As a consumer, I thought I had my PayPal subscriptions figured out. I had set them to draw directly from my bank account, with my credit card as backup. I figured my bank account was more reliable than a credit card.

It would seem that PayPal disagrees.

My new credit card arrived in the mail three days after the previous card had expired. (don’t know why it took so long to arrive - guess they don’t call it snail mail for nothing.)

But I didn’t worry about my PayPal subscriptions, after all, only one of them was due, and it was due to take money out of my bank account, not my credit card.

Wrong!

The day my previous credit card expired, PayPal cancelled all of my subscriptions, regardless of when they were due, and in spite of the fact that there was money in my bank account to cover them.

Doesn’t make much sense to me - why wouldn’t they take my money?

At any rate, I had 17 subscriptions. I decided to drop a couple, and sent follow-up emails to the others.

• Some didn’t reply.
• Some refused to resubscribe me at the same founding subscribers rate - they didn’t seem to value my loyal membership, and wanted to charge me up to three times as much to
• resubscribe.

Some sent me a link to resubscribe at my previous rate, and those I rejoined.

And I ended up with 4 resubscriptions.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has lost subscriptions due to this very strange business practice. I guess PayPal is making plenty, and can afford to lose part of our business every time there is a credit card hiccup.

And the irony of it all, for me, is that if I’d know about this strange, seemingly illogical PayPal policy, I would have put my other credit card on my PayPal account, and I’d still have all of my 17 subscriptions.

So PayPal’s pickiness about whether it wants my money has saved me some money in the long run.