Consumer Alerts: Netflix Plan Change; Costco Tandoori Wrap

 The email the other day told me that the plan I'm on with Netflix is being discontinued.  They announced that I would save 40%.  But then in the smaller print it said, I'd get ads at that lower price.  

A few short ads.  Few is pretty vague.  So is short.  Anything over 5 seconds is too long for me.  And in the middle of a movie?  That's sacrilege. 

"Designed not to interrupt you during a scene" - So does this mean at the end of the scene, but in the middle of the movie, they will interrupt?  Totally unacceptable.  

My current bill is $11.99 per month.  That's up from $9.99 a month not that long ago. [I looked on line.  Seems they announced the increase in June 2023 and it went into effect in October 2023, best as I can tell.]

That's less than a year ago.  Can we expect annual bumps from now on? 

Compared to going to the theater, Netflix is a great deal.  So great that we find we are spending way too much time watching.  At least we limit to after dinner, generally not starting until 8:30 or 9:30.  And trying to end around 11pm.

But as I think about it, we lose a lot of reading time and a lot of time when we used to talk to each other.  And I have noticed that blogging gets cut back by Netflix.  

So I replied that we did not want ads and were ready to cut loose from Netflix. 

I got another email - My current plan would end September 30.  I replied that our Netflix addiction would end September 30.  Of course, the emails from Netflix were not ones you could reply to and I got notices that they weren't delivered.  

Prices go up because people are willing to suck it up and keep paying.  In this case I need to figure out how to let Netflix know, I don't plan to pay after September.  

Meanwhile, I had to go to Costco to get a repair on one of my hearing aids - which they did and it worked.  But as I gathered some fruits and veggies and fresh salmon, I saw some Tandoori Chicken Wraps.  Looked good and they had a $2 off sign, so I thought we could try them.  

Today, when I looked to see if and how to heat them up, I saw there were no directions.  Just the longest list of ingredients I can remember ever seeing.  

From what I could tell checking a Reddit discussion, you were supposed to eat them cold.  We did.  

Boring!!  (Does it make sense to put exclamation points after boring?  Probably not)  Despite all the ingredients it didn't really taste like anything.  It was mushy. Avoid.  

Back To Netflix 

And if you have Netflix, and you're also unhappy about this, you can go to manage your account and play around until you find the contact button.  Then you have a choice of phone or chat.  

I chose chat, because I can make screenshots of what was said, but I'm pretty sure it was a bot responding.  When, at one point, I asked how many siblings do you have and where are you in the birth order, the response was 

"I'd be happy to answer Netflix-related questions today. Do you have any questions about your account or our service?"

At the end when they asked if I had more questions, I said that they hadn't answered whether they were a bot or human and the answer was "I am a human."  Must be depressing having people think you aren't human all day - assuming that was true.  

Maybe we need to have legislation requiring customers be told whether the chat or voice they are talking to is a human or not.  With consequences if they lie.   

I'd suggest people go into your accounts and tell them you are going to cancel your accounts at the end of September (or whenever your basic service ends).  If enough people do that, perhaps they will reconsider.  And you can always rejoin later if you have severe withdrawal symptoms.  

 

Surprise! Departure Time and Costco/Citi Bank Billing

Surprise 1:  Departure Time

I got up yesterday (Thursday) thinking that my daughter and granddaughter were flying home today (Friday) - that we had one more day of human sunshine at the house.  But my wife informed me they were leaving that day (yesterday) at 3:30pm.  This was about 9am.

Whoa, how could I make that big a mistake?  I checked my computer calendar and I had them down for today - the 20th.  So I looked for the email and got the Alaska Air reservation.  There it was:  July 19.  But it wasn't 3:30pm.  It was 11:07am!  (3:30 was their arrival time.)

Needless to say when I told my daughter, who was still in bed, there was a bit of hustle and bustle. But we got them to the airport ok.

It hurt to see them go.  But the last minute burst of packing and rushing was distracting.

