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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

#341

Post by gonational »

If you send the message that “don’t worry, if you don’t use your account, you won’t be charged”, it has the effect of making people think of Netflix as an account they can just keep forever.

My guess is that they put together data internally that showed e.g. 3% of users become dormant for longer than a quarter, while 5% of people cancel their accounts after a quarter or two of low or no usage, due to the feeling of not getting enough value out of it.

Imagine being able to reduce those cancellations at little or no cost to the bottom line, and turning it into positive PR.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#342

Post by KajMagnus »

reificator wrote: post #129
Androider wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cancelled credit card does not mean bills are automatically void or the recurring subscription cancelled, but it's a scale whether it's worth it for the company to try to collect or not. If your rent autobill fails, I think everyone realizes it doesn't mean you don't have to pay. If the credit card for your gym membership expires, I think most people would likewise fear (and has been known to happen) that your bill…

> A cancelled credit card does not mean bills are automatically void or the recurring subscription cancelled, but it's a scale whether it's worth it for the company to try to collect or not. Excuse me? If the bill is prepaid you bet your ass it means the subscription is cancelled. You can't pay, they don't continue to provide the service, end of story. > If your rent autobill fails, I think everyone realizes it doesn…

> the discussion is lawsuits over Netflix subscriptions

Actually when I asked, I had in mind subscriptions in general, not Netflix in particular

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#343

Post by metric10 »

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.

Tell your credit card company that it’s an unauthorized charge and request a new credit card. Some will even ship it expedited for free if you request it.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#344

Post by kemitche »

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.

Maybe it's different based on how you signed up, or what kind of subscription you have, but for me at least there's a "cancel subscription" link when I go to manage my subscription online on this page: https://myaccount.nytimes.com/seg/subscription

I remember it didn't exist when I signed up a few years back, and they made a big deal about announcing that I could now cancel/change my subscription online when it launched.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#345

Post by danlugo92 »

lucasverra wrote: post #301
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.

yeah, when i saw that i got so mad that I created a virtual credit card, changed the billing method, and then deleted the card. You can not imagine the big smile on my face when i received the email "we cannot charge you".... Reaaaaaally big smile on my face

How can i create such a virtual card?

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#346

Post by 1123581321 »

dqv wrote: post #281
ganstyles wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ve looked at the FT signups a lot over the years and don’t think they ever hid that information.

I do think a $1 trial is incongruent with their overall pricing.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#347

Post by digitalengineer »

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…

“ Apple Card has awesome features but the most important of them all, at leasts from a security standpoint, is probably the ability to generate virtual card numbers on demand, which will come in handy for those times when you won’t necessarily trust the recipient.”

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#348

Post by frosted-flakes »

btrettel wrote: post #52
cortesoft wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon did this for me back in 2005 when they introduced Prime. I used the free trial for an order (to get it in two days), but then didn't order anything else and forgot to cancel. They sent me an email that they weren't going to charge me because I hadn't used it, but I was free to sign up in the future if I decided I wanted it. It was so refreshing, it made me a lifelong customer.

Amazon definitely doesn't do this now. Amazon sometimes offers me a free Prime trial and they make it fairly clear that if you don't cancel before the conclusion of the trial, they'll automatically subscribe you to Prime and charge you. I'll sometimes take the trial but I always mark my calendar to cancel before the renewal. Personally, I consider this to be a dark pattern and it makes me reluctant to sign up for any…

I'm pretty sure they let you disable auto-renew immediately after signing up.

What's sketchy is that Amazon's Audible deletes all your unused book credits if you unsubscribe. If you don't know what to buy with those credits and you want to unsubscribe, you face the decision to keep buying credits, or lose the credits you already paid for.

Fortunately, there are a couple of workarounds. There's the option to pause your subscription for 3 months, or you can buy a book, cancel the subscription, then return the book to recapture the credit once you find a book you actually want to read.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#349

Post by [deleted] »

rypskar wrote: post #219
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.

I had a case with another company. They required a letter to cancel, so I sent an email. Got automated reply that they have received it and later an email that they required a letter. I sent back an email pointing to the law. After some weeks I got a claim from a debt collection agency. I sent the email history to the agency, it did take less than 1 hour before they answered that all claims where dropped since it was…

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