How Do I Cancel My Virtual Art Academy Subscription

How to cancel your membership

Please carefully follow each of the steps below. 

Please give FastSpring three working days notice to cancel your subscription. This is because FastSpring needs time to process your information before the payment is due.

If you do not give sufficient notice, or do not carefully follow the instructions below, it is not possible to give refunds. This is because once the payments are processed by FastSpring, they charge us penalties for refunds. (This no refund policy is clearly stated on the FAQ on the pricing page).

Instructions

1. Find the receipt you get from FastSpring each month for your monthly membership payment. 
2. In your receipt or subscription activation notification email, click the link to Manage Your Orders. FastSpring will display a login box that looks similar to this, enter your email address and click Continue:
   
3. Go to your email inbox and look for an email from FastSpring. Click on the link to manage your order:
   
4. Click on the Subscriptions tab:
   
   
5. Click the Manage button to view the options
6. Click Cancel Subscription. You will be able to cancel, or keep your subscription. Please do not click Pause Subscription as this will cause problems when you want to restart again.
7. Choose Cancel Anyway, your subscription will be completed cancelled and you can later re-subscribe if you want to rejoin the Online Campus.
8. Go to the online campus in Mighty Networks and remove yourself from the network if you don’t want to see notification emails from the Virtual Art Academy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Will I have access to the lessons if I pause cancel my membership|?
Answer: No. Access to the learning resources, such as lessons, streaming videos, assignments, and discussions, requires an active membership because they are integrated into our community software system and therefore cannot be downloaded. The academy works like Netflix in this respect.

Question: Is there any difference between pausing and canceling my membership|?
Answer: Not really. You will be able to rejoin in either case and start where you left off. The only difference is that pausing will save your payment details so you won’t have to enter them again.

Question: Can I pause my membership and restart it without losing access to the unlocked workshops?
Answer: Yes. When you restart your membership, you will have access to the lessons you previously had access to. To do this, you will have to cancel your membership and re-subscribe using exactly the same email address you used for your original subscription so that the system can find your information.

Question: Do you have any benefits for members who complete the full four years of the Apprentice and Graduate Programs without pausing their membership during that time?
Answer: Yes. If you do not pause your membership, after you have completed 48 months of membership in the Virtual Art Academy, which is the average time it takes to complete both the Apprentice Program and the Graduate Program, you will have lifetime access to the written course materials (The Virtual Art Academy Reference Library). These are 48 PDF format files that you can download and print out and keep forever. They contain all you need to know to paint to a high level. There is a different one available each month, which is why you need to keep your subscription active for 48 months so you don’t miss one.

Question: Will I still be able to get the free Virtual Art Academy Reference eLibrary to keep forever after my four-year program if I pause my membership?
Answer: No. You will lose the free monthly free eBooks for the months that you are not paying and so this means your painting reference eLibrary will be missing some of the 48 eBooks in the library after the end of your four-year program.

The reason for this is that we designed the system as a continuous four-year program equivalent to a regular Art University or Academy, and we pay each month to store your uploaded assignments as well as for for all the software systems needed to run the Online Campus. It is your monthly membership fees that pay for those expenses. As a small business (just myself and Barry), if too many of our students keep pausing their membership, we would not be able to meet our monthly fixed expenses to keep the Academy going. To reward those loyal members who support us, we offer the Virtual Art Academy Reference eLibrary as a bonus for those who stay with us for the full four-year period of the Apprentice and Graduate Programs. This is a highly valuable reference resource that you can use for the rest of your life, even after you have finished the course and stopped your membership. Thank you for your. understanding of this.

Question: Will the price be the same when I resubscribe?Answer: Not necessarily. The monthly subscription rate when you resubscribe will be the same rate as for any new member. That rate may or may not be the same as your old membership rate, because membership fees are kept in line with inflation. If you do not cancel, we will guarantee your current rate for the full four-years of your Apprentice and Graduate Programs.