Red Envelope in the Mail

When we got home today and checked the mail there was a familiar red envelope in the box. Upon closer inspection it was a clever advert for the service. Inside were four cards, offering 1 month free trial to Netflix that you would hopefully pass out to your friends and when they signed up you would get a bonus movie shipped to you from your queue.

Sounds cool, but I won’t be passing any out and here is why, when you sign up you need a valid form of payment (most likely a credit card, but I’m sure direct debit from a checking account is an option) and this I understand, but the part I don’t like is that they will automatically start charging that card or whatever if you do not cancel before your month is up. I’m not stupid, I know why they are doing it that way, they are betting you won’t remember to cancel in time and they can charge your account. They are also betting you won’t even see it on your monthly bill and can probably get a couple months of money before you figure out what happened. That just smacks of sleazy.

How about playing fair and using the opt in policy, send a couple three emails after the three week time frame and ask if they would like to continue? We had just recently considered giving someone a gift of Netflix for Christmas, but decided against it for the same reason.