next year their domain will need renewing on 1st August but their subscription won’t happen until the 3rd August.
What do we do? let their domain run out and hope its availiable 2 days later
Or renew the domain and hope they don’t cancel in the 2 days?
This is not right – My client agreed to “Bills Every 1 Year(s) for Forever” NOT in 367 days then every year.
I think you should change it..
if I go to Burger Bar and order a 1/4 pound burger they don’t automatically give me a 1/2 sometimes and assume I’d prefer it.
I have 100’s of clients this is a problem for me.
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I am glad I am not the only one that sees this as odd. I understand about fraud and all, but I do not think it is worth giving everyone who signs up for recurring orders 2 extra days free for nothing. I would rather risk the fraud on a very very small percentage and eat that difference, than have to eat 2 extra days for EVERYONE. Fraud review and depositing should go on in the background transparent from the customer, not let the customer have extra access. 100’s of customers at 2 extra days a piece over the years is quite a bit.
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nomax5 and swintec,
I’ve forwarded your suggestions to our developers for research and consideration.
To better track this issue, we’ve moved this post to our Feature Request category.
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Thanks Ricks! Are there any other suppliers that deal with this differently? Most customers do not want to wait to start using there subscription. Granted, me and nomax5 are talking about digital subscriptions. Competitors in each of our respective business all offer instant use after payment, so it does not make sense for us to hold back service for two days to get the customer on 2 Checkouts weird recurring schedule.
I will assume since this was never brought up before, no one has ever noticed? Our shopping cart software with the 2 Checkout plugin also does not function correctly in those last 2 days of the first month. The account is left disabled for the final 2 days until payment via IPN is processed.
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swintec,
I apologize for the delay in responding to your comment. Please keep in mind, the additional two days are only applied to the first re-billing. After the first re-billing, all subsequent re-billings will occur on the calendar date the order was initially placed on.
You may wish to contact your cart provider to inquire if there is a way to add an additional two days to the initial access period so that customers won’t lose service.
If any other suppliers have encountered this issue, please advise how you have been able to work around the additional 2 days that are added to the initial access period.
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I have spoken with the cart developers..and they say they can make some changes to make first access periods 2 days longer. However I made this thread when i started thinking about it more.
Maybe it is just my business where it really matters and every other supplier does not care about giving 2 days of extra access for nothing additional. My business has to do with downloads/bandwidth. 2 extra days doesnt seem like much for one customer…but it is an extra 48 hours of access. With a mere 183 subscribers over the course of a year, I have just given out a free year of downloads distributed throughout those customers. The more subscriptions created…well..you can see how the free time can add up.
I do not offer weekly subscriptions, but I can just imagine those that do…this issue now gives first time subscribers 29% more time. From a customer stand point, I would just cancel each and every time just to get 9 days instead of 7 for the same price. Whats not to like about that if you are a customer?
Has this feature been in place since the beginning or was it instituted after several vendors had problems with recurring orders and stuff? I have said it before, but will re-state it here…I know this is because of fraud, but I would rather deal with that loss on the very rare occasion that it happens than taking a small loss on every new sign up and giving away days and days of free access.
I hope other vendors can chime in with there thoughts.
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This second installment delay has always been in place because of the way our recurring system operates. Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention. This issue will be further investigated by our developers and we will update this thread as more information becomes available.