Adventures with Netflix customer "service"

[grampahol]

I just spent a little time with Netflix customer service "chat" feature to resolve an ongoing problem some of you may be familiar with. Anyone with access to your account, kids, elderly people or just someone who breaks into your house while you're not home and decides to watch Netflix has the ultimate power to upgrade your account to "premium" and there is no way to block anyone from doing it time and time again.. The other person on the other end of the chat simply tells you that they know about the issue, but have zero power to do a damned thing about it. In other words, the powers that be in netflixville seem to like the idea that anyone and their uncle can upgrade your account at any time and the ONLY thing netflix does is send an email notifying you of the upgrade making it your responsibility to police your email every day to ensure the kids or grampa hasn't decided to up the cost of Netflix..
I'm sure the corporate world, Netflix in this case in particular loves the fact that your kids or grandparents or even someone breaking into your house while you're away (or even sleeping) can for any reason on a whim decide to upgrade your account to "premium".. How handy is that from a fiscal standpoint? It's not a huge amount of money. $8.99 to $15.99, but add up all the people who may have originally signed up for Netflix and completely forgot an old email address at a later date or just forgets to check their email on a monthly basis most definitely adds up for the Netflix coffers..
I know I can cancel Netflix and probably should since there's not really all that many Vampire or end of the world movies I want to watch and god knows we've all seen enough Nazi movies to know enough to not want to become Nazi's.. or vampires...or stuck in some dystopian time warp by some new app to control our every waking moment of existence.
So after telling me they can't do anything to fix this ongoing issue and won't tell me who does have such power they were kind enough to ask me to "please click the 'close chat button' before logging off. I committed the unpardonable sin and didn't click the close chat button. In fact, it's my hope and now goal in life to ensure there will always be an open and uncloseable chat stuck on netflix until the end of time. Good luck with my devious plot to upset the powers that be, huh?

[XenoMorph]

well your not suppose to account share...… sooooooooo that would fix the problem

[HarleyDog]

If you give people access to your account, then you are truly giving them access to your account.

[George Cantstandya]

(02-25-2020, 03:31 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: If you give people access to your account, then you are truly giving them access to your account.

Yep. It is the account holder's responsibility to restrict access to the account.  On the other hand if as posted in the OP, someone broke in to the home and for some reason along the way of committing breaking and entering they somehow logged in to upgrade the Netflix account then report it to the police.  In that case maybe Netflix would help out if you had a documented police report.   I can see it now:

Police:  So someone broke in to your house.  What did they steal or damage?
Victim: They took my laptop, my coin collection, my stereo and they also upgraded my Netflix account to premium.



Edit: Out of curiosity I checked my smart TV that uses Roku and I use to watch Netflix. There is no way to change plans via the Netflix Roku app. I was curious to see if maybe someone else using my TV could upgrade without my knowing, but it isn't an option. I have to login to my actual Netflix account on my computer to do it.

[SunsetBengal]

(02-25-2020, 04:12 PM)George Cantstandya Wrote: Yep. It is the account holder's responsibility to restrict access to the account.  On the other hand if as posted in the OP, someone broke in to the home and for some reason along the way of committing breaking and entering they somehow logged in to upgrade the Netflix account then report it to the police.  In that case maybe Netflix would help out if you had a documented police report.   I can see it now:

Police:  So someone broke in to your house.  What did they steal or damage?
Victim: They took my laptop, my coin collection, my stereo  and they also upgraded my Netflix account to premium.



Edit:  Out of curiosity I checked my smart TV that uses Roku and I use to watch Netflix.  There is no way to change plans via the Netflix Roku app. I was curious to see if maybe someone else using my TV could upgrade without my knowing, but it isn't an option.  I have to login to my actual Netflix account on my computer to do it.

You and I, and all of the other old farts out there..  Our kids just login through their phones and cast it to their TVs.

[grampahol]

They broke in, burned down my house, raped the ol lady and the BASTARD upgraded my Netflix account!

OK, I just made it up, but yeah..everything is my responsibility..

Still, since I was paying to let my dad, my kids in another state and my sister in Ohio access my account I have nobody to blame except myself. I just need to become a selfish, greedy bastard someday and stop wanting to help out anyone for any reason.

[George Cantstandya]

(02-26-2020, 12:04 PM)grampahol Wrote: They broke in, burned down my house, raped the ol lady and the BASTARD upgraded my Netflix account!

OK, I just made it up, but yeah..everything is my responsibility..

Still, since I was paying to let my dad, my kids in another state and my sister in Ohio access my account I have nobody to blame except myself. I just need to become a selfish, greedy bastard someday and stop wanting to help out anyone for any reason.

I was just poking a little fun at your break in scenario.  I didn't mean any offense. 

As for sharing, I understand that too.  I had a close family member that was in the hospital for a bit and I set up a profile on my account so she could watch Netflix on her tablet during her stay. I figured it was better than sending flowers.  :) 

I guess it just comes down to trust.  If someone using the shared account manipulates the account settings then I would give a one time warning and if done again cut them off by changing the password and not giving it to them.  Then just follow it up with a, "Sorry I tried to be nice," if they complained. But that's just me.