- Today's video wasn't really on our roster of videos.
We hadn't planned on producing this video,
but I received an email this morning that tweaked me,
and said, "I should do a quick video on this."
Because this is a situation
many of us face over and over again.
You get up in the morning and you have
an email in your inbox that you've made a payment
to a company who you don't recognize,
and it's one of your annual subscriptions.
Now, you're not being hoodwinked in any way,
but you just don't remember who it's to,
who it's for, so you have to do some research,
and then you realize,
"Oh my gosh, I haven't used this service for ages."
So you cancel the service, you write the people,
say, "I'm sorry, but I'm not using it."
"Can you refund me?"
and they say, "Yes, we will refund you."
And you go through this whole process.
And it's something that we all do.
I thought maybe we could take a look at a way
to a little more proactively deal with
those annual subscriptions, and maybe
every once in a while do a little bit of spring cleaning.
So, I thought I would do some spring cleaning.
And if I scroll down here at the very bottom of the email,
PayPal tells me that I can just go in
and I can update all of my preapproved payments.
And I thought, "Swell idea, let's do that!"
But, it's easier said than done.
How to manage your preapproved payments in PayPal,
today on Dotto Tech.
(bright music)
Steve Dotto here.
How the heck you doing this fine day?
As I mentioned off the top, I received an email
this morning from a company, good company.
I just don't use the product anymore.
It's one of those annual subscriptions.
We all have them, and so, I wrote to the people
and asked them to reverse the charges.
They did quite nicely, and I thought
I should do this proactively.
I should get ahead of it, and I'm gonna,
because now I've got a little bit of time on my hands,
I'm gonna go in, and PayPal tells me right here
in this little message, go to your
My money,
click on My money, update your agreement in the
My preapproved payments section.
This is, I mean really, what a great thing to do.
Just get ahead of things a little bit.
Proactively make sure that all of the annual
subscriptions that you're using, you're actually using,
and if not, make sure you put a note in your calendar
or you cancel them, so you aren't making payments
that you don't have to make.
So, I'm in my, so it says to go
into my money section here, right?
Isn't that what they said?
They said go into My money,
and then click on the My preapproved payments,
but it's not here, and I looked through
all of the menu items, and I can't find it anywhere.
So, I finally
do a search
and I go into the customer service section,
and I do multiple searches
until I finally find this document,
which tells me that I have to go in,
oh, it's not right where they said it was in the email.
No, no, no, it is buried ever so deeply.
So, look at what you actually have to go through,
and I'm gonna walk through this once with you
so that you know how to do it.
You go into your Account Settings,
and in your Account Settings, you go into your
Money, bank, and cards,
and
in your Money, bank, and cards,
you find Preapproved Payments.
Then you go and you set your Preapproved payments.
One, two, three, what am I?
Four clicks, five clicks, not counting the search (laughs).
And Lordy, Lordy, there they are.
Here is all the things that I have
preapproved payments set up for inside
of
PayPal.
And I can now scroll through this
and decide which ones I'm using,
which ones I'm not using,
which ones I should proactively cancel,
and maybe which ones I should be using more.
Or just checking, maybe there's a better deal to be had?
I can do some research.
At any rate, I finally found my list
of preapproved payments in PayPal,
but it's not at the surface.
It's not at an easy place to find,
and I suppose we shouldn't be surprised
because PayPal seldom makes things all that easy for us.
They should make things easier I think.
Do you think they should make things easier?
I'd love to see your comments.
But that's the story.
I wanted to take today's video,
and perhaps vent a little bit.
Which, I'm already feeling much better, but also for you.
This is a great time.
You know, take an hour today, go into PayPal,
you know where to go now.
You can follow the path in.
Take a look at your preapproved payments,
and make sure your aren't licensing software
that you don't need to license.
It's just something that you can do today
that will save you aggravation tomorrow,
and that is a good thing.
Would love to hear your thoughts, your comments,
is there a better way to do things?
I know there's some tools.
There are some apps out there
that will help you manage your subscriptions.
I find that they're a little bit invasive.
They aren't ones that I choose to use,
but I'd love to see in comments
whether or not they are tools that you like to use.
Now, if you found today's video to be useful,
I have a couple of favors to ask.
First of all, please give us a like,
and share this video with your friends
who might also benefit from getting ahead
of their annual subscriptions on PayPal.
Secondly, if you're not yet subscribed to this channel,
what the heck are you waiting for?
Click that subscribe button,
ring that notification bell,
(bell rings)
and I will see you next time,
right here on Dotto Tech.
Until then, I'm Steve Dotto.
Have fun storming the castle.