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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

#491

Post by brianpan »

kevas wrote: post #470
jedberg wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stock should continue being held whether a user logs in or not. FWIW ETrade agrees with this. It wasn't their policy that closed the account, it was a law that was in theory to protect consumers... from themselves?

Shouldn’t that have gone to the state’s Auditor & Controller’s Unclaimed Property dept? If you look at California’s Unclaimed Prop., you’ll see shares sitting in there. Heck, I have a few shares I need to claim.

If I remember it did go to unclaimed property. The problem is that the stock today was worth much more than the selling price when they closed his account (and he intended it to be a long term holding).

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#492

Post by ukoki »

bschne wrote: post #300
ukoki wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one theory: If I go to a restaurant I expect they'll give me to-go box if I ask for it; If I accidentally buy they wrong size shirt from a high-street retailer, I expect to be able to return it. If a business doesn't meet these generally-agreed on "consumer expectations" they may be complained about viciously. If Netflix can successfully normalize "only charge me if I use the service" into a basic consumer expec…

Interesting argument, I am curios though why this would hurt other streaming services more than netflix? Is this based on an assumption like "netflix has more content so less people will not watch anything for a few months than on [other platform]" or something like that?

Netflix competes with cable TV which has famously infuriating billing practices. they also compete with any “digital entertainment” you might choose to spend money on instead of Netflix: Xbox live, Spotify etc

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#493

Post by jackdh »

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

For interested people. He didn't actually reclaim the $8000. Instead he is still fighting to get it's full potential worth.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#494

Post by 354 »

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.

I really like reading nytimes and have a digitial subscription since a year back (EU citizen) but wanted to cancel it to get away from the news cycles for a while, but now found out that there is no option to cancel other than calling a phone number.

The signup page mentions canceling subscriptions several times, which isn't false, but it isn't what you expect from a subscription-based page in 2020. This is in my opinion a dark pattern today. It probably would have been ok...20 years ago!

Ironically they even shed light on these things a few years back, warning about different patterns: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/technology/personaltech/w...

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#495

Post by zambal »

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.

As someone fromnEurope, I was in the same boat as you with a NY Times trial subscription. I didn't even tried to call them, since they not only require you to call them to cancel your subscription, but do it during US east coast office hours too.

In the end I just canceled the recurring payment contract at PayPal. A few weeks later I received a 'Sorry to see you go' email from them and that was it.

I'm not sure if credit cards also allow you to cancel recurring payment contracts, but sepa directdebit does (which is the payment method used if you used for example the Dutch iDeal payment method as initial payment.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#496

Post by hnick »

war1025 wrote: post #337
KMnO4 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the problem with credit cards. Once they have your number, it’s very difficult to “stop paying”.

Do people really have the same credit card number for that long? I feel like every year I end up with a new card for one reason or another and suddenly I have to track down all the places that can no longer process my payments. I learned that you can request a replacement card with the same number, which I was initially very excited about. But when you get the new card it has a different expiration date, so it still…

Netflix US charged our new Citibank credit card at least 3 times based on a fraudulent purchase (somehow someone had made a Netflix account with our credit card number).

On top of that it wasn't even activated because we'd stopped using Citibank to simplify our accounting and just hadn't cancelled entirely yet. Backdoors exist apparently for recurring charges that roll over onto new cards for "customer convenience" because you wouldn't want to miss your bills and lose access to Netflix.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#497

Post by sjwright »

kappuchino wrote: post #286
sjwright wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> But if you do business in the EU

Yes, that’s exactly what I said. I’m confused about what you’re think you’re clarifying.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#498

Post by mywacaday »

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

I had a few like that as well but they were going through PayPal, pretty satisfying to block alright.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#499

Post by sjwright »

kuschku wrote: post #255
sjwright wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The GDPR also applies to non-EU companies in non-EU countries targeting EU nationals, although it can not be directly enforced (yet).

Only if there’s a clear link to the EU. Not refusing to sell to EU residents isn’t sufficient to show targeting—but offering Euro pricing or Swedish language options might be.

And at the end of the day, all law fits into the cross-section of jurisdiction and motivation. If you’re a Singaporean company offering global services, there’s no jurisdiction and (unless your activities are especially egregious) no prospect of motivation.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#500

Post by playeren »

kemitche wrote: post #344
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.

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 launc…

Last time I fell for their tricks, the "cancel subscribtion" link pointed to a page with a phone number and no other options.
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