Unpleasant surprises from Tinypass or not worth chasing a subscription discount
One Russian online publication introduced a paid subscription about two years ago. Fearing possible blocking and other inconveniences from the Russian authorities, the publication decided not to get involved with Russian payment systems. Instead, the resource used the foreign system Tinypass . With the plugin of this system, 10 articles become available to readers (except Premium, open only to paid subscribers) per month free of charge: the rest of the available articles are displayed in the corner. After this number has expired - a window pops up over the text with an offer to buy a subscription. The resource has a choice of 3 options: for a month, for 3 months, for a year. At first glance, it is convenient, and you can not be afraid of blocking the account at the request of the authorities. But even here it was not without pitfalls.
Before the New Year, at the time of the appreciation of the dollar against the ruble, the publication decided to make a discount on the subscription - 20%. Instead of $ 50, the annual subscription cost $ 40 (more precisely, $ 39.99 instead of $ 49.99).
I still had a valid annual subscription, which expired only at the end of February. The workaround is to buy a subscription right now, and activate it later, it seemed that it was possible to purchase a subscription as a gift: you pay now, and the gift comes on that date (but no later than a month) at the selected mailing address and activation begins the same day.
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Not everything turned out to be so simple: on the indicated day I received a letter with the text: “It looks like you already have access to this element, so we will credit your account. ... Next time, when using Tinypass, log in and select the option“ Pay from Tinypass account ” ". So, 39.99 appeared on my account, and the subscription was not activated.
Okay, let's say.
Shortly after the expiration of my old subscription, for the holiday of March 8, the publication timed a new sale with a similar reduction in prices for a subscription. Once the last time the purchase failed, and the money was left - you can use this amount to buy now.
And here the main surprise lurked - there was NO possibility to use the funds from your account for payment. Only three options - credit card, Paypal and Amazon.
I was not the only reader with such a problem:
Admins site edition could not help. I decided to write Tinypass technical support. There were two types of communication with technical support.
One of them - on the button Help personal account. However, no help for it followed, my request has remained unanswered so far, apparently, this service is already inactive.
The second type of communication is visible only if you are NOT logged in. The help menu item offers two options - Content problems (the problem with the subscription applies here) and Other problems. The first option opens the already mentioned “dead” version on the site itself, and the second option opens a separate technical support interface created on Zendesk. Where is the logic - why this method is visible only without authorization, I do not see, but just in case I wrote it there.
Unlike the first type, it turned out to be working and I received a notification in the mail that the request was open. A day later I received a reply with an uncomprehending comment - “why did you give yourself a new subscription at all, when you could wait and repeat the old one”, and the only solution was that the funds would be returned to you within 24 hours.
A little less than a day the money returned to the card. The option of paying for a subscription using funds from the account, apparently, was not considered in principle, despite assurances in the letter to the post office (one of the pictures above). It seems that resource subscribers who tried to get a similar discount (with a current subscription) will probably have to write similar letters to tech support and demand a return.
Total: like the best, but it turned out as always. There are no discounts, the subscription will have to be bought at full price (the dollar has since grown a little), and it is written off with technical support, the answers from which, due to the time difference, reach only every other day. The publication also acted out of good intentions - to please its readers with a discount, but probably did not know that it would make sense to use the special offer only to those who did not buy the subscription. And the moral, both for readers and for publications - do not chase after a discount, without having fully studied how it works.
Before the New Year, at the time of the appreciation of the dollar against the ruble, the publication decided to make a discount on the subscription - 20%. Instead of $ 50, the annual subscription cost $ 40 (more precisely, $ 39.99 instead of $ 49.99).
I still had a valid annual subscription, which expired only at the end of February. The workaround is to buy a subscription right now, and activate it later, it seemed that it was possible to purchase a subscription as a gift: you pay now, and the gift comes on that date (but no later than a month) at the selected mailing address and activation begins the same day.
')
Not everything turned out to be so simple: on the indicated day I received a letter with the text: “It looks like you already have access to this element, so we will credit your account. ... Next time, when using Tinypass, log in and select the option“ Pay from Tinypass account ” ". So, 39.99 appeared on my account, and the subscription was not activated.
Okay, let's say.
Shortly after the expiration of my old subscription, for the holiday of March 8, the publication timed a new sale with a similar reduction in prices for a subscription. Once the last time the purchase failed, and the money was left - you can use this amount to buy now.
And here the main surprise lurked - there was NO possibility to use the funds from your account for payment. Only three options - credit card, Paypal and Amazon.
I was not the only reader with such a problem:
Admins site edition could not help. I decided to write Tinypass technical support. There were two types of communication with technical support.
One of them - on the button Help personal account. However, no help for it followed, my request has remained unanswered so far, apparently, this service is already inactive.
The second type of communication is visible only if you are NOT logged in. The help menu item offers two options - Content problems (the problem with the subscription applies here) and Other problems. The first option opens the already mentioned “dead” version on the site itself, and the second option opens a separate technical support interface created on Zendesk. Where is the logic - why this method is visible only without authorization, I do not see, but just in case I wrote it there.
Unlike the first type, it turned out to be working and I received a notification in the mail that the request was open. A day later I received a reply with an uncomprehending comment - “why did you give yourself a new subscription at all, when you could wait and repeat the old one”, and the only solution was that the funds would be returned to you within 24 hours.
A little less than a day the money returned to the card. The option of paying for a subscription using funds from the account, apparently, was not considered in principle, despite assurances in the letter to the post office (one of the pictures above). It seems that resource subscribers who tried to get a similar discount (with a current subscription) will probably have to write similar letters to tech support and demand a return.
Total: like the best, but it turned out as always. There are no discounts, the subscription will have to be bought at full price (the dollar has since grown a little), and it is written off with technical support, the answers from which, due to the time difference, reach only every other day. The publication also acted out of good intentions - to please its readers with a discount, but probably did not know that it would make sense to use the special offer only to those who did not buy the subscription. And the moral, both for readers and for publications - do not chase after a discount, without having fully studied how it works.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/253281/
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