Dear WordPress: Were You An English Major? Because You Suck at Math

I love you WordPress.  It’s true.  I love you dearly.  But, clearly you were an English or Literature Major, and not an Accounting Major, because…well…you absolutely suck at that.  (Whoops, did I say that out loud?)  Anyhoo, now that that’s out in the open, let me elaborate. Suffice it to say you are computationally challenged and are not smarter than a fourth-grader when it comes to math.

Before I go on, please kindly note I’m not picking on your math skills alone.  In fact, I wouldn’t even have noticed your oversight if it weren’t for another subscription renewal I did just this past week with an entirely different, albeit equally mathematically challenged company.  (In your defense, at least your computational errors were buried over three sets of communications and not as obvious as the other company’s accounting methods.)  Anyway, it’s a principal-of-the-matter-thang and I just can’t seem to let you off the hook with this.

Have I piqued your interest yet?  The suspense would be killing me too…

So here it goes.  Two weeks ago, you wrote me and told me that my domain subscription at www.toniallengould.com was set to expire on 12/1/2013, but I was busy then and finally got back to this message from you today:

The domain toniaallengould.com…is set to expire in 14 days, on December 1, 2013. If that upgrade expires, your site will no longer be available at “toniaallengould.com”.  You may renew at any time and your subscription will be extended by another year from December 1, 2013.

Noting that if I renewed today, my subscription date would still be December 1, 2013-to December 1, 2014, I decided to click your link ahead of the deadline and renew. (I’m nothing if not punctual.)  But, at the bottom of the payment page on your site it read something entirely different than what your emailed communication promised, so I hesitated and didn’t renew:

Your order will automatically renew on November 18, 2014. You can disable automatic renewals at any time.

But, wait…that means that if I renewed today, I’d lose almost two weeks of previously paid for services?  If I had renewed two weeks ago, when I first got the email from you, would I have lost a full month?  Eventually, curiosity killed the cat and I went ahead with my payment thinking it would all clear up on my receipt.  Except that it didn’t.  In fact, it got worse when I received your payment confirmation:

Status: Domain included in WordPress.com Premium
You will be renewed automatically in 11 months on October 19, 2014.

Your WordPress.com Upgrade was purchased successfully.

Ummm…ok…so now I’ve gone from a 12/1/2014 next renewal date (which you assured me in your email would stay intact if I renewed today) to a 11/18/2014 renewal date before I made the payment, to an 10/19/2014 renewal date by the time I made the payment. So let me get this straight. I’ve renewed early, at your prompting, and now I will have lost a full 45 days in services that I have already paid for by the next time my renewal rolls around? What’s up with that and how do I get my clients at www.tagsource.com to sign-up to pay me twice over shorter periods of time? Here’s guessing that your subscribers lose about 45 days a year in their annual subscription services received.

Before I wrote this, I ran it all by my husband who scratched his head and said, “You know, the same thing just happened to me yesterday with a different company.  Definitely seems corrupt.” In your case, I’m guessing you’re not corrupt, dear WordPress, and there’s some fancy-schmancy-song-and-dancy reason for the way things are. I’d love to hear it.

Yes. It was a slow day at the Gould house.

Sincerely and Still a Faithfully Devoted WordPress User, Albeit Slightly Perturbed,

Tonia Allen Gould

P.S. Seriously.  What’s up?

Author: Tonia Allen Gould

Tonia Allen Gould is the CEO of Tagsource, a 25-year-old Consumer Promotions and Marketing Agency, she's founder of the Finding Corte Magore Project, and children's book author of Samuel T. Moore of Corte Magore. Here, on this blog, she writes about whatever compels her at the moment. In her book, she explores the concepts of perseverance, hard work, bullying, and finding a place to call home for young readers. The impetus of the Finding Corte Magore project stems from Tonia's background - growing-up below the poverty line, in rural Indiana. A product of Indiana's foster care system, she is the first to say that books, a solid education and teachers, taught her there was a life for herself, tangible and within her reach, she just had to reach out and grab it. After publishing her first book, she decided she wanted to find an island and make it real, by naming it after the fictional place in her book, “Corte Magore,” and utilize it for social and environmental good. Today, the 29-acre island of Corte Magore at Hog Cay, Nicaragua- through a joint partnership with Ambassador Francisco Campbell, the Nicaraguan Ambassador to the U.S.-will be utilized by the Finding Corte Magore Project to work to keep Nicaraguan children in school. The Finding Corte Magore Project works virtually to connect a global community of students and institutions with the plight of educationally and economically repressed Nicaragua. The project involves showcasing and managing one of the country's own beautiful islands in its educational and environmental initiatives. The goal of The Finding Corte Magore Project is to create social awareness coupled with building a sustainable, positive and long-term educational impact on the country's children who have an on-average fifth grade dropout rate. In addition, Tonia is a promotional products industry veteran. She is the founder and CEO of 25-year old Tagsource, LLC (AKA TAG! The Creative Source). She currently serves on the BOD for the Specialty Advertising Association of California (SAAC), is an "Industry Voice", a recipient of a PPAI Golden Pyramid, and has been named on ASI’s Hot List. She is the recipient of Supplier of the Year award through the Women’s Business Enterprise Council West, as nominated by Fortune 500 companies. View all posts by Tonia Allen Gould