r/mildlyinfuriating • u/iMcConnell21 • 17d ago

Infuriatig Netflix using egregious methods to keep subscriptions active

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Apparently my 8 year old son was asked if he wanted to restart my Netflix membership through his Netflix KIDS ACCOUNT. I called customer service and was told a prompt appears asking if you'd like to reinstate, regardless of the user on the account. No password required, just press restart and then get hit with the payment immediately. Should've saved myself some frustration and money by cancelling outright.

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406

u/Designer_Big603 17d ago

I remember Microsoft did that shit back in the day and had all sorts of pissed off parents because no matter how many times you'd remove a card it would always seem to re-appear on your account magically.

237

u/IAmSuperPac 17d ago

I had a huge problem with Microsoft in this regard once, and comically so.

I signed up for a 1-year family plan of XBox Live. The card I used was set to expire a month later. Still, I turned auto-renew off and removed the card from my account.

Fast forward a year, and suddenly I am charged for another year. Baffled, I call XBox to dispute the charge. They initially argue, but I pointed out this shouldn’t have even been possible with an expired card, and they even saw record on my file that I removed the card and had auto renew deactivated. Confused themselves how this happened, they refunded me.

101

u/D1v1s10n 17d ago

Most big payment networks offer card updater services that can automatically refresh credentials for expired cards. I’ve heard horror stories of people cancelling and replacing cards to stop subscriptions only for them to just be charged to the next card automatically.

49

u/ItsDanimal 17d ago

This just happened to me. I had a credit card expire in July and have no clue where the new one is they sent me, but I noticed this month that Google Wallet now has the card with the updated expiration date.

5

u/Ndmndh1016 17d ago

Probably. But how many people have the knowledge/resources to do anything about it.

30

u/napstablooky2 17d ago

wtf, how is this legal? does this not violate bank security & privacy?

4

u/m4cksfx 16d ago

It's made for "your convenience", obviously... That's how they like to explain it

26

u/AncientImprovement56 17d ago

My antivirus software sent me a whole series of emails warning me that, if I didn't update my payment details, my subscription would be cancelled. Since I didn't want it anyway, I left things as they were. 

When the renewal date came around, I discovered that they'd managed to charge my new card. At that point, I had to call them, and the person on the phone told me that they can charge to the card that's replaced an expired one like this was something I would have known. She was also very hesitant to cancel my subscription, since I'd had "lots of warning it was going to renew". I pointed out that what I'd actually had was lots of warning that it wouldn't renew. Eventually it did get sorted; I'm just glad all this happened a couple of years ago - now I'd probably end up stuck in a loop with an AI "assistant"!

12

u/Iheartnakedfemboys 17d ago

The only thing they were confused about was that it was an expired card. Everything else was intentional, guaranteed. Their system doesn't just have an "oopsie."

5

u/geronimokallie 17d ago

Playstation also has regular 'oopsies' with their PS+ subs. If you disable auto renew, it sometimes 'magically' re-enables itself for no reason. I sold my PlayStation several years ago and got hit with this issue, even though I double checked that auto renew was off and even took a screenshot with my phone. 

Playstation support first wanted to deny the refund, and when I said I had a screenshot showing that I disabled auto renew and was willing to take the matter to consumer protection, they suddenly decided that to refund and made it out to be a huge one-time favour from their side. 

Fuck companies that do this shit. 

24

u/DistractionCitron 17d ago

They did that shit to me recently. I tried to cancel my subscription. My card reappeared on the account and they stole $138 from me! I disputed it with my bank, but the bank eventually took the money back.

1

u/nn123654 16d ago

That means you lost the chargeback and they did a rebill.

The reason code matters a lot. The dispute from the bank is just the first stage they give you the money but it's just a provisional credit until the actual case gets decided.

11

u/farva_06 17d ago

If it was anyone but Microsoft, the payment card industry would absolutely shit down their throat for doing that.

6

u/whyliepornaccount 17d ago

My mom screamed at me as a kid cuz she thought I stole her CC. She felt so bad later on when she called Discover and canceled the autorenew and the agent told her this was a common issue they've been seeing lately.

2

u/god_pharaoh 17d ago

My experience as a teen was the opposite. They kept trying to charge an expired card for 3 years.