refund on cancelled subscription
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Hi There, I have waited patiently for the past month to find out why my husband’s credit card was charged AU$89 for a wordpress subscription when I cancelled my blog in 2022? The following email thread is what I’ve had to deal with no refund and no explanation as to how wordpress’s AI or algorithm illegally got my husband’s cc details!
I started trying to contact wordpress when I realised this unlawful charge was made but … nothing. I tagged onto another enquiry and got some useless advice and since then no follow up. WordPress tried to suggest I had more than 1 site or my husband had opened one which is absolute nonsense.
As a matter of interest I still have my blog name on the wordpress site, even though I cancelled it and the only thing on it is my blog name and my email address. Why is it still there when I cancelled it?
fstat · Staff · <time datetime=”2023-06-14T06:52:38+00:00″>Jun 14, 2023 4:52 pm</time>Hi there,Let me help you sort this out.First, I want to make sure that those charges are associated with WordPress.com. To check that, please fill out the form below.Why was I charged?https://wpchrg.wordpress.com/embed/#?secret=rqH7WUdJB8#?secret=51QhMwFM2zIf the charges are indeed associated with our service, you probably have another account with us. To access that other account and cancel any upgrades, you can provide us with a transaction ID as proof of ownership. To retrieve that, please follow the instructions in the guide below.https://wordpress.com/support/billing-history/#retrieving-a-transaction-idOnce you have the transaction ID, you can send it to us using this form: https://wordpress.com/wp-login.php?action=recoveryPlease do not post any transaction details in this public forum. Use the form I linked above.After submitting the form, our team will review it and contact you with the next steps for recovering access to your account and canceling any upgrades.Let me know if you have any other questions, and I’ll be happy to help.
email sent June 11
I am Susan Bromley and my site was bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com . I’ve been trying to work out how to contact wordpress and that forum seemed the only way to get any attention. Attached is a photo of my husband’s bank statement.
the receipt transaction on my husbands Credit Card account is – Paypal 402-935-7733CA
The amount of AU$89 was taken from my husband’s account on April 18 2023My blog was – bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com.
I only had one blog with wordpress and my husband is not at all tech savvy, he’s 78 and doesn’t even know what a blog is, much less know how to set up one on wordpress bless him. I tried to fill in the ‘Why was I charged’ form, which I was prompted to do, but it wouldn’t send! So I’m sincerely hoping this will get through to a real person via this email and this charge will be reimbursed in full and wordpress will give me a firm assurance that no more charges will be made to either my or my husbands credit cards. I can’t understand how on earth wordpress got my husband’s cc details in the first place and why they would think it was okay to charge for a blog that had been cancelled?
When I first set up my blog I was of the understanding that the type of simple blog I set up was free. Then last year, after not having used wordpress and yet being charged for it, I realised that I would much prefer to stay with Tumblr and so cancelled my blog, which was no mean feat I can tell you. WordPress prompted me about 4-5 times asking ‘was I really sure I wanted to cancel, would I like to think about it for a month? etc …?’ That was very trying because of course I was sure I wanted to cancel it. Below I have attached the email I tried unsuccessfully to send to wordpress a few days ago.
email from wordpress received June 9 from aleone89
Hello Susan,
Many thanks for reaching out.
Can you provide a full URL to the site please? The reason why I ask is because when I look for an account using the username: bromstastgeist I can’t locate an account with WordPress.com and I am unable to locate a site using that name as well.
Once we have this information we’ll be able to track this down and determine next steps.
Many thanks in advance.
Sunday 11/06/2023 3.41 PM
Hello there,
Of Course you can’t locate my Full URL, bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com because after a lot of effort on my part to cancel it I was finally able to unsubscribe last year!! The algorithm or AI or whatever it was that I had to go through to cancel my site kept prompting me by asking ‘are you sure you want to cancel?’. This happened a number of times. It took quite a while before WordPress finally accepted that I did not want to use the site. I’m an intelligent human and I know what I want, and I found it infuriating that it took so long to unsubscribe.
However, what is even more infuriating is on March 18, 2023, I find that on my husband’s credit card statement there was a WordPress subscription charge of AU$89. What The?
A number of very important questions come to mind at this stage. Why did WordPress deem it necessary to charge for a site that had been cancelled months before, and even more importantly how on earth did they get access to my husband’s credit card details?
