Problems with subscription renewals

[JustinHorton]

Has anybody else had a problem with their subscription not renewing this summer, due to the direct debit system apparently not working at the office end?

[David Sedgwick]

Justin, is the announcement at https://www.englishchess.org.uk/incompl ... mberships/ relevant to your problem?

[JustinHorton]

No

[Andy Stoker]

Thank you for trying to help, David.

[JustinHorton]

OK. The problem is that my automatic subscription renewal doesn't seem to have operated and the office tell me there's some kind of problem with the system: so although I have a direct debit set up which should have made a payment in August, it didn't do so. I'm wondering whether anybody else has had a similar problem: normally you'd expect it to have come up on this forum but if it has, I missed it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Justin, I got an email on 4 August 2021 about what may be this issue or at least a similar one (you asked if anyone else has had a similar problem and this is at least similar enough that it might be relevant). This email went to the whole ECF membership as far as I can tell. That email gave the following link for more information:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/guidanc ... criptions/

The email said:

Dear ECF Member

When we started using the Azolve Membership System in July 2018, it was only possible to set up an annually recurring payment (or Subscription) with a Direct Debit from a bank account. Just over a year ago (during the pandemic), the system was updated to also accept recurring card payments.

It may be a recurring card payment has been set up knowingly. However, given several members set one up but still renewed manually this year, we believe it is possible that some members may have inadvertently set one up, or at least have forgotten about it. If this is the case, it will particularly affect members who do not wish to renew, or members who wish to renew at a lower level, as a payment may well still be taken if you take no further action before the payment is taken.

Everyone who has an active Subscription for this year will receive an email in mid-August, informing them a payment is due to be taken shortly. If you receive that email, a payment will be taken on 31st August or shortly after, unless you intervene. If you do not wish to renew, you will need to cancel the Subscription. If you wish to renew at a lower level, you will need to cancel the Subscription, and make a fresh payment.

We have put some guidance here - https://www.englishchess.org.uk/guidanc ... criptions/ - to assist all members. If you paid by Debit Card and wish to check now whether or not you set up a Subscription, the link gives you straightforward guidance on how to check if you have done so, and how to cancel/amend it if you wish. It will take you only a few minutes.

The underlining above was in the original email, but obviously would not have been any use to you if you didn't get that email. I am presuming you didn't get this email? It actually sounds like the automatic renewal just didn't happen at all, as the above seems to be mostly about recurring card payments and one-off bank payments, rather than annually recurring direct debits, but maybe the same problems affecting that are also affecting the direct debits? And maybe you upgraded at some point in the year and the system was unable to cope with that? Hope it gets sorted out.

[JustinHorton]

Yeah, I think I saw that. I guess I should maybe have looked out for the "email in mid-August", but I didn't, probably because (quite reasonably) that's kind of flagged as being something of importance if you didn't want to renew, or wanted to renew at a different level, whereas I wsa perfectly happy to renew at the same level and had in fact just a few days ago contacted the office to say so. So I didn't have any reason to think anything remiss was about to occur.