This isn’t a pitch to sign up for TPMPrime. Over the last week we’ve had various questions come up that we’ve responded to readers about individually. They’re mainly about the mechanics of purchasing, security, problems in sign ups, when certain features or kinds of payment will become available, etc. So if you’ve got questions, follow me after the jump and I’ll answer some of the main ones we’ve had so far.
Subscription Credits: When I announced TPMPrime, I said people who wanted to and could pay more than $50 could buy ‘subscription credits’ which we’d assign to readers who didn’t have the financial means to sign up. I explain the concept here. Why can’t you find how to do that in the sign-up process.
Answer: We’ll still building the system to accept these kinds of purchases. We hope to have it up and ready next week. If you’d like to purchase subscription credits, shoot us an email at tpmprime (at) talkingpointsmemo.com. And we’ll notify you when they’re available for purchase.
Foreign Credit Cards: Why can’t you purchase a Prime membership with a “foreign” credit card?
Answer: Our current credit card processing system will not accept “foreign” credit cards. In some cases, if you’re using one it says that your address doesn’t match or something like that. We’re hoping to have a solution to this problem next week. If you want to be notified, ping us at the email I note above.
Username Taken?: Some people have had a problem where they’ve stopped mid-way through a sign-up and when they started again it said their email address or username were already taken. In other cases, it said their account had expired. If you’ve had either happen, do this.
1. Go to http://prime.talkingpointsmemo.com/sessions/new
2. Sign in using the expired account information
3. You should receive a message that says: Your account is currently inactive. To activate it, please proceed to the subscription page and enter your payment information.
4. Click that link, which will bring you to a form to fill out your billing information.
PayPal/Google Wallet: We’ve had various people ask if they can use PayPal to sign up rather than the system we have. At the moment, no. And enabling this, I suspect, is not as easy as it sounds. Because it’s not simply a matter of your being able to transmit $50. The process has to be integrated with our sign up and account creation system. We’re currently investigating what’s possible.
Hey, WTF, I just signed up and my username/password aren’t working! To login, use the email address associated with your account rather than the username you created; your username will publicly display when you comment, etc., but for login purposes, you need to submit your email address and the password you used to sign up. That should bring you to a page that says, “TPMPrime will launch on October 15, 2012.
Credit Card Security: How can you be sure we’ll keep your credit card information secure?
Answer: We take this issue very seriously both because we care about the security of your personal and financial information and also because of our own liability. TPM is not in the credit card handling business and believe me we do not want to be. It’s very specialized and you’ve got to be state of art with technical issues surrounding security. So we’ve worked with a company called Spreedly.com to handle the input and storage of your credit card information. Your credit card info never makes contact with our servers, which is how you want it. They’re experts with a very good reputation. We care a lot about the security of your financial information and your experience with everything TPM. You can be confident in the solution we’ve devised.
If you’d like to sign for Prime, click here.
