Problem with downgraded ClickBank membership

Our s2Member Pro site is integrated with ClickBank, so some subscription buttons are ClickBank buttons that sign up the user through ClickBank.com. We also have subscription downgrade (and upgrade) buttons that allow users to change their subscription levels.

Recently a user who had initially signed up using a ClickBank button tried to downgrade, and is now being charged for both subscriptions (one through ClickBank, the other directly through PayPal). He has only one username. We know how to refund the last payment and cancel the subscription in ClickBank (keeping only the downgraded PayPal subscription level), but how can we prevent this problem from happening in the future? Is there an issue with our button code?

ClickBank button to subscribe to Platinum membership (s2Member level 3):
echo '[s2Member-Pro-ClickBank-Button cbp="30" level="3" ccaps="" desc="Platinum Member" custom="website.com" tp="0" tt="D" rp="1" rt="M" rr="1" image="subscribe_cb.png" output="anchor" /]';

Button to downgrade to Gold membership (s2Member level 2), only visible to users logged in at level 3 or higher:
echo '[s2Member-PayPal-Button modify="1" level="2" ccaps="" desc="Gold Member" ps="paypal" lc="" cc="USD" dg="0" ns="1" custom="website.com" ta="0" tp="0" tt="D" ra="29.95" rp="1" rt="M" rr="1" rrt="" rra="1" image="downgrade.png" output="button" /]';

(Both buttons are in PHP.)

Thanks!

Hi Annie.

I’m not familiar with mixing subscriptions between gateways, so I’m emailing Jason asking for his thoughts on this.

I’ll let you know as soon as I hear back from him, or he may just reply here himself.

Thanks for your patience. :)

Thanks for the heads up on this thread.

s2Member working together with PayPal, PayPal Pro, or with Authorize.Net; will automatically cancel previous billing profiles during an upgrade and/or downgrade from one Membership Level to another. So these are the payment gateways I would recommend for the scenario you mentioned.

With ccBill, ClickBank and Google Checkout, automated cancellations are not possible for s2Member (i.e. the gateways APIs do not allow for such a thing to occur from the s2Member side of things), it must be handled manually, or by the customer.

In other words, if a customer is upgrading and/or downgrading his account, under a ClickBank and/or Google Checkout subscription, they will need to cancel any previous billing plans they have with you (in most cases), by contacting you (or by contacting ClickBank directly). Or, in the case of Google Checkout, the customer can log into their Google Wallet account and cancel charges from there.

In either of these cases, cancellation is handled manually, and then s2Member is notified automatically behind-the-scene that a cancellation took place, and it will terminate whatever site access was associated with the billing plan, at the correct point in time.

NOTE: In the case of ClickBank… ClickBank provides customers with a link which allows them to request cancellation via ClickBank directly: https://www.clickbank.com/orderDetail.htm

This can also be introduced to a customer through an
s2Member Pro ClickBank Cancellation Button, as seen in the screenshot below.

The same is true for Google Checkout, as seen in the screenshot below.

I should also add the following…

In no case will s2Member attempt to cancel billing profiles and/or existing charges of any kind, which are associated with a completely different payment gateway. In other words, even if you integrate PayPal, PayPal Pro, or Authorize.Net, the upgrade/downgrade processes are limited in scope, to the current gateway, and s2Member will not look for other charges which might have been associated with another payment gateway (e.g. a gateway other than the one currently in use during checkout).

Hi guys,

I have a somewhat related question.

I’m using clickbank too to allow higher level entry to my site. I have 7 levels, 0,1,2,3 are free using the pro forms and I’m charging through clickbank for level 4,5 and 6. I have two questions. when a paid member cancels its subscription manually and when s2member gets informed, does this changes its subscription to level0 ? Is there any way to tell through the cancelation process to downgrade the following way -> 6 to 3 , 5 to 2 and 4 to 1 ?
Second question is can an already registered and logged in user with say level 3 (free membership in our case) use the level 4,5 or 6 clickbank buttons and upgrade its membership level while keeping the same account?

