Oh I give up....
Nothing to do with privacy in any way. But everything to do with asking the relevant people about the issue to try fixing it before broadcasting a PERCEIVED failing to the world. I regard it as common courtesy as I explained in my first answer to John. Nothing to do with being defensive or patronising.
As I said to John & I'd echo to you if you screw up in the day job would you expect the customer/client to mail the world about it or would you have a quiet word? My principles say have a quiet word but others obviously have different ideas & as I said didn't take the hint. If I dealt with my customers/Partners the way & tone that John has dealt with this I'd be quite rightly looking at a P45 pretty quick.

As for doing things privately if I/we wanted to do that then we could have deleted the thread & answered John on PM which we didn't.

Brett: you've been quick enough to criticise us for deleting threads in the past, here we haven't. I am just asked that if people have a problem then they directly contact those who can fix it rather than shouting it from the rooftops here? Is that too much to ask?
You also will probably get it fixed quicker!
I'd add that we have 2 methods of renewing your membership at present one is a "manual mode" contact Lee direct, the other is the on line method using Paypal which the vast majority do with no issues, as I said problems are less than 0.1%.
So we do still have online membership. Once the website is renewed then it will become a bit more automated.