Frequently Asked Questions

Are you the British Psychological Society or do you work on psychology?

This is a common mistake. No, the British Phycological Society is a learned society dedicated to the study of algae. We do not have any ties with the science of psychology.

How does my membership renewal process work?

Membership renewals are charged on the 1st January each year, for the vast majority of members, this works seamlessly irrespective of which payment method you used during registration. If there is an issue, the webmaster will be in touch shortly to resolve issues on an individual basis.

I do not have a PayPal account, and I am unable to pay my membership fees via Direct Debit. What do I do?

PayPal will often try to force a user to create a PayPal account, even if you try to pay via the credit card option through our checkout process. This is outside of our control. If you do not want to create a PayPal account, please contact the Webmaster (admin@brphycsoc.org), who will help you through the process and send an invoice through PayPal, that you will be able to pay via Credit or Debit card without having to create a PayPal account.

I processed my membership payment through the BPS site, but on PayPal I see an item labelled something similar to “Trial Period” with low monetary value?

Example of how a recurring PayPal payment to the Society is broken down in PayPal.

When you go into PayPal, you may see a breakdown of costs similar to the image to the right. These “Trial Period” messages in PayPal are a well documented workaround used by the subscription package (WooCommerce Subscriptions) that powers the Society’s membership renewal process. You can view the error message by following the link here, and navigating to the FAQ item “Why does PayPal Standard split the subscription…”.

Whilst this is nothing to worry about, we fully acknowledge that this can be a confusing thing to see on your PayPal statement. Please rest assured that the society will only take the funds required to process your membership (i.e. the amount on the membership tier that you sign up for) on an annual basis with all payments synchronised to 1st January. If for any reason the system takes any additional payment, we will ensure that this is refunded in a timely manner. If you have any concerns at all, please do contact the Webmaster at admin@brphycsoc.org.