Family plan reset after payment paused

[thoughtreactor]

I've been subscribed for Spotify family for years. My card that was on file expired and I got an email yesterday saying my payment was declined, and I was downgraded to free. I thought when I updated my card info, my plan would revert back to family and all of my family members would be back. But that does not seem to be the case. I need to change my plan from premium to family, then re-add all of my family members. This seems like an oversight that should be fixed. If payment is paused, I can understand being downgraded to free...but I feel like once payment is restored, your account should revert back to the way it was. I shouldn't have to re-setup all of my family members. Thanks.

[Kiril]

Hey @thoughtreactor,

Thank you for reaching out on the Community!

We understand where you're coming from, but this is how the application works currently, when using a recurring payment method. If a regular monthly payment fails, you won't immediately lose your Family subscription and your members' will remain on the plan for a little while. The system tries to take the payment several more times over the next few days, also sending you notification emails if this was unsuccessful, so you can take action. You've probably seen those mails a bit too late and your plan has already reverted to free, before you were able to update your payment details. 

Hope this clears things up. If you have any questions or need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[thoughtreactor]

Hey Kiril. If what you are describing is how the system is supposed to work, then it didn't work correctly this time. See my recurring receipts below:

You can see from my transaction history I am billed on the 29th of the month. I posted about my issues yesterday (Nov 30) because I received the "your account has been paused" email on Nov 29, which is the day you tried to charge my card. I did not get a "few" days to correct the issue as you described.

[Alex]

Hey @thoughtreactor,

Thanks for the reply and the screenshot.

The system will automatically retry to complete the transaction. If the card has expired or does not allow for this kind of repeated automatic transaction request, the payment wil fail and the system will automatically revert your account to the free service.

We'd recommend reaching out to your bank/ financial institution about this, as they'd be able to give you more information on why this might have happened.

Hope you find this information helpful.

[donovan_hays]

You kind of contradicted the other moderator's response.  They said "you won't immediately lose your Family subscription and your members' will remain on the plan for a little while".  OP showed that the payment went through the next day.  One day hardly seems the limit of "a little while".  Then you say after a few failed charges the account will be reverted and you recommended to reach out to their bank.  But you should be focusing your recommendations internally and getting this changed.  Just pause everyone's account until the payment is fixed or give people the opportunity to transition their own account if it never gets fixed.  Removing all the family members after 1 or 2 days is ridiculously annoying to be honest and not necessary in 2022.  The development to fix this should not be significant unless your change management and release processes are horribly inefficient and then I also recommend fixing that.

[thoughtreactor]

THANK YOU!! I don’t understand how what I was saying was not making sense to them. There is obviously a bug in their system, which I guess they want to ignore.

[B3Orange]

I just had the same thing happen to me.  6 years on Premium, 5 years on Family Plan.  Never missed a payment.  Card got stolen, so I cancelled it.  A few days later, while I'm waiting for new card, Spotty attempts to charge old card -- twice in 1 minute.  Transactions rejected, and I immediately get an e-mail  "Sorry you're no longer on Spotty New Family" we "paused your subscription for now".   Well I got my new card the same day and added it to my account, but all my family has been purged from the account.  Then I find this off-the-mark response labeled as a "Solution!"  Oh brother!  Come on Spotty, we can do better than this.  Please give loyal members a grace period on a missed payment. 

[Alex]

Hey @B3Orange,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

Sorry to hear that your Premium Family plan was cancelled abruptly like that after the failed payment.

If a payment fails or a payment method is about to expire, you should receive a notification on the email of your account (Plan manager account). Note that this email might not reach you if you've disabled Spotify notifications or have previously marked emails from Spotify as spam/ junk.

After a payment fails, the system will try to take the payment out a few more times over the next couple of days, as sometimes there are technical issues on Spotify's server side or the payment provider's side. So the subscription doesn't get cancelled immediately. If the system can't take the payment after this period the subscription gets paused.

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[thoughtreactor]

@Alex--based off my original post and the one @B3Orange made, it's obvious there is an issue with your system. It's not giving a grace period before canceling the plan completely. Instead of reposting the same nonsense the last Spotify tech wrote--maybe send this to your dev team to look into because there is obviously an issue.

