General: What happens when I buy a subscription?
General: I’ve forgotten my password. How do I recover it?
General: I’ve forgotten when my subscription expires. How can I find this out?
General: How do I change my billing information?
Purchasing: How can I verify that my Auto-Recurring Subscription will auto-renew?
Purchasing: How can I verify that my One-Time Subscription will only bill me once?
Purchasing: I’m purchasing a One-Time Subscription, but I’m asked to allow future purchases. Why is that?
Renewing: How do I renew my subscription?
Renewing: I purchased a Premium Subscription through Paypal, how do I renew that subscription?
Canceling: How do I cancel my subscription?
iTunes: New Episodes are not Downloading

General: What happens when I buy a subscription?

The order buttons bring you to a shopping cart to review your order.

At checkout, you enter your billing info. If you were not logged in, you will be asked to create an account.

Your information will be encrypted and securely stored with FoxyCart, the service we use to process subscriptions.

You will get two emails. One is a receipt, the other contains instructions on how to access the premium content.

Our premium content RSS Feeds use HTTP Authentication. You will want to make sure your favorite Podcast client supports password protected feeds. Most popular clients do, including iTunes.

A few weeks before the subscription ends, you will receive an email notifying you that your subscription will expire (One-Time Subscriptions) or renew (Auto-Recurring Subscriptions). Included will be instructions to renew or cancel your subscription.

General: I’ve forgotten my password. How do I recover it?

Visit Recover Your Password to have your password emailed to you. The email address will be the one we sent your Order Receipt to. If you encounter problems, please contact customer support: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

General: I’ve forgotten when my subscription expires. How can I find this out?

Visit Your Account Page to view your current subscription, change your password, update your billing info, and view your order history.

General: How do I change my billing information?

Visit Your Account Page. From there you will see links to “Update your Billing Information”, “Change your Email Address”, and “Change your Screen Name or Password”.

Purchasing: How can I verify that my Auto-Recurring Subscription will auto-renew?

In either the Shopping Cart or Checkout pages, look at the order details. A valid Auto-Recurring Subscription will have a Frequency, a Start Date, but no End-Date.

If you see an End-Date, you need to relaunch the browser and start over.

Correct Auto-Recurring Subscription

Incorrect Auto-Recurring Subscription

Purchasing: How can I verify that my One-Time Subscription will only bill me once?

In either the Shopping Cart or Checkout pages, look at the order details. A valid One-Time Subscription will have a Frequency, a Start Date, and an End-Date. To ensure you don’t get re-billed, we set the End Date to a few days before the renewal date. This cancels the subscription before it renews.

Purchasing: I’m purchasing a One-Time Subscription, but I’m asked to allow future purchases. Why is that?

“I give The Mac Observer my permission to encrypt my card number and use it in the future to process my subscription.” is a required field by FoxyCart, because the checkout form can’t tell the difference between One-Time and Auto-Recurring Subscriptions.

We have a feature request in at FoxyCart (our subscription service) to add this feature. What we do to ensure you don’t get re-billed, is that we set the end date before the renewal date. This cancels the subscription before it’s renews.

Renewing: How do I renew my subscription?

If you purchased an Auto-Recurring Subscription, everything is taken care for you. For One-Time Subscriptions, you can renew in two ways: switch to an Auto-Recurring Subscription, or buy another One-Time Subscription.

Visit the Main Store Page to Renew Your Account.

You can renew at any time. After you renew, you will get a confirmation email with your new subscription info & new Transaction ID.

You may still receive emails about your previous subscription expiring. These emails will contain the old Transaction ID, and can be safely ignored.

If you switch to an Auto-Recurring Subscription, it won’t kick in until the end of your current subscription.

If you buy another One-Time Subscription, the End Date will be set to 6 Months after your current End Date. You may see a Frequency value for your purchase on the checkout screen. To ensure you don’t get re-billed, we set the End Date to a few days before the renewal date. This cancels the subscription before it renews.

During checkout, you may see a credit like this: “Future Subscriptions: -$25.00”. This is informing you we won’t charge you until the Renewal Start Date.

Renewing: I purchased a Premium Subscription through Paypal, how do I renew that subscription?

We’ve switched from PayPal to FoxyCart. Your current subscription is still valid, but we need to transfer it over to FoxyCart.

Visit the Transfer your PayPal Premium Subscription Page

If you have an Auto-Recurring Subscription through PayPal: You can sign up for an Auto-Recurring Subscription through FoxyCart.  The new Auto-Recurring Subscription will start on the End-Date of your current subscription.

Note: Due to a bug, all of the PayPal Auto-Recurring Subscriptions were actually processed as One-Time Subscriptions. You will not be be billed again via PayPal.

If you have a One-Time Subscription through PayPal: You can transfer your current subscription over for free, you can extend it for an additional 6 Months for $25, or you can switch to an Auto-Recurring Subscription.

Canceling: How do I cancel my subscription?

Visit Your Account Page. Click the “Cancel Subscription” link under the subscription you want to cancel. Since, this immediately cancels your subscription, we don’t recommend doing this until near the subscription End Date (shown below the cancel link).

Set a reminder in your calendar, or wait for our “Your Subscription will Auto-Renew” email reminder. We are working on a solution to allow you to cancel at anytime while still letting you enjoy the premium content you’ve already paid for.

iTunes: New Episodes are not Downloading.

If iTunes is reporting that the MGG Premium feed “does not seem to be a valid Podcast URL,” you may need to re-authenticate.  Follow these steps to force iTunes to prompt you for your username and password:

1. Open Keychain Access
2. Select the “login” keychain
3. Select the “Passwords” category
4. For any entries for “www.macobserver.com”:
   1. Ctrl-click the entry, and copy password if you don’t know it.
   2. Delete the entry.
5. Quit & Restart iTunes
6. Select premium podcast, ctrl-click and select “Unsubscribe Podcast”
7. Click on “Subscribe” button
8. You should be prompted for your TMO username and password