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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

#391

Post by carapace »

Ha! I have to go cancel my Webfaction account.

They're a decent service but they were acquired by GoDaddy (who I think are douchebags) so I stopped using the service. But I have been forgetting to actually cancel it for years now.

For a while they were changing me ~$10/month. Nice for them and not painful enough for my lazy ass to jump though whatever hoops they may have set in place to cancel.

Then one day I let the balance on the debit card they have on file for me fall to zero, so their auto-debits were failing. Eventually they sent me an email saying that they would stop charging it, but... They will (and do!) try again from time to time. Just to see if it will work.

Rather than just cancelling the service (that I haven't touched in at least 4-5 years) they leave my account in a zombie state and periodically attempt to harvest it again.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED) cheeky bastards, eh?

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#392

Post by varjag »

cpv wrote: post #309
varjag wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a separate credit card for paying on dodgy services. Restaurants and small stores abroad, online payments not via PayPal, things like these. Relatively few monthly statements on it make anything funny stand out, and it's easy to just report/cancel the card.

Always makes sense of having a separate card for online stuff (shop, subscriptions, etc). But having to go to the bank and renew, create a new one, the waiting lines. Some banks have web/mobile banking where you can restrict actions/limits/transactions, so it's a good option too. Others have virtual cards for this purpose, but these are not offered in a lot of countries (revolut, privacy, yandex money, etc).

I guess the amount of hassle is specific to the country. The last time I had to go to a physical branch here was… 2006 maybe?

You apply for the card online and get it in the post.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#393

Post by leppr »

This is a good move, but still fairly lax (I'd personally like a reminder after as little as 2 months). This difference in preference by users and the top comment with an example of the reversed strategy used by a shady dating site, surface the point that pushing this responsibility to the providers doesn't scale.

What we need is good UX for users to manage their various recurring payments, and cancel them by easily blocking payments to specific companies. That's one thing Paypal for instance does right with its "automated payments" dashboard.

The current system of customers having to trust companies by default doesn't work in a market where antisocial behaviour is not more heavily punished.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#394

Post by [deleted] »

iso1210 wrote: post #289
varjag wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#395

Post by mrharrison »

I remember during the last recession (2008) everyone I knew was going through their credit card statements and removing subscriptions/unneeded charges from their bills. It makes me think that Netflix has the foresight to see this next recession as quite bad and create some good press and become the good guy. Who wants to cancel the good guy??

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#396

Post by wpietri »

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.

Yeah, agreed. I canceled my NYT subscription a while back in protest over some of their editorial misbehavior. It took me weeks to get in canceled and all my money back. Especially frustrating is that they dragged out the process and then charged me for the time that I was trying to unsubscribe. Eventually I just made American Express take the extra $2 back.

I want to resubscribe eventually, as they put out a lot of good journalism. But there is no way in hell I'm doing it until it's as easy to quit as to join.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#397

Post by notadog »

madballster wrote: post #340

That is shocking. In my experience, well over 20% of all revenues of an online subscription service can come from stale users who keeping paying but never login anymore. They're gold to the bottom line.

For Netflix though, it applies to less than half a percent of their subscribers.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#398

Post by vorpalhex »

wolco wrote: post #355
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.

I didn't know they locked you into this dark pattern. New York Times has lost a lot of quality recently. They keep afloat from past reputation.

Between pricing games and how hard it is to unsubscribe, I won't give them a penny.

Washington Post gives you upfront yearly billing and cancellation is a few clicks, and I am a happy paying customer for them.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#399

Post by bluntfang »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #348
btrettel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you…

last i checked, they let me cancel prime effective immediately, not allowing me to continue my year that i purchased. There isn't an option to stop auto renewal.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#400

Post by seesaw »

mathewsanders wrote: post #356
danlugo92 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can i create such a virtual card?

There a few options for virtual cards. Ive been using https://privacy.com/ . I’ve been using this not only for subscriptions, but also when I’m making an online purchase at a store that I think may not have the best security in place.

I only use virtual cards for online payments. I use Citi and they have an option to generate a card with specific amount and expiry.
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