Watch Out For WordFence.com Key Auto Renewal

Just about a year ago i purchased two WordFence Security Premium Keys.

WordFence is a decent WordPress Security Plugin that has a few extra perks if you purchase a premium key.

I had no plans on renewing my keys. Just figured id let them expire. Well what a shock i got when i received an email from [email protected] telling me they Auto Renewed my keys. Below is that email.

From: “Wordfence Billing” <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Your Wordfence keys have been renewed
Date: Thursday, August 07, 2014 1:58 PM

We have renewed 2 of your Wordfence API keys which expire within 14 days.

We have billed your credit card a total of $59.00 to renew these
keys for an additional year. The price per key for renewal was: $29.50
The card we billed has the following information:
Name: Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx

The keys we have renewed are shown below:

Key belonging to “www.xxxxxxxxx.com” which expires August 20, 2014 and starts with “204174..” was renewed.
Key belonging to “www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.com” which expires August 20, 2014 and starts with “73d7c5..” was renewed.

If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

Regards,
The Wordfence Team.

WordFence API Premium Key Auto Renew Invoice

I promptly filed a refund request support ticket.

While i was logged into their website i decided to turn any auto renewal features off. Unfortunately there are none that i can find. Even under my credit card info page, the only option is to add a new credit card.

There was no toggle to turn off the auto renewal of any keys you might have purchased, at that time.

This is just a quick FYI post for anyone else that might find having their WordFence keys auto-renewed an unpleasant situation.

I’m living on a fixed disability income, and that @59.00 charge to my debit MasterCard is going to cause my car insurance payment to bounce.

Hopefully WordFence does the right thing and promptly issues a refund. If not there is always a credit card chargeback. Get too many of these and a seller can lose his merchant account, or the processing fees go up.

Oh well.. As usual, just my two cents worth!