Clark Shah-Nelsons Ed Tech Tips

How Netflix Can Screw You With “Holds”

March 1st, 2009

Have you ever put your Netflix account on hold while on vacation or for some other reason? Did you realize that under Netflix’s current business practices and policies could actually end up paying for your account anyway, even though it’s on hold?

I put my Netflix account on hold on December 2, 2008, because I was getting tons of videos to watch for the SAG awards nominating committee. Unfortunately, what I didn’t notice was that my credit card had just paid for November 28 – December 27, 2008. So I figured – I bet Netflix is sophisticated enough to catch that and give me credit, or roll the credit forward into the next month of service…. Oops.

Then, on January 15, 2009, I was notified that my hold had ended, and I decided to lengthen it, so I changed it to March 1, 2009. Meanwhile, my credit card had already been charged again, on January 15, 2009. Double whammo!

So then March 1, 2009 rolls around (today) and yet again, I am charged for the next full month. There are still no credits in my billing page, no acknowledgment of the fact that I had paid for nearly 2 full months of “on hold” service. So I call up Netflix, and lo and behold, I am able to be given credit for the January charge, but NOT the December charge, because it was too long ago. Yeah. Uh… Huh?

So Netflix is sophisticated enough to manage putting your account on hold or off hold, but not to connect that with its billing system, apparently. The morals of the story is:

1. If you put your account on hold, best to either do this on the last day of your current paid for cycle, or monitor what you have paid for and when, and call Netflix right away if you deserve credit – their systems are currently set up to screw you if you don’t call or wait too long.

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