During the automatic renewal of my hosting account with SiteGround, I discovered a practice that I thought abusive at first, but proved opportune1. As specified in their terms of services (see article 6.8 below), they keep your payment details to process payment for future purchases.
6.8. You acknowledge and agree that your payment details shall be stored by our payment providers to process payment for any SiteGround Service(s) you purchase or renew.
However, what if my credit card would have been expired? Indeed, credit card expiration is one of the most common reasons for a payment to fail according to them. While a failed payment is generally not a good thing, it can be disastrous when it comes to automatic hosting renewal. So, how does SiteGround handle credit card expiration?
Credit Card Expiration Approaching
Two weeks before the expiration of my credit card, I received an e-mail about this issue. Basically, the SiteGround Customer Service Team notified me that “my primary payment method” (identified in the e-mail) was about to expire.
To avoid any interruption to your hosting service, please log in to your SiteGround Customer Area to update your credit card details.
That is it! You had better not miss that e-mail, as there is no other reminder.
Updating my Credit Card
The day before the actual expiration, I simply logged into my User Area and went to the Billing section. Under Update Your Payment Methods and then Your Current Cards, I selected the Primary Card option (the other choice being Alternative Card). My card was still active – i.e. not expired yet. Anyway, I clicked on the Manage button, which brings me to the Manage Payment Details window.
Keep at least one Active card on file to prevent service interruption at due date. We recommend you to have an active alternative card too. Please use the tools below to manage your payment methods.
My credit card information (Card number, Expiration, Cardholder, CVV code) were listed below the aforementioned message. In addition, there was a checkbox Billing Address is the same as in the Account Information. I simply updated the info with those of my new credit card and clicked on the Update Card button.
Credit Card was successfully saved
So, Should I?
To answer this question, let me give you another piece of information3:
For smooth service provision we normally require at least one credit card to be associated with your account. However, if you want to completely remove all Credit Card information, you need to contact our Support team via your User Area and request that we do this for you.SiteGround
In short, I don’t think that you should worry about credit card expiration with SiteGround. As you can see, it is not that easy (yet, not impossible) to remove your credit card from their files. Besides, it is in their interest that your payment does not fail for any of their services; hence, their insistence on making sure you keep a valid credit card on file at all times. Furthermore, if the automatic renewal fails, they will contact you by e-mail to request further assistance on your part
(meaning “to update your credit card information”). Given that it is in your interest too, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds
!
This post concludes the one-year-anniversary mini-series.
1 For instance, my registrar does not keep credit card info from the signup process; you have to save them wittingly (see Gandi Automatic payment). This approach, although commendable, could have jeopardized the automatic renewal of my domain name (see Gandi Automatic renewal). ^
2 You can actually use PayPal to pay for your hosting services, even though it’s not listed on [their] order pages
. However, as explained in their Knowledge Base, you have to contact their Billing support team in order to do so. ^
3 See How to remove my credit card info from my account? ^