I have a patron that recently signed up for my annual option at the $10 level. She paid around $108 for a full year’s access then canceled her pledge so she would not be charged next year. Now her Patreon account says “this patron is not supporting any creators at the moment”. Because of this her access to Crowdcast (which looks at the current status of the account) will not give her access to my videos! This is one of my most loyal patrons and she is being denied the very thing she has signed up for. Patreon help desk is telling me she needs to pledge again to make her account read as active. That is in direct violation of what your website assures people when they sign up! (See below quote).
Her profile in your system should show her pledge level for the full year of her payment! This glitch will also seriously affect my ability to check on a patrons current status (which I often do when replying to messages). Currently, the only thing that pops up when you are replying to a patron from an email message is their basic patreon profile so when her account said she was not active I assumed she was logged in under a duplicate account and told her to login under her current account. How is Crowdcast supposed to know the status of these yearly patrons too? It is ridiculous to require patrons to keep their pledges active for the full year!
I am livid that:
- Your system is denying her access to what she has paid for because of a glitch in your recording process. Current annual customer accounts should stay active until the time their payments lapse!
- Patreon help is NOT helping me or this patron to fix this issue.
- This will give the annual memberships a VERY bad name when it gets out. And believe me my patrons talk to eachother. There are 3000 of them and we do livestreams. All it takes is one disgruntled patron to show up to my Facebook groups or YouTube livestreams and start sharing their very real frustration!
PLEASE fix this flaw in your system ASAP!
Here is what Patreons annual membership cancellation indicates:
“When does my cancelation take effect?
While you can cancel automatic renewal of your annual membership at any time, cancelling will not effect your current membership. (NOT TRUE!) Since you’ve paid for the year up front, you’ll still have access to your creator’s patron only content for the year. (NOT TRUE either) After 12 months, you’ll no longer have access, and your membership will not be renewed, so you won’t be charged after cancelling."