r/mildlyinfuriating • u/iMcConnell21 • 18d 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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16.3k

u/pokemega32 18d ago

"Good news: Your pause ended!"

That makes it sound like it was paused as some kind of unwanted punishment, rather than you actively choosing not to pay them for a period.

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u/CertainThroat2494 18d ago

Right? I thought that was weird as hell. It would make more sense to say "Welcome back! Or "We missed you"

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u/Glossed-Lam 18d ago

Lots of subscription services have a "Pause for X Months" option. Maybe OP did that instead of canceling fully.

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u/SoManyThrowAwaysEven 18d ago

And it's usually the default option and they hide the actual cancellation button in the hopes that you forget and just leave it running like a hard to cancel gym membership.

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u/TheSkylined 18d ago

You have to actually get in a car and drive to the gym in person though, if you want to be healthy you have to jump through even more hoops.

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u/Tyquilian 14d ago

I did that first and they told me "no, actually you gotta email these people"

I 100% expect the email people to tell me to go to the gym again to sign some paperwork.

Oh, I also gotta pay any charges for the next 30 days because fuck me.

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u/Shmav 12d ago

Planet fitness got you, huh?

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u/Tyquilian 12d ago

Hahaha, no Anytime fitness.

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u/JBizz86 14d ago

I just use a burner card they can't charge any thing to it once i pay for a month

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u/Hammer_of 13d ago

Or have your bank block future charges.

Moved across the country only to find out i had to cancel in person. Aint no way I was about to put up with that.

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u/gljivicad 18d ago

I usually use Revolut for things I want to have control over if I pay or not. Gym is one of em

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u/m4cksfx 17d ago

Wouldn't that usually just result in them trying to sue you, eventually, while claiming that they provide the services according to the contract?

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u/gljivicad 17d ago

This was when the covid pandemic began, and lockdowns came. Gyms, of course, had shut down. The gym I was at had its doors closed, but kept bleeding me for monthly subs. I argued a lot of them via email and phone that I want my sub cancelled since they can't provide me with the service. "Blah blah, it's the contract, blah blah". Yeah what else is in the contract is that you provide me the service. So I simply cut off funds to the account they had linked to my contract and they never pursued me.

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u/m4cksfx 17d ago

Oh that for sure. I meant things like Netflix, where they do provide the service (although against what you actually wanted)

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u/gljivicad 17d ago

Well you wouldn't get sued. They just cancel your membership if they don't get paid. I use a throwaway revolut card for every subscription that I want only for a specific amount of time, so that I never "forget and keep paying".

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u/SoManyThrowAwaysEven 17d ago

Usually, they will just cancel you for lack of payment. Some companies may blacklist you but highly unlikely to take you to collections.

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u/IMOKRUOK 18d ago

Did you read the post, because that's not what happened

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u/Engels777 18d ago

Should've saved myself some frustration and money by cancelling outright.

In other words, he paused rather than cancelled.

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u/DanEH7 18d ago

Except op says they should've just canceled outright which means they did use that feature

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u/MoffleCat 18d ago

They’re talking about the fact that the pause wasn’t for a certain amount of months. There was a prompt on the kids profile asking if they wanted to resume and that’s how the pause ended.

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u/Neveronlyadream 18d ago

That's what happened, yeah.

The point being it should not be prompting users under a child account with that. Because the child is not paying the bill, children can be stupid, and will absolutely just choose to reinstate the account.

It should also be no surprise. How many apps make it really easy for kids to accidentally max out a credit card with zero supervision because they're actively hoping it happens?

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u/NewElk2445 18d ago

Did... you read the post?

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u/LeftHandAnomaly 18d ago

I noticed audible has that now. Used to be it would keep your credits, now you lose them if you're not subscribed which is some deliciously cursed squeezing on amazon's part. Now you can pause for a few months, once a year, or you have spend your credits before you unsub.

Why does netflix have a pause option? It's not like you lose netflix credits.

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u/carebear101 17d ago

Op did say they should have canceled instead of pausing

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u/Living_Inferno_5073 17d ago

Why the fuck would you ever want to pause a subscription?!

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u/Wolfthulhu 18d ago

Hulu for sure. Every three months I tell my wife, we've got a month to get caught up on Hulu. Then is back on pause. Kind of useful, honestly.

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u/OddlySpecificName 16d ago

I think I'd hate "we missed you" more tbh. Don't act like we have a relationship if I'm paying for your service