Plan price increase and recurring payment payments

When a subscription is set up to use PayPal Recurring Payments is the renewal transaction initiated by CBSubs or by PayPal?

We recently increased our annual subscription from £25 to £30 and changed the price of the plan to reflect the increase. We contacted all the members well in advance to advise them to increase their PayPal Recurring Payments instruction appropriately. All the renewal reminder emails that were sent out showed the increased price correctly, as did the Renew option on the Subscription tab on the User Profile.

However, where a member had failed to amend their Recurring Payment in their PayPal account the amount paid was £25.00, not the £30.00 it should have been and there was a mismatch between the amount due and the amount received.

We had expected the payment to be rejected due to the mismatch in the amounts (and appropriate email notifications to be received) but the payment was accepted and the subscription was renewed. We are now having to monitor every PayPal payment that comes in; any memberships that are underpaid have to be manually suspended until the shortfall is paid then manually reactivated.

If mismatches between the amount due and amount received are not being rejected and flagged then could the member theoretically determine the amount they pay and still get renewed?

I really hope the answer will be something simple - such as something I omitted to do.

When a subscription is set up to use PayPal Recurring Payments is the renewal transaction initiated by CBSubs or by PayPal?

PayPal.

We recently increased our annual subscription from £25 to £30 and changed the price of the plan to reflect the increase.

You can't do that for plans with existing recurring subscriptions. You need to create a new plan or cancel everyone's recurring plans at PayPal first.

We contacted all the members well in advance to advise them to increase their PayPal Recurring Payments instruction appropriately. All the renewal reminder emails that were sent out showed the increased price correctly, as did the Renew option on the Subscription tab on the User Profile.

They can't increase what they pay you. They'd have to cancel and renew manually.

Payment gateways do not let you change a users recurring price unless within a specific window (few days to a month usually) of subscribing, but we don't support that functionality regardless. The reason for this is it'd be real easy to scam thousands of people with a $5/mo plan that suddenly becomes $500/mo so payment gateways do not allow for it.

We had expected the payment to be rejected due to the mismatch in the amounts (and appropriate email notifications to be received) but the payment was accepted and the subscription was renewed. We are now having to monitor every PayPal payment that comes in; any memberships that are underpaid have to be manually suspended until the shortfall is paid then manually reactivated.

It's not going to be rejected because their basket keeps track of what they should have paid and if they paid it. They agreed to £25 and you're obligated to honor that agreement unless you terminate the plan.

If mismatches between the amount due and amount received are not being rejected and flagged then could the member theoretically determine the amount they pay and still get renewed?

A mismatch is only flagged if the amount they paid doesn't match the amount they were supposed to pay in accordance with the Basket; not the current Plan value. So in that regard it's working as expected.

Thank you for such a very comprehensive explanation. I greatly appreciate the trouble you went to in answering every point I raised and I am now in a position to work out a way forward. Fortunately, we do no anticipate changing any of the subscription prices again now for several years!

Many thanks