[M0rgoth]

Found this thread since the same thing just happened to me. I got new payment card so I cancelled the previous one and spotify immediately nuked my family accout without any notificaton. Seems to me that if the payment fails because the card was cancelled (as opposed to having not enough money or something), Spotify knows it can't retry and just cancels it immediately  without any chance of recovery.

So what the mods are saying is not true, I was not given any notificaction or chance to fix it, from the billing history I'm charged on the 24th of month. All the mails in my inbox (including spam) are:

• 23. 4. 2022 20:19 from bank - your card was disabled
• 24. 4. 2022 9:42 from spotify - you no longer have family account

So it's a pretty annoying bug in spotify billing. If the card is cancelled you should be able to provide alternative payment before your account is cancelled.

[ferrajuke]

I concur will all the comments in this thread. No notification of payment error, but woke up to realize my family plan has been canceled without a chance to correct it. This process should be improved - very disappointed with the recommended "solution" which in practice is not possible.

[methatsall]

It's not a bug, that's how they do it. Same exact thing happened to us. Even Stitcher, with famously bad software, doesn't eliminate all your settings and favorites when your payment method changes.

It doesn't clear anything up. You're just wrong. Look at all the complaints that have "Likes". What's the point of this business model? It just aggravates people. If you don't use Apple, I guess Spotify is sort of the only game in town. So people start over with a few free months, a slight price increase, and all their playlists and favorites etc deleted. It can't just be the desire to raise the cost, they can do that anytime.

[Dian]

As mentioned previously, we would like to again confirm that there's a system in place that makes multiple attempts to withdraw a payment, should that fail the first time. This usually happens over the course of a couple of days and notifications are sent out to help you resolve any payment issues. During that time, you receive a grace period where you can continue to use the Premium features even if the payment wasn't collected at the due date.

There are some instances where a specific payment error might not trigger this grace period, but this can depend on the payment provider used and other factors. We understand this can cause an inconvenience whenever this happens, but currently it's not possible to extend the current grace period system to cover all situations. If you have any issues with resubscribing or adding your previous members back to the plan, our support team will be happy to assist.

[Duziman]

There may well be a system but making a family reregister the whole thing again is pretty shitty.  Most unimpressed.  Just had the same experience as the others above.  Card had to be cancelled due to a fraudulent transaction and now we have to reregister the whole family.  Wow not that helpful

[Cowbell]

So how do we get signed back in to the family plan

[126101576]

This is one of the worst UX designs I have experienced. If payment fails, go ahead and pause the account. That makes complete sense. But when payment options are corrected, restore the account to its previous status with the configurations previously set. This is not rocket science. The "Free" account can be the default when the account is paused, but allow an unpause option to return to the previous state.

[julian-806]

This isn't correct. I just received a first notification of my card payment not going through and saying it would try again. I updated the card immediately and it reset my account to premium. This is really annoying.

[julian-806]

You're obviously not listening to your subscribers. Let me make this simple. THE PLAN REVERTS IMMEDIATELY TO PREMIUM WITHOUT A PERIOD OF GRACE. Hopefully that clears this up for you as it needs fixing. Please stop spouting the same comments when we're all telling you it's not true. Listen to your users.

[Aj1800]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

I thought i was making payment for my family plan and ot read that i made a individual plan payment?

[Vasil]

Hey folks!

Whenever you update your payment details and re-subscribe, does the page say that you're subscribing to Premium or Premium Family? We know there's no way to verify this after the fact but in case it happens again and you're asked to re-subscribe, please make sure the page says Premium Family.

Of course, do let us know if it says Family but you get Individual instead.
If this turns out to be an issue, screenshots would be very helpful as we'll be reporting this to our tech folks.

Tip: Albeit it being a slight inconvenience as you'll have to re-invite the plan members, you can always switch from Individual to Family should the need arise.
You won't be charged again and your next payment date will get moved instead to account for the price difference.

Hope this helps!