After today or tomorrow, I will cease to be a Charter Member of the SDMB. This is not from a loss of interest in the board, nor from an inability or unwillingness to pay.
Which is why this thread is in ATMB, not the Pit or MPSIMS. The reason I will no longer have my treasured Charter Membersip is that PayPal has suddenly stopped accepting payments from a prepaid debit card, which happens to be my only means of doing online transactions. They cheerfully tell me, “This card cannot be used for this transaction. Try again with a different card.” Which would be nice if I had one.
Since a Charter Membership is like virginity – once you’ve lost it, you can’t get it back – I figure it’s gone for good within 48 hours. depending on how the software rolls over.
Ed, you have far more pressing things to be concerned about than PayPal’s latest little gimmick. But I just wanted you to know you won’t be getting my $7.48 this year, and it’s not from unwillingness to pay – what I’ve gotten from this place is priceless, and I’d gladly give many more times that amount to be a part of things here.
First off, I see that your Charter Membership is good until after MAY 24.
How are you going about this? Usually the source of the card is not a problem with PayPal – as long as the card has money/credit on it most of the time PayPal likes it fine.
Let’s review the process.
Click on UserCP.
Click on Paid Subscriptions.
Click on type of membership from the menu.
Click on “Order.”
Click “Order Using PayPal.”
If not using PayPal directly – if you are using a credit card or a debit card to pay and not a personal PayPal account – click on the hyperlink that says “Don’t have PayPal.”
From this page you have many options. Fill in the blanks as necessary.
Here’s some things to keep in mind:
Enter the card number with no spaces, just one number after the other.
Make sure the name and address in the form are exactly as on your billing name and address.
** Be sure to enter the CSC – Card Security Code – the three digit number on the back of the card (Master Card/Visa) or the four digit number on the front of the card (American Express)**
Click the Review and Continue button, which will take you to the last page where you review your order and hit the final button to process your transaction.
Please try your transaction again. If you continue to have a problem carefully note the error message you get. If you could send me a screen shot of that message that might help us figure out what’s going on.
To be more specific, based on my experience: when you get a prepaid card from, say, the local Walmart, it’s at first only good for in person purchases. You have to go online and activate it to enable online purchases. When doing so, you will have to give your name and address. That will be the information you give when making any purchase.
Mostly people wait until the last minute because they think if they renew early they won’t get the full year subscription – that their time will be truncated because they resubscribed early.
That’s not what happens – any further subscription adds on to the meter, so to speak.
And that was the reason for posting. There’s no reason to wait until the last minute. If you want to maintain the charter membership, renew well in advance, or even for more than a year at a time.
Perhaps, but I had some prepaid cards I got for use on vacation last year, and I never knew what the name or address on them might be, or even if there was one, and now that they’re all used up, I can’t try to find out. How do you find that out?
Silenus, many thanks, for this and for past kindnesses. (And thanks to Jonathan for the intent.)
Tuba, I misread (or misremembereed reading) it as April 24, hence the concern. As noted, the WalMart prepaid cards have no name or address assoicated, and we have in the past used them online without going through the registration process (which I did not know about).
Dewey, we budget to pay things as they come due. It would be nice to have the kind of discretionary income to paay stuff ahead, but… I knew early renewal would buy a full year same as waiting; we just didn’t have the free funds.
My understanding-- which could be faulty – is that they can be used in self-contained situations (like at Walmart) without attached information to them, but to use them outside of Walmart means putting name/address on them, which you do by going online.
I had a Kroger prepaid card that worked the same way – you could use it at Kroger without any information but to do anything else, they had to send you an individual plastic card with your name on it.
Anyway, the situation is resolved now – thanks to the kindness of all, especially silenus. I hope those of you who are Members resubscribe. I hope those of you who are Guests become Members.
A timely thread, Polycarp, in the sense that it reminded me I’d better cough up if I was going to renew my Charter Membership for another year. It really is incredible value and I’d never forgive myself if I let the expiry date pass by through absent-mindedness. It’s threads like this that always jog my memory at the last minute. (Yes, I know Tuba always makes a reminder announcement and bless her for it but I am so used to automatically scrolling down past the stickies that I am guaranteed to miss such things.)
Anyway all done and dusted for another year now and very comforting it is to see that 2013 expiry date!
Sorry for the minor hijack, but is a pre-paid card the same thing as a gift card? And if so, are they like cash or do you need to present ID when using them?
ETA: I want to get a gift for a niece with no ID yet. Usually I give cash but cards seem safer.
I’ve had that message pop up for me before, not here but on other websites and the problem seemed to be that I was trying to pay through a notPaypal method with a card linked to a Paypal account. I logged into paypal and tried again and it worked flawlessly so my advice is to check and make sure that you’re actually paying through PayPal and that you’re logged into the Paypal account associated with that card.