Another important dilemma is there is no way to know if I’m dealing with a real person or an algorithm/AI as there is no direct email for me to use. I have gone through the whole site and it seems the only way to make my complaint is through this forum which is decidedly annoying and unsatisfactory.
I await to hear from a real person not a machine! to tell me how you are going to refund the AU$89. The money is not as important as the fact that it was taken illegally in the first place.
Susan Bromley
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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I don’t know what makes you think you aren’t having contact with a real human, but I can ensure you we are all real living human beings trying to help
@fstat gave you a lot of info on that billing. Perhaps it’s all a bit overwhelming, but in short:
- That charge is connected to another account of you or your husband
- bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com has never been registered, so you must have deleted another site.
- when you say “I still have my blog name on the wordpress site”, what is the URL of that blog?
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Hi @staartmees,
As I have noted very clearly over and over in my earlier correspondence I HAVE NEVER HAD ANOTHER ACCOUNT, and my husband has Alzheimer’s and has absolutely no idea what a blog is much less how to set one up. For goodness sake, again my the URL is https://wordpress.com/me, I copied this from your site. It’s all very well to say that @fstat gave me the info and yes like the rest of your site it is overwhelmingly difficult to navigate, but more importantly when I followed the 2 links he provided for “retrieving-a-transaction” and “action=recovery”, nothing went through at all!
I don’t know how many times I have to say this but I only had 1 site, bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com. And my husband has never set up a blog with you. Your responses so far have been very proforma and you have not taken on board the fact that wordpress unlawfully took AU$89 from my husband’s credit card. Seriously this is very upsetting.
Please see to it that the money is refunded in full and give an ironclad assurance that no money will be taken from either my or my husband’s account again.
Susan Bromley
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Again bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com has never been registered, so you must be talking about another site.
https://wordpress.com/me is not your URL, but is the URL that brings a logged in user to his own account page.
It’s obvious the AU$89 charge is connected to an account your husband did set up as he gave his credit card information.
If you want to trace back that charge it’s very important to find out what that is all about. The only way is by using the Transaction ID.
It’s very easy to retrieve the transaction ID from Paypal, https://wordpress.com/support/billing-history/#retrieve-a-pay-pal-transaction-id.
The PayPal transaction ID has 17-character, not 14 as you gave us.Once you have the transaction ID, you can restore access to the account that was charged at https://wordpress.com/wp-login.php?action=recovery
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Hey @bromsfoodgeist
I can’t see any purchases currently active on this particular account. Equally, to echo @staartmees – bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com is not an active site, and it wouldn’t be possible to have subscription, without also having a site.
I suspect this is perhaps a transaction that’s occurred with a different or a different hosting provider.
PayPal should be able to provide receipt of the transaction itself, and if this is obtainable, it should resemble something like this:
Are you able to obtain such a document? Finding this could be the key to finding out who and where the purchase was made.
I look forward to hearing from you!
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Hello @aleone89,
Oh boy where to start? This is taking up so much of my time. Maybe that’s part of wordpress’s modus operandi, wear the user down till they finally give up? Do you have anyone, friend or family, that’s a fulltime carer for a member of their family who has Alzheimer’s? Believe me that in itself is a fulltime job!
So I have a couple of questions.
- If you click onto https://wordpress.com/me what do you come up with? I come up with “my profile” with nothing on it except for “public display name” which is @bromsfoodgeist. Of course you “can’t see any purchases currently active on this particular account” because to the best of my knowledge I was not satisfied with wordpress originally, so didn’t make any. I became a member on May 5 2019, thinking it was a free site which clearly it wasn’t, and didn’t ever really use it. @staartmees tried to suggest “Again bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com has never been registered, so you must be talking about another site.” Which is absolute rubbish. S/he also said “It’s obvious the AU$89 charge is connected to an account your husband did set up as he gave his credit card information.” Which is also obviously completely untrue. If you speak to anyone who deals with a person with Alzheimer’s they will tell you it’s like dealing with a 4 year old or younger. Definitely not computer literate or able to manage money. I do everything for him and have so for long before I originally subscribed to wordpress in May 2019.
Just for the record I’m not a silly old woman, I’m a retired architect and also lectured at both prestigious universities in Sydney, UNSW and UTS. I may not be as computer savvy as you but I’m not an idiot.
