I May Lose My Medium Subscription Waiting for Support

The Standard Medium Support does not seem to be working in my favor

My yearly subscription fee was due for renewal and I received an email from Medium Support that they could not renew my subscription. Why? The credit card charge was declined.

Very puzzling

I thought, “That’s odd, other companies are auto-charging my card okay.” Medium charged my card a year ago and had no problems. I haven’t changed any card information.

The email gave a few reasons why the card would be declined. Then they included a “helpful” hint that I should use another credit card.

My Investigation

I don’t have another credit card, so I did what I thought would be right. I logged into my Medium account for payment information and re-entered the payment data. In the end, I clicked the “Save” or Okay” button and was greeted with an error message that the update could not be completed. But it still left the original data intact.

I sent an email back to support explaining what I did and suggested it was something on Medium’s side that had failed. I received a “Thank You for Contacting Support” canned response and I waited to hear back with Medium’s investigation

Interesting occurrence — related?

At this same time, I had 2 referrals dropped from my statistics. Could this problem affect other members? Coincidence? Maybe.

No response yet

After a few days of no response, I decided again, that I would have to try to resolve this issue. I logged into my bank’s website and checked transactions. There I saw other companies’ transactions had completed an okay month after month including recent ones. I saw no declines.

While still logged in, I decided to call the bank to talk with customer service who may be able to see data that is not posted on my transaction screen. They did not see any declined transactions on their screens either. I asked if they would see a declined transaction and the rep said yes, they would.

Support again

So, I sent another email to support and relayed my findings from the bank to explain that Medium’s software seemed to never connect with the bank. I received another “Thank You for Contacting Support” canned response.

Time running out.

My subscription will expire in 4 days so I will have to wait until Medium responds in time.

This is the problem with website companies when trying to resolve a support matter. There is no human contact you can have for a real conversation about the issue. You also have no idea if my email is being looked at, or in a pile of “to do” emails.

If it isn’t resolved, then it was nice knowing all the writers I have been in contact with during my time with Medium.