Card expiration reminders not sent, also auto debit charges expired card

[Darin]

Blesta has never sent any credit card expiration reminders, and the Automation settings indicate that the Card Expiration Reminders task has never run. All of the other Automation tasks run regularly.

I use the Stripe gateway, and have set it to store card information offsite with Stripe. However, Blesta still stores the card expiration date and the last 4 digits of the card number, so I don’t know why reminders wouldn’t be sent.

What is most strange is that I have a customer with an expired card stored as a payment account for auto debit, yet auto debit continues to successfully charge his card through Stripe whenever payments are due. How can this be happening?

Observed mostly on Blesta 3.4.3 with Stripe gateway 1.2.0.

But I recently upgraded to Blesta 3.6.2 with Stripe gateway 1.3.1. So far, no difference in behaviour.

Any insight is appreciated.

[Paul]

Settings > Company > Automation: "Card Expiration Reminders 15th of Month"

Might be a bug with the "Task Last Ran: Never" notice if it shows that for you. I know ours are going out. Are you sure they are not going out, or just that it shows Never here?

The notices are only sent on the 15th of the month, for cards expiring in the same month & year. It doesn't retry later if for example the task does not run on the 15th. If your cron doesn't run at all on the 15th, it will never be sent.

[Darin]

Thanks for clarifying how it works.

The reminders definitely did not go out. I've set Blesta to cc me on these reminders, and I've never received one. My clients also said they didn't receive the reminders. The next one isn't for another month, so I'll watch for it then. Perhaps the upgrade to 3.6.2 will have fixed my issue.

Any thoughts on the second part of my post?

Quote

What is most strange is that I have a customer with an expired card stored as a payment account for auto debit, yet auto debit continues to successfully charge his card through Stripe whenever payments are due. How can this be happening?

 

[Paul]

On 3/9/2017 at 3:14 PM, Darin said:

Any thoughts on the second part of my post?

It's possible it tries to run the card anyway, until it fails and auto debit is disabled. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to skip it if the expiration date has passed, but I'm pretty sure it's always worked this way. On one sense, the customer gets a notice that the payment failed and that may prompt them to update it. On the other hand, it's expired so it's going to fail.

[Darin]

The strange thing is the card is still being successfully charged. It's not just that Blesta keeps charging the card, Stripe is also approving the charge and I'm getting paid. The Stripe portal lists the payments, clearly showing the expired date of the card that was charged.

Now, I'm happy to continue getting paid, so I'm not going to complain. But I find it odd behavior.