I'm testing the subscription forum feature and everything seems to work quite nicely with paypal, except I noticed that after I marked a test account's subscription as "completed" it did not modify the account within paypal and continued renewing the subscription.
Not sure if this is a fix in the works, otherwise perhaps a note in the admin section that subscriptions must also be canceled within paypal would be helpful.
Thank you for reporting this issue.
However, I am not certain this is indeed a SMF problem, instead I think it's PayPal's renewing it automatically. So I'm not entirely certain SMF should document PayPal's behavior... I will not close this issue, though, other opinions are welcome.
Thank you, here's a scenario which may shed more light:
If someone, like an author, wanted to open a subscription forum and allow people to sign up and pay via paypal through the forum, and they get several thousand subscribers, then the only way to manage cancellations currently would be to manually track who cancels their subscription and then manually login to paypal and end the subscription there.
It seems if SMF can add a subscription to paypal automatically, it should be able to end a subscription once a member cancels within the forum.
Otherwise it would require a lot of manual work to keep it functioning.
I guess that turns this thread into a feature request, hope the developers agree that automating cancelations in paypal is an important part of having a subscription forum.
again... this seems like a PAYPAL issue... or, more specifically, an issue with how the user signs up (i.e. I sign up with a auto-renewing subscription, it's my fault... not the fault of the subscription site.)
However, if SMF never sends Paypal a cancellation request, then would that be a paypal issue?
What would inevitably happen is a member would subscribe within SMF, then after they were done with the subscription they would cancel within SMF yet still see new charges from paypal after they canceled, and then complain to the forum owner.
If it is a paypal issue, meaning SMF sends a cancellation request and paypal doesn't process it, then another solution would be to add a note when someone unsubscribes that they must also log into paypal and end the subscription there.
I'm just trying to make it a smooth experience for both the members and forum owner.
as far as I know, SMF does not currently handle cancellations.
In other words, the subscription occurs, but it is up to the USER on the paypal side to determine the recurrence (or turning off recurring payments).
So... this is not, technically a bug, since we never intended to handle cancellations (again, to the best of my knowledge).
This is an appropriate feature request, though... and we're looking at it.
I'm not sure if I am understanding...so please correct me and clarify.
Here is what it sounds like is being said:
If a user checks "Make this a recurring payment" box when subscribing, it will automatically be recurring in PayPal. But if the user later changes their mind and cancels the recurring payment--through the forum--it will not automatically be cancelled on the PayPal side...they must also go to PayPal and cancel there?
If that is what you are saying, this is a concern. I know that if I were subscribing and then cancelling, as a user I would not want to go through multiple steps to cancel and I may not even realize that is what I'm supposed to do--even with notifications/warnings. Then I would be upset at the forum business for not refunding my money. Whether it is a PayPal issue or not, the poor reflection is on the forum business/owner.
So if that is the case, is there a way to disable the recurring check box until this is resolved/added as a feature?
You're right, I would expect the same, that if you cancel the subscription then it will try to cancel it in PayPal as well.
I'll be investigating this issue ASAP.
Norv, any news?
Retracked as https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/issues/1170 so it doesn't fall through the cracks.