Appreciate your help! Nice plugin by the way!

the site in question is at: http://www.50dmc.com/

Hi Gabor,

Currently s2Member doesn’t support this functionality within the core framework. However, you could build onto it through creating your own Cron Job. You can find out information on this within s2Member->PayPal® Options->Automatic EOT Behavior.

I’m putting this on the list of things to cover in Knowledge Base Articles within the next 1-2 weeks. :)

Hi Bruce,

Sounds great! I look forward to your knowledge base article! As I’ll definitely need the help that’ll give to implement the above described functionality, in short to enable:

– downgrading from x level to specific y level when a member cancels through clickbank and
– upgrading for existing higher then level0 members with clickbank

I’m sure it’ll be useful for others too.

Thanks in advance!!

Gabor

Hi Gabor,

Taking a look at the structure now, it appears that it’s a bit more complicated than I first thought. A Cron Job will not be enough to do what you’re looking to do. Instead, we will need to create a new instance of the class c_ws_plugin__s2member_auto_eots, which is very possible because of how s2Member creates classes.

I’ll be posting the KB Article pretty soon, and will post the link here.

upgrading for existing higher then level0 members with clickbank

I believe that functionality is covered by Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Billing Modification Forms. If not, can you clarify what you mean by that?

Thanks!

Hi Bruce,

I believe that functionality is covered by Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Billing Modification Forms. If not, can you clarify what you mean by that?

I ment upgrading from our free levels (0-1-2-3) to a paid level (4-5-6) Which I’ve eventually achieved the following way:

The billing modification forms option only works with paypal so I’ve first tried modifying the form code generated there to work with clickbank with obviously no luck. I’ve tried just adding the modify=”1″ parameter but that takes customers to clickbank’s “order lookup” which isn’t right as the member levels I’d like to allow the upgrades for are free levels therefore have no previous order.

But then it was just as simple as providing the same buttons what I have for new member registration. And it worked. It changed the level1 free membership to a level4 subscription.

Silly me… trying to complicate the simple. :)

So now it would be great to achieve downgrading certain levels to certain levels when customer cancels. (eg: 6 to 3, 5 to 2, 4 to 1…) Which is what you’re making the KB Article for.

I’m also trying to find a way to allow members to switch between the free levels (0-1-2-3) but thats not crucial at this stage.

Thank you for all your help!!!

Gabor

Hi Gabor,

Thanks for your patience

I ment upgrading from our free levels (0-1-2-3) to a paid level (4-5-6) Which I’ve eventually achieved the following way:

The billing modification forms option only works with paypal so I’ve first tried modifying the form code generated there to work with clickbank with obviously no luck. I’ve tried just adding the modify=”1″ parameter but that takes customers to clickbank’s “order lookup” which isn’t right as the member levels I’d like to allow the upgrades for are free levels therefore have no previous order.

But then it was just as simple as providing the same buttons what I have for new member registration. And it worked. It changed the level1 free membership to a level4 subscription.

Silly me… trying to complicate the simple. :)

Ah, sorry about the confusion. I hadn’t realized you were using ClickBank, but ClickBank does have similar functionality. Glad to hear you got that fixed.

So now it would be great to achieve downgrading certain levels to certain levels when customer cancels. (eg: 6 to 3, 5 to 2, 4 to 1…) Which is what you’re making the KB Article for.

I’ve finished this article here. In this case you would use something like this at line 136:

$existing_role = c_ws_plugin__s2member_user_access::user_access_role($user);
/**/
if($existing_role === 's2member_level6')
	$demotion_role = 's2member_level3';
if($existing_role === 's2member_level5')
	$demotion_role = 's2member_level2';
if($existing_role === 's2member_level4')
	$demotion_role = 's2member_level1';
else
	$demotion_role = c_ws_plugin__s2member_option_forces::force_demotion_role("subscriber");

I’m also trying to find a way to allow members to switch between the free levels (0-1-2-3) but thats not crucial at this stage.

I believe this will need to be set up through some custom code within a WordPress page. s2Member’s not fully equipped for this as of yet. You can find information on how to set this up in Jason’s Article.

Let us know if you have any issues.

Thanks Bruce! I’ll be implementing / testing this in the next few days and I’ll report back about the success :) let’s be optimistic! Thanks again! Gabor

Hi Gabor,

Sounds good! :)