It means we can get back to our cleaning out the house activities - more paper shredding, more sorting, tossing, giving away, the crumbling front steps will be replaced.   I think I've decided to not put so many pictures back up on the walls.  Instead, we'll just change what is up now and then and leave many of the pictures in the 'archives.'  It's just that we're trying to minimize storing stuff we don't use that much.


Surprise 2:  Paying Costco Bill Still A Pain

It's not the amount that's the problem, it's the complicated way Costco and Citi Bank (their credit card) do things.

When we had to change to the Citi Bank Costco credit card last November, we didn't realize that we would get two cards with two different numbers.  And since my wife happened to be the person who signed up for them, she was automatically the primary card holder.  I have no problem letting her be 'primary' except that I'm the one who pays the bills.  So the first bill we got I had lots of trouble - the website didn't recognize my card number.  You see, when I use my card, it all goes to her card number.

And I couldn't even call in and work it out.  I had to give the phone to her to get permission to pay the bill.  She gave it.
So I was able to set up the user name and password.

Until a couple of months later, they didn't work.  I couldn't get past the security questions.  Turns out my card number has no value at all in identifying myself.  I have to use her number, but she still had to give permission.  Despite our pleas to let me have the ability to call in and talk to them without getting her permission - and their saying ok they were doing that - it didn't happen.

So when I tried to pay the bill they emailed me today, it didn't work again.  The rep this time was much more sympathetic than last time.  (Last month she denied that I had ever been made an 'administrator' even though we knew we'd called in and asked for that to happen.)  So Jazzalin made me an administrator yet again.  But I can't change a mailing address or security questions without my wife's permission.

I understand that some couples might want to put restrictions on one another or other users including children, but I don't understand why we can't have the option of one card number and equal access for both of us.

But then I got transferred to the tech side to figure out why I couldn't log in.  The rep did say that I had logged in successfully at 2:06pm (so I knew he was on East Coast time).  But the messages I got all said something like "Your info does not match our records."
He asked how I had gotten to the website.
Me:  "I used the link in the email statement I got."
Him:  "Ah, don't use that.  Go straight to CITI.com"
Me:  "You're saying the link in the email statement doesn't work?"
Him:  "There have been some problems."

There are enough refunds using Costco's preferred card to make not using it a real decision.  Besides, using their credit card doesn't give them any more information on what I buy than they already get from their membership card, and I don't usually carry much cash on me these days, and you have to have the credit card to get gas there.  So I'm resigned to using the card.

[UPDATE July 28, 2018: A reader emailed me to say she gets gas using her Alaska Airlines credit card, and that having two different card numbers was helpful when she lost her card.  Her husband's card still worked.]]

He also said it was Costco, not Citi, that requires the two different account numbers.  So I did send in my complaint to Costco too.

Another issue we discussed was Security Questions.  He said he's asked at meetings how and why they pick the obscure questions they pick.  He was told that so much info is available on social media these days that they need to be more obscure.  But he also realizes that some people - particularly older people - don't remember 'their first' whatever any more.  And I pointed out that you have to remember exactly what you wrote.  Spelled exactly the same.  Did you give your youngest brother's birthday as July 1, 1996 or just July 1?  Or July1?

But I also raised the issue of potentially giving hackers even more detailed information about a person.  Think of the recent scam attempts lately where someone calls and says, "We've kidnapped your granddaughter and you need to buy gift cards for $5000 and give us the codes within 30 minutes."  They now can convince grandma with obscure details like her granddaughter's first dog's name, or first car or the street she lived on when she was in elementary school.

Or someone stealing your identity can have that information too.

How much are we willing to pay for convenience?  And is it our convenience or the company's convenience?

I've spent at least three hours of my time dealing just with Costco billing in the last six months - that really isn't convenience.

My New Hears

Choose your own opening:

Opening 1
My wife was an audiologist part of her career.  Her stories were about how hard it was for people to adjust to hearing aids.  Problems with background noise and lots of other issues.  I learned that putting on hearing aids doesn't magically improve your hearing the way glasses immediately improve your seeing.

