Netflix stops charging customers who never watch • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#221

Post by sjwright » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:06 AM UTC

kappuchino wrote: post #213

elcomet wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it exists, it is not followed. In France, Le Monde (most famous daily newspaper) requires you to send a paper mail (and not a regular mail, but a registered mail, which costs around 5-10€) to cancel your subscription. Even if you subscribed on the website, for a 100% online subscription. It's really shady.

As for media companies with cheap offers and shady cancelation tactics, I discovered the following: I send them a cancelation by eMail citing a german court ruling that states (roughly) "If you subscribe electronically, you must be able to unsubscribe electronically". I additionally cc one or two journalists writing about consumer issues (sometimes on cancelation oh joy ) on the topics from that exact media. Works ev…

The GDPR does apply to foreign companies that trade within the EU but does not (because it cannot) apply outside of the EU’s jurisdiction.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#222

Post by chrischen » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:06 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #143

goodside wrote: post #55

Years ago, I heard of a dating site doing the opposite of this. They normally sent periodic digests and newsletters to their users to try to increase engagement, but if a user went a certain number of months without logging into their account, but still allowed monthly fees to be charged, they were labeled as a “sleeping giant” in the database. Once in this state, they would not be contacted by the site for any reaso…

I'm getting charged by rhapsody.com every quarter for no apparent reason. I used their service like may be 8 years ago. They have a phone number in their merchant line which is invalid. When I filed request to void the charge to American Express, initially they declined! Then I filed appeal with angry comments and they finally voided it. It took over two months for the process. I just saw new Rhapsody charge again. T…

Actually stripe supports a visa and mastercard service that automatically updates the card number if it gets changed.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#223

Post by jacques-noris » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:08 AM UTC

mywacaday wrote: post #168

sytelus wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting charged by rhapsody.com every quarter for no apparent reason. I used their service like may be 8 years ago. They have a phone number in their merchant line which is invalid. When I filed request to void the charge to American Express, initially they declined! Then I filed appeal with angry comments and they finally voided it. It took over two months for the process. I just saw new Rhapsody charge again. T…

Companies that make it difficult to unsubscribe should be penalised, I live in Europe and got the New York Times on a 12 month trial for €4 a month. Trial just ended and it's now €8 a month, only way to cance is to ring them, have tried once so far and was on hold for 20 mins before I hung up. There should be a law that if you can sign up online you can cancel online.

You can also cancel the NYTimes by chat. Still painful, but easier and faster than by phone.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#224

Post by woutr_be » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:09 AM UTC

MindTooth wrote: post #217

LPT: each year order a new card. Been doing this for many years. If something that unexpectedly gets charged, I know right away or I just goes away. This way I have to some degree regained control.

I wanted to do this as well, but it honestly takes so much time to change payment details on a lot of services. All my utilities for example are on auto payment through my credit card, I need to go to a physical store to change that. It's one of the reasons I haven't cancelled one of my credit cards, even though I haven't used it in years.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#225

Post by rypskar » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:09 AM UTC

dyslexit wrote: post #113

spiralganglion wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do this at my company, and it is purely for altruistic reasons. If people aren't happily making good use of my service, I don't want their money. That's the entire calculus. Netflix is vastly bigger, granted, so who knows what machinations are afoot for them. But it is certainly believable to me that a company could choose to do something explicitly anti-greedy.

Is your company private? If you're not heavily funded by investors you probably have more freedom to behave according to your morals than if it were otherwise. Public companies are always looking to meet shareholder expectations on the other hand. Not saying they can't occasionally make altruistic decisions like this, just that more people's interests are being weighed.

Always might seem a bit strong, it is always according to shareholder capitalism. But many companies find that shared value creation [0] works better for them in the long term

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creating_shared_value

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#226

Post by martin_bech » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:13 AM UTC

goodside wrote: post #55

Years ago, I heard of a dating site doing the opposite of this. They normally sent periodic digests and newsletters to their users to try to increase engagement, but if a user went a certain number of months without logging into their account, but still allowed monthly fees to be charged, they were labeled as a “sleeping giant” in the database. Once in this state, they would not be contacted by the site for any reaso…

I actually helped create workflows like the for fitness clubs. If member had not worked out for 2 weeks, massive encouragement, we miss you etc.. more than 5 weeks... nothing..

I now a club once sent a simple questionaire to members who had not worked out in a long time.. just to gage why.. massive cancellations followed.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#227

Post by sytelus » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

cpv wrote: post #203

mywacaday wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies that make it difficult to unsubscribe should be penalised, I live in Europe and got the New York Times on a 12 month trial for €4 a month. Trial just ended and it's now €8 a month, only way to cance is to ring them, have tried once so far and was on hold for 20 mins before I hung up. There should be a law that if you can sign up online you can cancel online.

One reason I try to never give my card to lots of websites. If they have paypal, good. Or playstore subscription, sure. A one time/non recurring payment via a platform/provider/bank, ok. But never the card. Reading such user horror stories, or Terms & Conditions, makes me turn around and never come back.

Paypal allows canceling subscription but they have hid this link deep inside. I don't know how well that even works. Also, Paypal payment protection is basically a joke. If you get dupped by someone and try to get refund through their payment protection, you get nothing no matter how right you are. That's my first hand experience.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#228

Post by wccrawford » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #190

Tempest1981 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if his setup was $10/mo, the termination fee was $12,000?

It was a $3 per month business VoIP phone number redirecting service, and the termination fee was $3000 if you didn't use the correct termination procedure, which involved knowing a password in a web form only my grandfather knew, or passing a 'my password is my voice' phone login. They also allowed termination by a letter to their HQ, with a $3k fee. I think the fee was more of a "we can only offer low prices if eve…

On the other hand, if you lose the dispute, you should absolutely post about it here and let everyone know.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#229

Post by IshKebab » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

MindTooth wrote: post #217

LPT: each year order a new card. Been doing this for many years. If something that unexpectedly gets charged, I know right away or I just goes away. This way I have to some degree regained control.

Or get a card that has a decent mobile app that instantly tells you about charges.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#230

Post by martin_bech » Sat, May 23, 2020, 10:18 AM UTC

erk__ wrote: post #206

elcomet wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it exists, it is not followed. In France, Le Monde (most famous daily newspaper) requires you to send a paper mail (and not a regular mail, but a registered mail, which costs around 5-10€) to cancel your subscription. Even if you subscribed on the website, for a 100% online subscription. It's really shady.

It may not be followed in every country, but at least in Denmark the "forbrugerombudsmanden" slams down on things like that, I think that they recently sent out a message that online services should be able to be unsubscribed online as well.

Also that you should sent out an option to cancel, before each withdraw for the membership.