Netflix Saves The Day, Overrides Disc Limit To Send Me Martial Arts Movie To Watch With The Guys

For all the rotting fruit hurled at Netflix over the whole price-doubling thing and the Qwikster debacle, it is easy to forget how much some people used to adore the company and its customer service.

But Consumerist reader Jonathan recently got a reminder when a Netflix employee went the extra mile, all so he could watch a kung fu flick with his pals.

See, Jonathan had just put the finishing touches on the theater in his man cave, and he wanted to have his friends over — including some from out of town — this weekend to experience the awesomeness.

“I went to my Netflix queue and moved Ip Man to the top slot,” he says. “I was confident that it would get here in time for the movie night since I knew they would send me a disc that day. Apparently, there is a lag in the system that doesn’t update the site as soon as a disc has shipped. I went on happily thinking I would get my kung fu flick but they ended up sending me the previous number one in my queue; which was *ahem* a romantic comedy that I had planned to watch with my fianc√©.”

Jonathan could have watched Ip Man through Netflix’s streaming library, but he had really been hoping to show off the movie in its full Blu Ray glory:

I called Netflix and apologetically explained them my situation. The customer service rep got a good chuckle out of my story and we both agreed that a romantic comedy would not work for my movie night. Without hesitation he queued up the kung fu flick and sent it out on a rush. This put me over my two disc movie plan, but he said it wouldn’t be a problem.

Netflix may have gotten some bad press in the last year and I’ll admit to being a bit disgruntled, but this kind of customer service goes a long way to making me a happy customer again.

Speaking of Netflix, a few readers have noticed the following clause in the new Netflix Terms of Service and wondered if this is the company’s way of leaving the door open for tiered streaming plans:

For certain membership plans in the United States with limited hours of instant watching, any unused instant watching time will not roll-over to your next period or otherwise accumulate. If you reach your watch instantly limit while a selected movie or TV show is playing, you are able to complete that movie or TV show provided that you continuously watch it to completion. The number of movies & TV shows you are able to watch instantly during each billing period depends on the length of each movie or TV show you select and whether you watch them to completion. Any repeated instant watching of a movie or TV show, in whole or in part, will count towards your total watch instantly time.

But a Netflix rep confirms to Consumerist that this clause is in the TOS for the customers who have the $4.99/month plan that only allows two hours of streaming each month and that the company does not have any plans for tiered streaming prices.

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