Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

While Netflix has serious and major issues, at least their support people are wonderfully helpful.

It all started with Luxembourg. I live in the US (California). Their HQ is in the US (California). Something about their servers or code or something was sending my payment through Luxembourg instead of up the road, so I was getting charged 50% higher monthly rate and a foreign transaction fee from my bank.

So I contacted them. An hour dealing with various support people (they kept passing me higher and higher, not because I was angry (I wasn't), but because apparently this was some issue they had never seen before). But eventually they "fixed" the issue and gave me four free months to cover all the overcharges and fees.

The next month, the same thing happened. So I got a fifth free month, plus nearly the whole sixth month free.

The next month, the same thing happened...

You can see where this is going.

Last month and this month were a different issue: I was being charged the right amount, going through the US payment center, but I was supposed to still have free months left.

At least this time it didn't take an hour dealing with support. Every other time, the shortest amount of time this issue took was 75 minutes.

This time they gave me half the months in refunded money and the rest as free months. (I would have rather had it all refunded so I could stop paying attention to if they were charging me or not, but they couldn't do that.)

So let's see if this issue happens again next month. While I'm not holding my breath that it's fixed, at least the Netflix support people are very good to work with -- some of the best I ever have.

Edit: And sadly, I didn't win the 1.6 Billion dollar lottery tonight. I feel stupid as hell for entering a lottery, but I guess if it's over a billion, I suppose I can make an exception. I didn't even match one single number. :P

Edit2: Sigh. Maybe Netflix support should focus less on being nice and more on getting things right. I just got the credit email from them. They refunded me ONE month, not half of the due. Now I'm going to have to contact their support again. This is really, really getting old.

I spent nearly an hour in online chat with the Netflix support people. That it took that long, you'd think it would have been a bad experience, but all in all I'm pretty happy. (And even more happy, since it had been looking more and more like my credit card had been compromised.)

The support person noticed something I hadn't: I was supposed to be paying $7.99 or $9.99 per month (depending on what? I don't know), but I was paying $13.62 a month. I noticed an issue that I hadn't originally: This wasn't going on just two months. My online banking records go back three months, and it was at least going on that long.

Yes, I swear, I do look at my statement every time I pay my bills. I do not know how I didn't notice that foreign transaction fee sooner. Not noticing that I wasn't paying exactly the right price? That's more understandable. But the fee? No idea how I missed that.

So the person I was dealing with acted as the middle man between me and the "Netflix research team". Lots of questions, and I had to submit screenshots of my online banking transactions showing the amount and the fee.

The resolution:

Netflix
My team has checked into this and I really appreciate you giving us the time to check into it. Seems the bank some how routed this back to Luxembburg instead of US. But no worries. We have fixed this for you and gave you a 4 month free subscriptions for this inconviniences. If by any chance you see this happen again in your next billing date please contact us and your bank since we will now know that this is an issue that the bank is re routing the amount wrongfully.

Four months of free subscription isn't as good as it sounds, since I had been paying almost $14 instead of $8 or $10 for who knows how many months. (I could call the credit card company and find out how many, but meh, my own fault for not noticing it sooner.) Netflix also closed and reopened my account to hopefully clear up whatever caused this.

As long as this issue took to solve, it seems like it wasn't a common problem they were having. Dare I think, unique? If I'm going to have a problem, I kind of like being unique about it. I'm sure the support people don't feel the same though!

With no work for a week or so, and nothing at all on TV in the evenings, I've been watching a lot of Netflix.

Tonight I tried Mad Men. I had very little interest going in: I have no interest in the 50s (turns out it's set in the 60s), and I knew that because it was set so long ago, that women were treated badly and everyone smoked. That's all I knew about it before trying it.

I didn't make it even six minutes into the ep.

Strike one: A man, talking to the woman he's about to marry, "Of course I love you. I'm giving up my life for you, aren't I?" Giving up his life because he's marrying her...
Strike two: Woman showing another woman her desk and the "high tech" typewriter. "I know this looks complicated, but the man who designed it made sure it's simple enough for even women to use."
Strike three: Man 1: "Have we ever hired a Jew?" Man 2: "Not on my watch."

I understand that that was normal for the time, but that does not mean I have to be exposed to it now.

I also checked out Ultimate Spider-Man, which I liked a lot. I'm only one ep into it, but I love the fun style, all the breaking the fourth wall cutaways, and of course Clark Gregg voicing Phil Coulson.

That reminded me though. Agents of SHIELD fell off my radar. I wonder if it got any better?

It's really disappointing how few new movies the streaming version of Netflix offers. All the good stuff goes DVD only, which not only has a higher membership cost but also requires you to deal with a physical disk. It's surprising how hard I have to search to find something I want to watch. Maybe I should poke around Hulu as well...

Anyone who uses Netflix, be sure to read any email/mail you get from them. If you have both DVD and streaming access, your membership cost will now nearly double.

Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

I've been forcing myself to watch a movie a week for so long to make the $10/month worth it (which even for one movie totally isn't), and so this gives me a darned good excuse to finally quit. I really don't know why I was forcing myself to stay.

Bye bye, movie of the week!

A blessing and curse
Netflix sending me movies
Red envelope waits

I love Netflix. I discovered Weeds through it, which is now one of my top most favorite shows ever. It's the movies mailed to you that's rougher for me. I try to watch one a weekend, but that's generally me having to make time to watch it. I know you can keep the movies as long as you like, but it seems kind of silly to keep the same one for a month and not even watch it.

I didn't watch a movie last weekend, so now this red envelope has been on my desk, waiting, watching me, staring at me, for two weeks now.

By mail it arrives
My personal stalker waits
On desk, next to me