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Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

bbc.com

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Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#281

Post by dqv »

ganstyles wrote: post #77
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…

The Economist did this to me. $5/mo and then auto renewed at something like $250/yr. All my credit cards are just auto pay full balance every month, and I don't check them as often as I should. Noticed the charge last month, found out they had been charging me for years for their digital subscription.

Financial Times was the worst. It was like $1 for the first three months then SHOT UP to $70/month. I think they finally added it to their subscription page but it was a huge surprise.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#283

Post by bergstromm466 »

chki wrote: post #201
INTPenis wrote: post #199

Misleading title. Here I thought I could be charged by the hour. That would actually make me get netflix, finally. But I don't think it's worth 5 euro or 11 euro a month because I only enjoy a very small portion of media. So far it's easier to pirate. And I'm far too used to the situation where a friend wants to put something on from netflix and it's not available. What's the point of paying 11 euro a month when you'…

How do you deal with the fact that pirating is not sustainable? Expecially right now when cinemas aren't even open, how can films be made if nobody's paying?

I think all media serves as 'covert' propaganda, for a certain way of thinking. [1] Westerners sell the American dream and the American consumerist way of life. If we all lived the way Americans do todat, we would need another one to two planet earth's.

> pirating is not sustainable

Please stop shaming people for not being as rich as you. For not having 'disposable' income and have money for 'entertainment'. Have you seen the state of the world? [2] It's honestly not as fair as you make it out to be, it's not sustainable for Hollywood to keep getting the kind of power it currently has to tell stories. [3] In my eyes Westeners are so psychopathic and culturally grandiose to believe that their systems are just and fair. They are all too happy to cecede control to the corporatocracy, their (perceived) benevolent overlords.

I believe what is not sustainable is intellectual property rights used by rentier capitalists to extract parasitic rents:

"Whether we are streaming content or licensing software, we are paying for the privilege of slowly ceding control of private property to corporate gatekeepers." [4]

[1] https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/16/the-history-of-holly... and https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/20/hollywoods-imperial-...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5xfBtD6rLY

[4] http://archive.is/y0lQf / https://onezero.medium.com/landlord-2-0-techs-new-rentier-ca...

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#284

Post by peteretep »

g_p wrote: post #274
peteretep wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve no idea if this is still the case, but yes, that was the situation.

Sounds like a fairly straightforward contested charge on grounds of failure to provide the service they were paid for? If you couldn't access it and were locked out, they can't claim they provided the service.

I suspect that’s why I got the full refund

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#285

Post by cdolan »

For those in the chat who react by saying “this should be law!”

Laws have unintended consequences.

Also I subscribe to a number of services I barely ever use, generally because I got in with an account very early on, and the price I’m paying is usually 1/5 or less of the current retail price. I do not want companies to proactively cancel my service.

“Thats Absurd!” You may say... well for about 10 years I kept my original AT&T unthrottled and unlimited plan goong on an iPhone, then iPad, until my credit card expired and the payment lapsed. Of course my account want instantly closed and my grandfathered plan unavailable.

Did I use more than 30 GB a month? No. Could i buy that plan again around 2017-2018? Nope. I was happy to secure that for $20/mo.

Do I want companies to have more red tape and penalties, such that they proactively shut down accounts from legacy plans? Absolutely not, get off my lawn.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#286

Post by kappuchino »

sjwright wrote: post #221
kappuchino wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you want to say: This does not apply to a non EU citizen in an non EU country, you are correct.

But if you do business in the EU - i.e. have advertising from EU companies inside your media website or you are already dealing with the EU AND you have readers/users in the EU that pay for your service, it makes you instantly responsible for being GDPR compliant if you like it or not.

This is why some media companies block EU ip-address ranges not to fall into that "trap".

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#287

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

raiyu wrote: post #12

I always wonder when a company does this if it is completely altruistic or if something else is going on behind the scenes. Maybe notifying customers gets them to reactivate, maybe if they resubscribe later they can charge more, maybe it’s better for financial reporting and projecting subscriber counts. On the other hand it could just be a rare moment of a company doing right by the customer.

Does anyone else find it unfortunate that this entire topic is devoted to the fact that we find that a company being ethical about their business practice is so out of the ordinary, and we're spending a lot of energy guessing what nefarious motivation might lie behind it?

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#288

Post by iso1210 »

sjwright wrote: post #221
kappuchino wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's like saying American law doesn't apply to Russian citizens in Russia when it clearly does.

The court may struggle to apply it's judgements, especially if there isn't an applicable extradition situation, but all it takes is one representitive of the company to go to Europe and they are open to things like arrest for not following the judgement of the court

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#289

Post by iso1210 »

varjag wrote: post #252
sytelus wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

After my kid was banned on Fortnite, I filed a bunch of paypal chargebacks on Epic Games for all the packs and extensions we bought, going back like 8 months. Got all of them back. Not to say that Paypal won't screw you over, just that it doesn't do so all the time.

My understanding of paypal is that it screws people receiving money more than those paying via it.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#290

Post by JoeAltmaier »

leonroy wrote: post #216

A few years back I started to get a $12 charge from Lastpass on my Paypal account. I cancelled my account at Lastpass over 6 years ago so was puzzled why, especially since they don’t offer any sort of $12 service. It took a lot of emails and complaining before Lastpass told me that it was due to me being an Xmarks (bookmark sync service) customer in 2009! Apparently they owned Xmarks briefly. Why the charge started a…

Change your credit card?
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