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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

#301

Post by lucasverra »

elcomet wrote: post #195
adamtulinius wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually we have such a law in the EU. Not sure what it's called, but I'm sure it exists. I believe the wording to be something like it has to be possible to cancel in a similar way you signed up.

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

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#302

Post by enz »

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.

I use a virtual card (valid only once) when there isn’t a simple and clear way to unsubscribe.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#303

Post by KMnO4 »

t0mas88 wrote: post #207
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.

That's illegal in the EU. So you could just send them a cancellation email and stop paying.

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

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#304

Post by Kye »

distances wrote: post #160
cocochanel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a few weeks ago I realized I was paying for Xbox Live without having played it for 8 years. I didn't even remember the password.

How does this even happen? I'm just curious here. Don't you check your bills? I find it hard to imagine I would miss a recurring payment on my credit card receipt.

There are people out there who make enough money that they don't bother with an item-by-item check of each charge. I can't blame them. Being that careful is a huge cognitive load that scales with the number of charges even if it comes back to bite them when times aren't so good.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#305

Post by Reason077 »

elcomet wrote: post #195
adamtulinius wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually we have such a law in the EU. Not sure what it's called, but I'm sure it exists. I believe the wording to be something like it has to be possible to cancel in a similar way you signed up.

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.

> "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."

What is it with French companies? BlueCity, the UK arm of the French "Autolib" car sharing service, had this same ridiculous "send us a letter in the post to cancel" policy. Since they charged to a credit card rather than use direct debit like most UK companies would, you couldn't easily cancel the payments through your bank either.

Since I'm quite lazy I never got around to sending them the letter and the £5/month continued (and I did use the service, occasionally). Finally a few months ago they went out of business and the charges stopped.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#306

Post by phyzome »

Jd wrote: post #159
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…

I started using privacy.com for this reason. You can spin up a separate card number for each transaction type with its own limit (e.g. $100/month or $200). You can also just turn them off at will.

What are the downsides? And what's their business model?

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#307

Post by kappuchino »

minikites wrote: post #279
have_faith wrote: post #276

Could this feasibly be law? what are the potential down sides? That is a company has to stop charging for a service if the service isn't used for a specified amount of time, 12 months or so etc. Like a gym couldn't just keep charging you if their records show you never turned up.

Why should the government interfere in market outcomes?

If that is not a rethorical question, here are my thoughts: Consumer protection laws/rules can actually help establishing a better marketplace.

Example: DSL Connectivity.

If there are only a few market participants and the allowed lenght for contracts is 24 months, it will be 24 months. This is bad for a number of reasons to me: - First, a different (and hopefully better/cheaper/cleverer serivce needs to "endure" that only 1/24th of the customer base per month could change. That is also the problem for customers who have issues with the Provider. - Second, this gives incentives for what I call "dishonest" offers: Marketed as "half off", its only half of the first year (or only six months), then full price for the rest. Hacker News is full of people who are good at math, but this appeals mainly for people who are not. Or who don't have the choice when they are already short on money. - Third: Part of the calculation is the rate of people who might not use the service to moving, death, etc. - and I don't want the company or me be part of that.

When it comes to other types of contracts (mobile operators, gym services, ...) the stabiltiy of income is still guranteed with shorter spans if you provide a great service. This is proven by markets where these types of protections exist.

And netflix shows that you can even go month by month. I believe thats also because people can buy dvds/blue rays, rent/buy online, go to cinemas, etc - so there are a lot of competing options, forcing you to excel in service. And thats vs. "free" bittorent, rogue streaming, too.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#308

Post by iso1210 »

xnyan wrote: post #299
iso1210 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Only if you have no people or capital in the EU. If you were a small business that sounds correct, but every medium to large business I have worked at has had at least something important going on in europe (clients, suppliers, offices, etc).

Even a small business might have an employee visit europe on holiday, and then you're screwed.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#309

Post by cpv »

varjag wrote: post #249
cpv wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason I try to never give my card to lots of websites. If they have paypal, good. Or playstore subscription, sure. A one time/non recurring payment via a platform/provider/bank, ok. But never the card. Reading such user horror stories, or Terms & Conditions, makes me turn around and never come back.

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).

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#310

Post by balladeer »

sumedh wrote: post #273
balladeer wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a revelation sometimes back and it was Amex (relatively new in India) but I am sure it would be same for any credit card issuer. I had a VPS in Europe that I had emailed the support to cancel about a year ago and they had replied telling me I could do it myself (listed the steps) or they'd need another confirmation from me to go ahead and cancel. I forgot about it. Got charged some 40 Euro a year later. I wa…

If the card was cancelled, where did you see the charge, did you see it on your new Amex card statement? India did not have the OTP option, RBI made it mandatory to prevent fraud.

Got an email. About the RBI bit - possibly, but I don't think I remember one without OTP or a password (it was verified by Visa I guess or something).
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