Accounts & Billing
Guides do not have access to account information but there are some common
questions and problems people have with billing that you can help with.
Where do I send a payment?
Halsoft Inc., PO Box 26662, Austin, TX 78755-0662
You can
find this address in the VPguides FAQ and the VPchat help files
Feel free to copy and paste the address to the customer and please remind them
to put their account information on the money order or check. Receiving a money
order with no account information on it only delays applying it until we find
out who it is from. Also, we only take US dollars, so, no duckets, lira,
or glass beads please.
Why did my credit card fail?
You won't be able to answer that question for them, but you can give them some
great information that might help them to help themselves. All of the
billing information that they entered with us must match the information on
record with their bank/credit card company, expiration date, address, name,
etc...
It's good to direct people to the MY ACCOUNT area to review or change any of
their billing information.
Checks,
by the by, can only be sent in by US customers.
We don't take checks from Canada, UK, Australia, etc...
We do not take Overnight Mail.
If
someone needs to send in a payment quickly...and they want to overnight the
payment using Fed Ex or some other service please let them know that we DO NOT
take overnight mail. All the mail goes to a PO Box and you can't Fedex
anything to a PO Box.
How do echecks work , or more precisely, "My money was
already taken out of my account, why isn't my account on yet?"
When a customer uses an echeck the money is immediately taken from their
account. It makes its way to us and usually takes 3 to 5 business days to
clear. If the customer isn't satisfied with that response, please have
them write to billing@vpchat.com or the helpdesk.
How do I transfer a name or get a name back that I've
deleted?
We can transfer and retrieve names if they are no longer in use. The key
is that an account owner is the only one that can make this request. There
is a one dollar fee per name transfer.
What payment types do we accept?
There are
several payment types: money order, check, credit card, echeck, and PayPal
PayPal is a little confusing for people because they often don't realize that
VPchat and PayPal are NOT the same Company
This is
important to note
If a customer wants to change a subscription or buy an add on or cancel their
account and they use paypal, they will have to make
some changes in paypal. There's a link to PayPal in the help section.
Some people often ask about why their account is Pending
or in a Pending Status
What this means is that they have a subscription with us and there's a short
space of time between when we receive a payment or when a payment clears.
While we wait, the account goes to pending. If a customer doesn't have a
subscription, or they pay month to month, if they pay late, their accounts
automatically expire.
The system changes it to expired automatically and usually in the middle of the
night.
It's
important to let people know if it comes up, to keep their
billing information private. Some folks want to share accounts or
payment etc...
while we know it happens, we certainly discourage it
it's better to encourage individuals to get their own accounts
privacy is a key element to dealing with billing
This can come up when folks lose their password....and this is when folks get
into a lot of trouble.
Passwords shouldn't be shared. I think you guys know this already.
Account owners have their personal billing info in their accounts and if they
give a password out, there information is not safe.
Also guides NEVER ask for their billing info
If they have a question where that kind of thing needs to be shared send them to
the helpdesk
We do a lot of online transactions, and above all we want our customers to feel
good and safe about giving us money.
A couple
other points are
1. Canceling an account
2. canceling auto renew
People get really confused about these things
If someone (and we hope not) wants to cancel an account
if they are using a credit card or bank card
they can go to the MY ACCOUNT area
look in the ACCOUNT SUMMARY
and disable AUTO RENEW
what this means is that we will not charge their card again
it doesn't mean their account closes immediately
their account closes on the expiration/renewal date
xxxx does the site ask for feedback as to why they are cancelling?
good question
if the customer writes in and asks to cancel....they usally tell us
if they simply disable auto renew
no
Subscription Changes
If someone wants to downgrade their subscription
it's important that they know a couple of things
They need to reduce the number of names in their account to match the new
subscription
So, if someone wanted to go from a Family to Basic account
They'd need to delete 3 names
After that, they need to write in
If they want to increase their subscription (which we hope they all do: ))
they can do that in the MY ACCOUNT area
If they look in the account summary box
they'll be able to upgrade
they will be charge a small fee if they upgrade before their renewal date.
It should tell them when they upgrade exactly how much they owe.
A good rule of thumb for billing stuff
is that whatever they need to do
it can be found in the MY ACCOUNT area
They can buy add ons
Upgrade
Make a Payment
etc...
Oh one more thing
if someone's account expires
they can't sign into chat, but they can sign in to make a payment
But really that MY ACCOUNT area has all the bells and whistles