Dear Readers,
I’ve had a number of complaints from subscribers that credit cards they’ve used for a long time have stopped working with Substack and their subscriptions have expired as a result. I looked into it and it does indeed look like there’s an unusually large number of failed transactions this month so it seems something systemic is going on, even though both companies so far claim it’s coincidental. I apologize for the inconvenience and I’m working on resolving this with both Substack and Stripe, the payment processor they use. In the meantime, if you’ve noticed your subscription has lapsed or you’ve gotten decline messages, one thing you could try is to use a different card. Again, I realize this is a bit of pain, but, as I rather emphatically explained to Stripe, these payments represent my livelihood. Anyway, thanks for your patience and hopefully this will be resolved soon!
Best,
John