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Gadgets Netflix Gives 5% Refund After Outage
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - March 27, 2008 4:17 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 20 comment(s) - last by Ytsejamer1.. on Mar 28 at 12:24 PM
Netflix outage refund is enough for a gumball, your results may vary

One of the earliest and most successful companies at mail order movie rentals is Netflix. Netflix operates a movie rental service via mail that allows users to rent movies for a monthly fee and keep the movies as long as they pay the recurring charge for the service without late charges.

Thanks to the convenience of the service it has become very popular and enjoys a large user base. Netflix uses a movie queuing service online to allow subscribers to set up a list of films they want to see and have them shipped as previous rentals are returned. Earlier this week the shipping system and Netflix’s streamed movies were unexpectedly out of service.

The service was reportedly down from around 7 a.m. till 6 p.m. on Monday and prevented the shipment of DVDs in customer’s queues and kept online streaming of films from happening. To make up for the outage Netflix is giving customers a 5 percent rebate for the hassle.

The act of giving a rebate is a nice gesture. However, those who subscribe to the $4.99 per month plan you will receive a 25 cent refund. Certainly not enough to make up for having to watch reality TV rather than the flick you were expecting in the mail.

"The key thing here is: This was completely proactive on Netflix's part. There's no requirement for Netflix to do this, no obligation. There was no request for it. We thought it was the right thing to do," Netlfix spokesman Steve Swasey said.

Netflix ships approximately 1.6 million videos each day. 


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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
By sapiens74 on 3/27/2008 4:37:56 PM , Rating: 3
Thank the computer gods for the outage.....




By TomZ on 3/27/2008 4:48:13 PM , Rating: 3
To avoid this problem in the future, you might find this site useful: http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/.

:o)


By sapiens74 on 3/27/2008 4:58:21 PM , Rating: 2
You want me to get in trouble... :P


By prenox on 3/27/2008 5:52:24 PM , Rating: 2
Its hard to get in trouble for a password that you truthfully don't remember yourself. Just hide the txt file in your windows dir and rename it .dll and she will never find it.


By PontifexMaximus on 3/27/2008 6:41:07 PM , Rating: 2
Better yet, encrypt everything with Keepass.
http://keepass.info/


To other Netflix subscribers
By PontifexMaximus on 3/27/2008 6:44:45 PM , Rating: 2
I haven't received any kind of notification from Netflix about this. Anyone hear directly from Netflix about this yet?




RE: To other Netflix subscribers
By Wiggim on 3/27/2008 6:54:40 PM , Rating: 2
No, but if you goto Your Account->Membership Terms and Details it says "You will receive a 5% Customer Service discount for the next 1 period."


RE: To other Netflix subscribers
By PontifexMaximus on 3/27/2008 9:30:38 PM , Rating: 2
It doesn't mention any 5% Customer Service discount in my account where you mentioned. I will call them and haggle. It did delay 2 of my Blu-rays by a day.


RE: To other Netflix subscribers
By PontifexMaximus on 3/27/2008 9:31:36 PM , Rating: 2
That $.85 I'm missing is a big deal!


By PontifexMaximus on 3/27/2008 11:50:43 PM , Rating: 2
RE: To other Netflix subscribers
By Moishe on 3/28/2008 8:45:12 AM , Rating: 2
I got an email Tuesday out of the blue saying they would apply the 5% discount to my next bill. I didn't even notice the outage.


I applaud their way of handling this
By Glavinsolo on 3/27/2008 4:28:01 PM , Rating: 5
While blockbuster scrapes for every penny from their customers, Netflix acknowledges the outage and before complaints pile in the fix the problem before it starts.




By xsilver on 3/27/2008 9:42:02 PM , Rating: 2
The goodwill that this gesture buys will pay for itself in helping to keep their customers.

Looks like the CEO actually went to marketing 101.


Comcast should learn a lesson from Netflix
By Chosonman on 3/27/2008 5:00:42 PM , Rating: 3
But if Comcast gave 5% back for every outage they would be out billions of dollars since their service is down at least a couple days a month for me.

Instead of telling me:
"Turn off your modem" "Turn off your router" "Reboot your computer" "Sorry not our fault, your router is broken"




RE: Comcast should learn a lesson from Netflix
By Alexstarfire on 3/27/2008 9:47:40 PM , Rating: 2
It's quite funny that people seem to keep bringing up Comcast "outages." We've had Comcast for years and I can only recall a couple days where we had outages, and all of them were to be expected. Things like when we lost power after an ice storm, and when we changed our modem and had to get it validated. Probably had a day or two now and then when it was out, but since I don't use the internet every second of every day, I couldn't tell you for sure.


By kinnoch on 3/28/2008 11:38:01 AM , Rating: 2
Comcast would have horrible outtages in my area. For a few months it was every other day for a couple of hours in the evening. Your milage probably depends on what area you are in.


Yeah, I know
By bldckstark on 3/27/2008 4:35:58 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, I know this is my own fault, BUT...
I sent movies back then went to my queu the next day to re-arrange the movies because my family is leaving for Florida, and I want to watch some horror films, which my wife despises. I couldn't get on the site. I ended up with 3 movies for my kids. DOH!




It's more than fair
By joex444 on 3/27/2008 4:54:21 PM , Rating: 2
They're giving everyone a 5% refund for being down 1.5% of the time in a month (11 hours). Sounds more than fair to me.

And those with the $4.99 plan can only receive a couple movies a month; I would argue most were not expecting a movie that day.




Que Change
By Wiggim on 3/27/2008 5:55:54 PM , Rating: 2
The outage seems to be connected with some sight upgrades. The que no longer shows DVS/HD DVD/BLURAY selection so I called up and moaned. The support person was familiar with the problem and had a quick work-around. No excuses and said they were working to restore the selection field - and her English was totally understandable. Not bad.




By Ytsejamer1 on 3/28/2008 12:24:41 PM , Rating: 2
I have to say, I'm fairly impressed with Netflix. I've received a DVD or two that was scratched. I was able to call them up at 10pm or whenever and speak with a rep that I was able to understand. A new disc was forwarded out the next day with an additional disc from my queue to make up for the inconvenience.

The 5% refund email came to me earlier this week...I didn't even realize it, but it is a nice gesture and will go along way in keeping me as a customer. Being that I went from Comcast to DirecTV recently, I use Netflix almost as an On-demand system now in addition to getting DVD rentals on a regular basis.

I've been pleased with the support from Netflix...it's been fairly flawless and they took care of any issue that came up almost instantly. Kudos to them!




"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." -- North Korean Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il











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