Introduction 
The following documentation will outline the new VISA Trial guidelines, how it impacts Segpay, merchants and of course our consumers. 

 

Basic Guidelines 
VISA has implemented new regulations regarding trials that fall into the following categories: 

• Any free trial subscription offer, which would include
  • Any subscriptions for a free / no cost trial
  • Any subscriptions using delayed capture
• Any discounted introductory offer or promotional subscription offers, which would include:
  • Any subscriptions in which the initial and recurring periods are the same, but the initial and recurring amounts are different.
  • Any price points manually identified as promotional

 

For any subscriptions that fall into those categories, the following must happen: 

 

A reminder email must be sent to the cardholder at least seven days before initiating a recurring transaction: 

• a trial period, introductory offer or promotional period that is active, or
• or the nature of the recurring agreement has changed.
• * Trials, introductory and promotional offers with an initial period under 7 days do not require this reminder email.

 

This communication will include: 

• Link to the terms and conditions of the subscription service
• Confirmation that the cardholder has agreed to a subscription, unless the cardholder cancels
• The original purchase date
• Description of what they purchased
• Ongoing recurring transaction amount
• Billing frequency or date
• Link to allow the consumer to easily cancel their subscription

 

Please note that these requirements will, by default, only apply to transactions that are initiated with a VISA card. They will not apply to any other form of payment or any subscription in which the consumer has updated to a VISA card from another form of payment.  

 

If you would like to apply this to your other trials or promotional offers, you can contact [email protected] to apply it to your non VISA transaction such as Mastercard, JCB, Discover and PayPal. 

 

Merchant Setup 
By default, any price points that fall into these two categories will now be marked as a Promotional Offer and cannot have the promotional offer checkbox unchecked: 

• Any free trial subscription offer
• Any delayed capture subscription offer
• Any subscription offers in which the initial and recurring periods are the same, but the initial and recurring amounts are different.

 

You, the Merchant, are responsible for identifying any promotional offers with a preliminary cost to the cardholder that is clearly marketed, communicated, advertised or promoted as a discount to your regular price  as a promotional offer by enabling the “promotional offer” checkbox at the price point level. Please note that any price points that automatically fit the default requirements will be marked as a promotional offer and cannot be unmarked as such. 

 

Viewing a price point 

 

 

Editing a price point 
If you edit a price point and the new pricing structure meets the default requirements, the price point will automatically be enabled as a PROMOTIONAL OFFER. You will see the following message on the page. 

 

 

Please note that enabling this feature will only affect subscriptions purchased from the time that the price point is enabled, not purchased prior. This is the same for the default pricing when the Segpay system is configured to use this new feature. 

 

If you choose to enable a feature for Promotional offer, as long as the pricing doesn’t meet the already described criteria, you will be able to disable this feature at any time, as long as the pricing doesn’t meet the already described criteria. 

 

Determining a Subscription is a Promo offer 
The Segpay system will use two factors to determine if a new subscription should be considered a Promotional offer subscription.  

1. The price point is deemed a Promotional Offer either by default or by being enabled by the merchant., and
2. The card used to initiate the subscription is a VISA card.

 

Only if BOTH above criteria are met, will a subscription then be marked as being the result of a promotional offer at the time of the signup. 

 

Once the subscription has been identified as a promotional offer, the system will reflect that on the View Consumer Record page in the Merchant Portal. This flag will determine whether to send the reminder email to the consumer about the upcoming conversion charge after their initial transaction. If the consumer cancels prior to their first recurring charge, the reminder email will NOT be sent to them. 

 

Segpay will  sendout emails for active subscriptions 7 days prior to their first rebill date. This will only happen if the trial period is 8 days or more. If the trial is 7 days or less the email will not be sent.  

 

Consumer Emails 
As stated earlier in the documentation, the Segpay signup confirmation email includes all the requirements as laid out by VISA. 

Signup Confirmation Email 

 

 

Reminder Email 
The reminder email will not contain a transaction number as there is no transaction associated. It will include the following required information: 

• Link to the terms and conditions of the subscription service
• Confirmation that the cardholder has agreed to a subscription, unless the cardholder cancels
• The original purchase date
• Description of what they purchased
• Ongoing recurring transaction amount
• Billing frequency or date
• Link to allow the consumer to easily cancel their subscription

 

NOTE: This email is ONLY sent for the first charge after the trial. It is not sent for any other recurring charges and will not be sent if the consumer reactivates or accepts a cancel/keep offer.