2. Do you have a record of the account supposedly set up by my husband, as @staartmees tried to suggest? The date it was set up and the name of it? I don’t think you’ll find one … because none was ever set up.
At this stage I’d like to say ‘take me to you leader’ but I have a feeling your superiors would stonewall me the same way I’ve been treated up to now! The money itself is not as important as the fact that it was taken in the first place with no authorisation. So my proposal is;
I will forego trying to get the money back. It’s clearly like trying to get blood from a stone. However, I want a written guarantee that any record, financial or personal about my husband or me is taken off your records and that I never ever see another withdrawal done by wordpress.
Can you or your superiors give me that guarantee? I sincerely hope so.
Susan Bromley
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Hello Susan,
Without going into too much detail about myself – I really do sympathise with your situation and I’m sending my best wishes. Rest assured, we don’t have a modus operandi to wear people down and drag things out – if anything it’s opposite, as we try to help as many people as we can in a short space of time.
Let’s do our best to retrace some steps…
“Again bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com has never been registered, so you must be talking about another site.” Which is absolute rubbish.
When you visit: bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com this is what is seen:
To double check, is bromsfoodgeist.wordpress.com the correct site? The reason why I ask is because, we need to rule out the possibility that this purchase could be with another hosting provider.
2. Do you have a record of the account supposedly set up by my husband, as @staartmees tried to suggest? The date it was set up and the name of it?
Thus far, we’ve been provided no information (including a valid name of the site, a username, email address, a transaction ID, an activation link…etc) that would lead us to find this account.
I will forego trying to get the money back. It’s clearly like trying to get blood from a stone. However, I want a written guarantee that any record, financial or personal about my husband or me is taken off your records and that I never ever see another withdrawal done by wordpress.
As it stands, as we can’t locate the site, transaction or account – we can’t guarantee this. Additionally, we can’t guarantee the purchase was even made with WordPress.com, based on the information provided.
In some instances, we do apply discretion with retrieving funds, and so it’s not out of the realms of possibility to do that.
Are you able to contact the bank of the card charged and get a merchant name, a Transaction ID or any other details of the transaction that could help? It could be the case this information is not readily available via a statement, but could be provided over the phone…
I want to take this opportunity to say that, I’m on your side with this issue and will look to obtain a refund if we’re able to do so. I’ve seen similar instances (professionally/personally) and so I do sympathise.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
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Hi again aleone89 ,
Thanks for getting back to me. Boy it’s complicated and I’m not sure there’s much more I can do to try and figure out what’s going on and why. Oh well. I can’t attach a screen shot of my husband’s cc statement via this forum however, I can copy the exact words that are written on his statement which are;
PAYPAL *WORDPRESS 402-935-7733CA ##USA MERCHANT
And when I click on “search the internet” link for “is this name confusing?” on his statement it goes straight to wordpress’s page link. The AU$89 was purchased on Saturday 18 March 2023 at 10.12 PM Sydney time, and it’s listed as Computer network & IT services. So there you are. And as my dear old Dad used to say, wherever you go there you are.
I find it fascinating that my computer links me through to my site (with nothing on it but my name of course) when I click on the link, and yet your system says bromsfoodgeist has never been registered? Weird. And yet again when I look at the page it links to, it says I registered the name on May 5 2019, which is when I started setting up my page. As I mentioned before I thought it was free!
I guess this will have to remain a mystery.
Sincerely Susan Bromley
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Hi there!
Oh well. I can’t attach a screen shot of my husband’s cc statement via this forum however, I can copy the exact words that are written on his statement which are;
PAYPAL *WORDPRESS 402-935-7733CA ##USA MERCHANT
So it looks like the payment was made via PayPal. Do you have access to the PayPal account to get the PayPal transaction ID? We have step-by-step instructions for locating the PayPal transaction ID on PayPal’s website here.
If we can have the PayPal transaction ID, we will be able to locate the exact charge on our end and help you with a refund.
So far, we don’t have much to go with. The link you shared is invalid, and we are yet to have a full transaction ID to look it up on our end. Please help us with the transaction ID, and we’ll be happy to help you with the next steps.
Also, can you tell us the cardholder name for the credit card that was charged?
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