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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

#411

Post by halfdan »

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.

In Germany there is.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#412

Post by perl4ever »

seesaw wrote: post #400
mathewsanders wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Last I checked, Citi's virtual card feature inexplicably requires Flash. I was like "I thought that was dead?"

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#413

Post by cdolan »

fedups wrote: post #336
cdolan wrote: post #285

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 ori…

Planet money had a story where a similar superficially good idea ended up with Etrade selling a man's Amazon stock and deactivating his account after he didn't log in for a certain period of time. He was able to reclaim about $8000 for stock that would be worth ~$100k today. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/799345159

Perfect example. I forgot about this until now but I recall listening to this episode. Thank you!

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#414

Post by CuriousCosmic »

robohoe wrote: post #372
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on who your card is through, some companies started offering this. It's often just hidden in the web UI.

Yep, Bank of America and Citi offer the same service. Not sure about others.

I haven't used SunTrust in a while but I know they offered the service back when I used them as well.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#415

Post by perl4ever »

amelius wrote: post #153
reificator wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds as if you are not worried that they would sue you? Netflix subscriptions are prepaid. What on earth would give them the idea to sue if your card is declined? If your current month runs out and your renewal is declined, they just don't authorize you for a second month of service. There's no breach of contract, there's no debt for services rendered, I can't think of a single motivation to sue for this. What…

They could leave your account open, wait 10 years, then sue you for not paying your bills.

Many if not most agreements these days seem to specify charging up front and reserve the right to cancel your service for any reason, so credit doesn't enter into it. I don't know about Netflix specifically.

What seems more likely is that they would blacklist you if you're obnoxious.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#416

Post by perl4ever »

globular-toast wrote: post #164
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 insurance company I worked at operated on a similar principle. It was well known that older customers brought in a huge amount of profit because they tended not to claim, nor do they care about getting the best deal. So while younger customers were targeted with new deals and features, the older customers were left alone and would stay on "legacy" policies for decades sometimes. Interestingly at some point they m…

I find insurance companies are always dangling discount offers they say will save you money if you have multiple policies. I eventually decided it was a big mistake, because if you have multiple, or all, your policies with one company, you're just advertising to them that you value convenience and simplicity over shopping around. So you may get a discount line item, but you will end up paying much more.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#417

Post by gassiss »

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…

There's a Brazilian credit card company that gives you a virtual credit card. You can generate as many new credit cards as you want, even multiple times a day, to use for online banking exclusively.

I think privacy.com does a similar service, but I loved to have this feature for no extra cost. I assume it also benefits the CC company a bunch with happy customers and less labor costs since people will be calling less for this kind of situation.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#418

Post by MisterBastahrd »

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…

Recurring billing is basically a scheme, at least in the journalism / entertainment world, to get customers to pay for goods and services they don't use, with the hope that they either won't notice or go through the effort that they're being charged. Recurring billing services have gone to efforts to acquire the new information from credit card companies whenever a card is updated to maintain the flow of money. I used to work for a publisher, and the introduction of recurring billing cut our cancellations for both periodical sales AND ad sales to local businesses by over 80%.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#419

Post by caseysoftware »

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 worked on a dating site briefly and saw exactly this. iirc, something like 20% of their customer base fell into this state. It was one of many things that convinced me that space was ugly.

I described another pattern here: https://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#420

Post by dark »

wpietri wrote: post #396
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.

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…

Use one of the services that allow you to generate a temporary credit card with set limits. That way you have lot more control.
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