Check your Netflix account

[disneysteve]

Yesterday afternoon I got 2 emails from Netflix each alerting me to a $14.96 unreturned DVD fee. I thought it might be spam/phishing so I logged onto my Netflix account and discovered that the fee was real.

I used the online chat feature to ask why I was being charged for having 2 DVDs out the same as always. It turned out that somewhere along the line, my DVD account was cancelled, which I didn't do. She said I needed to call the DVD division, so I did.

The rep in the DVD division was great and explained that sometime last year, there was some glitch that gave a bunch of longtime members free service for a while and it looked like we were one of them. Sure enough, we hadn't paid for service since July 2016. So we've gotten 8 months of free service. But in the process, the DVD plan also got turned off, even though we continued to get DVDs shipped to us. The last time we got one was in February, so less than 2 months ago. And we use the streaming service almost daily.

The end result was that we had to restart our DVD plan, though we are now considered new customers so we will get a one-month free trial, meaning a total of 9 free months we will have gotten for free. The only thing I need to keep on top of is the disc fees. He said they won't get refunded until we return those discs. I just have to make sure that happens.

So you might want to take a look at your Netflix account and make sure everything is in order.

[frugalninja]

I'm honestly surprised Netflix still ships DVDs, would have thought they'd be streaming only by now.

[disneysteve]

I'm honestly surprised Netflix still ships DVDs, would have thought they'd be streaming only by now.

I'd be fine with streaming-only if the entire library was available to stream. Since only a fraction of titles can be streamed, we keep the DVD plan.

[rennigade]

Im not sure how much bandwidth HD streaming eats up. Back home my parents/everyone that has cable internet is given 1TB of data per month to download. If one movie eats up 10gb of data...it wouldnt take too long to gobble that up. Stream hi def tv series for a couple hours a night and its game over before the month is up.

But like steve said...not everything can be streamed yet.

[PeggyHefferon]

I can't imagine going 8 months without knowing I wasn't being charged for service I was using.

[msomnipotent]

I can't imagine going 8 months without knowing I wasn't being charged for service I was using.

It is surprisingly easy to do if your bills are on auto-pay. I have my Netflix paid with my checking account so I have to write it in, but that is only because they made several billing mistakes when we first signed up. I trust them with billing only slightly more than I trust Comcast.


I had no idea that they still sent DVDs. I might look into that. We don't have cable or internet at our cottage, so DVD's are a must.

[disneysteve]

I can't imagine going 8 months without knowing I wasn't being charged for service I was using.

The bill gets charged to the credit card automatically. I always review the bill for incorrect or extra charges, but I just didn't notice it not being there at all. And I didn't get any sort of notification from Netflix to indicate that they hadn't gotten paid (because the lack of charge was actually initiated on their end).

[FLA]

a few weeks after new movie reviews come out, my library's ILL shows what DVDs they will be ordering. I request them then and am first in line when the movie comes out as a dvd. Completely free.

[phantom]

I can't imagine going 8 months without knowing I wasn't being charged for service I was using.

With Netflix specifically, it would take me a long time to notice. I buy $60 Netflix gift cards about twice a year, apply those to my account, and let Netflix slowly drain the gift card balance. It's only when Netflix notifies me that my balance is about to run out that I think about it and go buy a new gift card.

[disneysteve]

a few weeks after new movie reviews come out, my library's ILL shows what DVDs they will be ordering. I request them then and am first in line when the movie comes out as a dvd. Completely free.

Our library charges for DVD rentals. Plus it isn't convenient and requires pre-planning. The same for Redbox. With Netflix, we always keep 2 DVDs at home and if we have a quiet evening when we're both up for a movie, we can pop one in. It is almost never planned in advance. We pay for that convenience but I'm okay with that.

[PeggyHefferon]

It is surprisingly easy to do if your bills are on auto-pay.

I track my spending too closely for something like this to ever occur. Even the bills I do have on auto=pay, I still receive the statement electronically.

I also have line items in my Bills spreadsheet for every recurring expense. Hulu and the gym are prime examples of things that hit my credit card statement every month. Those items are not logged into my spreadsheet until I reconcile the amount I expected to pay on my statement.