On or around March 9th, Netflix, a nationwide video streaming and mail order video rental company, updated their streaming service provided through Sony's Playstation Network, via the Playstation 3 console, to include a new Netflix Just for Kids section and an extended menu. The Just for Kids section limits the options of streamable content to only those that are deemed suitable for younger viewers and was provided to all Netflix customers.
The extended menu feature allows the customer the ability to search for movies by title, actor, and/or director (previously only by title) and give the ability to scroll the results of each type of search in 3 independant sections (previously search results were limited to only the top 7 title results with no scroll ability and no actor or director searches) and was only provided to part of the Netflix customer base. The only reason I personally found this out is that I have two active Netflix accounts in my household am only receiving the full service through one of these accounts even though I have supposedly received the same downloads for both accounts.
I have since spoken to multiple Netflix representatives, via their only customer service line, and have been put-off, redirected, hung-up on, left waiting for a call back, and out right lied to for over 2 weeks until today when I finally was allowed to speak with a supervisor. This supervisor, after repeated attempts to find an error on my end, got in touch with the Netflix technicians and found that only part of the Netflix customers had received the full updates two weeks ago and that this was an already known about issue, but since most customers do not know that they are missing out on part of the service they are paying for there is no need for them to be informed of this issue.
Netflix has firmly stated that no reimbursement will be made for this failing on their parts and that no attempt to let customers know will be made. The service call center supervisory also told me that my calls had been the only ones they had received in that center about this issue but that it is known by Netflix to be affecting a large number of customers nationwide on 3 separated Netflix accessible devices but again most Netflix members would not notice that they were not receiving full service due to only having one active account and thus no basis for comparison.
Netflix, by taking this 'ignorant customers are happy customs' stance, has actively and with full knowledge cheated and lied to their customers. This is a very questionable move on the heels of two other instances of being accused of cheating customers (the attempted class action suite against Netflix/Walmart settled November 22) and deceitful business practice (the company split e-mail to all customers on September 19 turning out to be a false excuse for increase customer prices) and I can only assume that this will cause yet another large migration of customers away Netflix if the word gets out.
I believe that their should be actions taken to rectify this issue either with or without support from Netflix but do not expect many people to even notice they are getting cheated. I am sending the information as to what Netflix is doing to everyone I have listed as 'freinds' on social networks and all of my e-mail recipients so that they can check to see if they are being cheated and am asking that anyone who reads this, after checking to make sure I am telling the truth, do the same. One base price across the boards is supposed to equal one base service across the board and we need to let Netflix know that we are not going to take being cheated anymore.
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