Maybe someone can shed some light on how this mix-up may have occurred.

I got an email two days ago from Netflix telling me my account had been canceled. I immediately got online to look at my account and called Customer Service, who told me that the credit card holder, claiming not to have known anything about the charges on the account, canceled it. Turns out that my friend Josef’s credit card has been paying for my Netflix for the past two months, and that my Netflix account and I by association have committed fraud against him.

Even if we had recalled being on one another’s computers, the process of switching credit card information doesn’t seem so easily accomplished. In order for his credit card information to get into my account, Josef, I (or someone else) must have updated the credit card information in my account specifically. I’m not sure how my being on his account could have changed anything on mine, so we’ll go ahead and dismiss that scenario. Besides, I know when I’m in my account–the first thing I do is check my queue to see what I have coming to me. Furthermore, Josef has had his account for a while and so have I, so two months ago, neither of us would have been piddling with our billing info.

Something else that happened makes me think the problem is Netflix, not one of us (certainly the more unnerving of possibilities). I don’t know much about how this error could have occurred as a website programming glitch of some sort, but Netflix is known to have a host of other errors. A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Netflix saying that they had received my note in a returned DVD and instructed me to seek answers through the website; however, I never sent them a note. I’ve also heard from other people that they receive other people’s DVDs all the time, or theirs never arrive. Sure, there must be room for human error on Netflix’s end. But credit card information just appearing on someone else’s account and no one recalling entering information anywhere? That’s sketchy.

Well, hopefully tomorrow they won’t send out the police to arrest me for fraud. (Not that people actually get arrested for fraud that often. I’m sure it happens, but one time a guy on King St. in Charleston tried to buy a computer with my debit card, the number for which he must have gotten from any of the many stores and restaurants I frequented. Luckily, the computer company required my approval since the ship-to name and address was different than the billing information. The card company said there was nothing I could really do by way of charging the kid who stole my card number. I even had his name: Kenneth something or another. It’s been several years.)

Josef told me he asked the Netflix people to tell him whose account he was paying for. They couldn’t release that classified information. I asked him what he would have thought if they had actually told him it was me. He said, “I would have called you!” and I said, “I thought you’d say, Seth! You can’t marry this girl! She’s a dirty thief!”

I don’t think I’ll be browsing Netflix on other people’s computers anytime soon. And I’ll be sure always to remember to sign out of my account, even on my computer (which, come to think of it, I’ve already failed to do).

By the way, Netflix has already made another error. Instead of crediting Josef’s card for the two months he paid, they’ve instead credited my credit card. Hmmm…..

I guess for those really into fraud, this setup could be a good thing.