No pals of mine

I’m a little bit peeved today so I’m going to have a whinge, I don’t do it very often do I?

This morning I got an email from PayPal saying that my credit card was due to expire so I should update my details or terrible things might happen. Conscientious and law-abiding citizen that I am I duly responded and went straight to their site and added my new card details. A short while of surfing later I received an email back from them, oh confirmation and gracious thanks for being a good girl I thought.

Sadly, no. A terse message saying, "You have successfully cancelled your Subscription to Gold-Annual. You will not be invoiced for this Subscription again." Gold-Annual I thought, who are they? Hang on, that’s my Trannyweb membership status, that can’t be right. So I went back to the PayPal site and there were my new card details, all seemingly correct along with a record of this apparent request for cancellation. I checked on Trannyweb, "Your membership level does not allow access to this area…" What??!! I can’t see all those beautiful girls’ pics or read all the forums, and I’m now a humble, basic member? Noooooooo.

So I contacted PayPal via their query page on the website. They replied with an automated response about how to change funding sources, adding that, "Canceling (sic) a subscription cancels all future scheduled payments of that subscription." No no no, you buggers asked me to update my card details and I’ve done that, so I mailed them explaining exactly what the problem was. I didn’t cancel anything and the remaining 3 and a half months of my membership has been taken away, WHY?

They replied briefly: "Thank you for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. I am happy to assist you further. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you but when you (sic) credit card is altered in any way your subscriptions are cancelled.

If you have an issue of immediate concern and need to contact PayPal by phone, please call our Customer Service agents at 08707 307 191."

Some fucking assistance that is. My experience (vast, trust me) with customer service call centres tells me that there is no way they would be able to deal with this satisfactorily over the phone, they would just quote me their procedures, or tell me to write in with a complaint. I’d had enough, it was time for one of my letters:

"You are happy to assist me by telling me to contact someone else?! This is not a great deal of assistance as I will now incur further costs by having to telephone you.

You say when credit card details are changed all subscriptions are cancelled; then how am I supposed to update my details without losing my membership to such sites?

As I explained in my last email, I made a payment via yourselves for one year's membership to the site in question, you as an interim party have NO RIGHT to cancel this fully paid membership with immediate effect and without warning. Obviously had my card expired and not been replaced then you would not be able to collect future subscriptions WHEN THEY BECAME DUE. This subscription is not due for renewal until May 1st and my card has indeed been replaced and the details updated as you requested.

If your system automatically cancels memberships prematurely then your system needs to be changed; it is illegal and totally unfair for you to intervene in a contract between two other parties unless specifically requested by either of them.

I therefore request that you reimburse the cost of the 3 months+ membership, paid by me in advance, which you have now denied me through no fault of my own. Your actions in this case have been inappropriate and unjust. If you are unable to deal with this matter yourself then please forward this email to someone who can.

Thank you".

I’m still waiting for a response. It’s not a great deal of money, but I don’t like chucking it about unnecessarily and in this case there is a principle. All I did was supply them with my new card details and they’ve stripped me of my full membership, already paid for, with Trannyweb. What the fuck has that got to do with them? Their job is to take my money and pass it on to Katie and co. They did that and now they want to do it again, but somewhat prematurely. Well it’s not on. Don’t take this sort of nonsense girls, stand up for your rights however petty. Don’t let these automated systems take over the world.

There now, I do feel better. Thank Goddess I can still blog.