Opening 2
Glasses aren't called Seeing Aids, so why don't we have a word for hearing aids that isn't so clunky and off-putting?

Opening 3
As I grow older, the people around me mumble more and more.  Some people speak clear as a bell.  Others sound a little fuzzy.  I can catch most of what they're saying, but key words stay sounds without meaning.

The Story

So I went to Costco to have my hearing tested.  Then the technician,  The higher frequencies weren't within normal range.  Aaron programmed a hearing aid, showed me where the ignition was, and let me take them for a ride around the warehouse.  Despite my expectations of annoying noises and difficulty pulling out the things I needed to hear, it was, in fact, like putting on glasses.  All the gauze that seemed to muffle some people's voices disappeared, and those high tones needed to interpret certain words or certain voices came through loud and clear.  (Not too loud, just loud enough.)  The technology is much better than it was.  The aids are programmed to boost the frequencies my ears have trouble with, they dampen the background sounds, adjust to different backgrounds, and they even boost soft voices.  We shopped and went back to the hearing center where he started taking the aids out.  I protested.  I can't keep them?  No, these are ours, yours should be here in two or three days.  I was really disappointed.  But they came soon and now it's been a little more than a week.

So, now I'm looking for a good name for these little guys who ride behind my earlobes, hooked into my ear canals by little clear tubes.  I narrowed it down to 'ears' and 'hears' and after a tiny sample sized opinion survey, I've decided to call them my 'hears.'  [I'm still open to better suggestions.]

And today I went to the doctor for a slightly longer ago than annual check up.  No serious issues and all the lab results came out in the normal range. (I didn't plan it, but I kind of like having 'out in' in a sentence.)  He did mention that lots of men won't get hearing aids.  I understand not wanting to display one's infirmities to the world.  But I figure every time I say, "Pardon?" or "What was that?" or "I didn't catch that" I'm doing that anyway.  And I can hear everything now.  Particularly noticeable is the alarm on my watch, which is in a high frequency.  I could hear it faintly under good conditions, but if it's covered by a sleeve or there's a lot of background noise, they only way I knew it was going off was when people told me it was.  Now it's really loud!  So are paper and plastic sounds.

The three rules I was given was NO swimming, showering, or sleeping with the hears in.

 I used to say that I didn't need hears because what I heard was much more interesting than what people actually said.  This picture is like that.  And it gives you a sense of what high frequency words and voices sounded like before I got my hears.  You get a lot of the info, but it's fuzzy.

Oh yes, one more cute feature - there's a red mark on the hears for the right ear and a blue one for the left.

Costco Packaging Problems

Costco, among others, is known for its hard plastic packaging that is incredibly tricky to open.  But that packaging is also wasteful.

I needed some AAA batteries and I was at Costco.  So I bought a package of 32.  More than I need, but so much cheaper per battery than elsewhere, that I bought them.

Once I got them home, I needed a way to store them since their packaging was useless once it was opened.  That's when I realized how little space the batteries needed to contain them.

The Costco package was 6.5" by 11" - and one inch high.

I got all the batteries into a little box - 2X3X2.

I can put the cardboard part into the recycling, but the plastic, here in Anchorage, has to go to the landfill.

I realize that the small packages are harder to see on the shelf, but they can up them up with big signs.
I realize that the big packages are harder to shoplift, and I'm not sure how to solve that problem, but I know there's a way that we just haven't thought of yet.

How Big Is A Costco Large Egg?

I was moving eggs from the 18 egg carton to a 12 egg carton that fits in our egg tray.  I couldn't help but wonder at the different sizes.  These eggs all came from a Costco egg carton that said Large.

But these eggs were radically different sizes as you can see.

I looked up how big eggs should be for each grade and found this useful piece in the Kitchen blog - though its focus was on whether you could substitute a large egg for a medium in a recipe.  Not on honest labeling.

I don't have a food scale - though my new bread book strongly suggests I get one - so I just had to eyeball it.  One egg is about 2 inches long and the other closer to 3 [2.5] inches.

Costco, who's grading your eggs?