I have been using aMember for a couple of years and it has worked great. I have been using 2CheckOut as a payment processor and have not offered any recurring subscriptions. I am making some major changes on my site and I now need to start offering subscription products with a free trial period. Since 2CheckOut does not send aMember information about recurring cancellations I know I need to change payment processors. At the level I operate at, I do not want to go to the expense of establishing a merchant account. It looks like PayPal offers about the best recurring billing (with an optional trial period) functionality. I am not a fan of PayPal (due to the hassle factor of checking out and having to start an account). Currently PayPal advertises that PayPal checkout does not require a PayPal account, but this is not available for recurring payments. PayPal now offers a "Pro" version that supports a normal checkout in addition to a PayPal checkout. While it costs $20 a month, it is worth this much to be able to provide my users with a "non-PayPal" option at checkout. Alex has estimated that the new PayPal Pro Website plug-in will be available for aMember by the end of July. Two Questions: 1. Will the new PayPal Pro Website plug-in for aMember offer recurring billing with a trial period and will PayPal Pro notify aMember of any recurring payment interruptions so a person's subscription will be automatically stopped by aMember? 2. How is trial membership abuse controlled with PayPal or Pay Pal Pro? I assume there are controls to stop someone from starting new accounts and using the same credit card? Is this control a function of PayPal or aMember? Thanks in advance on any help on this! Grant
1. Yes. 2. Currently it is not controlled at all (for PayPal plugin). We will try to implement checking in the new plugin.
Yikes, Not What I Thought Hummm.... I just assumed there was some control for this at the payment processor. Let me make sure I understand this. Hypothetical Situation: I have a product set up on aMember to be processed by PayPal. The product comes with a 30-day free trial and then the credit card (CC) gets billed for $20/month. A person signs up for this product with CC "A". On day 29 of the free trial he cancels the subscription. He then signs up for another free trial period using CC "A" and gets another trial period? Questions: 1. Is this the way it works now? 2. If so, are their any other providers that will track an attempt of a person to cancel a subscription with a trial period and then sign back up for the same product? 3. You indicated that you would try to implement a control at the aMember level on a future PayPal plug-in to stop trial period abuse. Could you give an example of how it would do this? General Rambling... The more I think about this it could be tough to catch a person that is trying to abuse the free trial period. If they had a pocket full of CCs they could register with aMember using a new fictitious name and use a different CC. Somehow the software has to "recognize" that the same person is trying to cancel one trial subscription and sign up for another free trial period.... this could be tough. This could always be policed manually, I suppose. Watch for users that cancel toward the end of a trial period and see if a member that "resembles" them tries to sign up shortly thereafter for another free trial period. Thanks in advance for any help on this!
1. Yes. 2. With any real credit card processor (Authorize.Net, PayFlow Pro, LinkPoint, ECHO, etc.) it will be hanlded. For PayPal Pro we also hope to have this implemented. 3. It will check if account has been used for trial, and email admin a message with offer to : refund payment, disable trial for this customer. Regarding another credit card - yes, it is possible and there is nothing to do against. MOST of your customers will not do this, and it is just fine.