When Courteney Morris received her March television bill, she was surprised to see an extra $21 charge for a Netflix subscription.
Already a Netflix subscriber through the streaming service’s website, the London, Ont., mom was confused why she was charged for a new account through her Rogers TV box – and not just last month, but every month since July 2024.
After five hours of phone calls between her and the two companies, Morris said she put together what happened: her 9-year-old daughter used the TV’s voice remote to purchase a Netflix subscription.
“She clicks the button, [says] ‘Netflix,’ and that’s it. That’s all she had to do,” said Morris.
Morris’ daughter used her school-given email address to sign up for the account, but the subscription cost was automatically billed to the family’s Rogers account that’s linked to the TV box, Morris said.
“It has become trivially easy to make payments through devices that in years past, we might not have used to make payments,” said technology analyst Carmi Levy. “Unfortunately, with kids in the house, that makes it easier for them to make those purchases too.”
Consumers can put their credit card information into TVs, smart watches, and smart speakers one time, Levy said, and they can automatically use it for all future purchases.
“We probably want to be checking our monthly bills, particularly on our telecommunication services as well as our credit card statements, to make sure that we are aware of every payment that’s on everything we’ve purchased,” Levy said.
In an email to CBC News, Rogers said they sent Morris nine different billing emails dating back to July, all of which notified her of the change. Morris admits she doesn’t typically check all of the specific charges on each Rogers bill since she pre-pays them in a lump sum at the start of the year. By the time she noticed the monthly charges, she had paid a total of nearly $200.
On the phone with a Rogers representative last week, Morris said she was told the company operates under the assumption that the account holder is the one buying subscriptions and that she is responsible for setting up parental controls to prevent unwanted purchases.
Customers can set up a four-digit purchase PIN for movie rentals and pay-per-view transactions, according to information on the company’s website. Rogers told CBC News customers also receive information about setting up parental controls when they receive a TV box.
Still, Morris said, the company should have verified her subscription when it was first made.
“There’s no notification that’s sent to you; all that gets sent to you is the bill,” she said, adding that by the time the bill arrives, the subscription has already been charged.
Morris said she wants telecommunications companies to implement a system that will authenticate purchases on customers’ accounts.
“We live in 2025. There are so many ways to have verification,” she said, pointing to two-factor authentication systems where customers receive an email or text message to confirm their purchase.
“When I was a kid, if you went on pay-per-view, you could not order anything without a code, and that wasn’t a ‘parental thing,'” she said. “It was set up because you’re making a purchase on your television, and you need authorization to do so.”
However, Levy said the responsibility is on consumers to monitor their purchases.
“As much as we wish the companies we subscribe to or that we buy the TV services from would protect us, the reality is that the responsibility rests with us.”
That looks like setting up additional controls like passwords to stop unauthorized purchases and having conversations with the whole family about avoiding buying mistakes, he said.
“This isn’t just an issue for households with kids. This is an issue for anybody who uses any kind of smart device,” Levy said. “The reality is you can make those purchases yourself, accidentally.”
“At the end of the day, you can’t complain to those companies, you need to look in the mirror.”
A representative at Netflix told CBC News that consumers with billing disputes on Rogers Netflix accounts must go through Rogers for refunds as that is the point of purchase.
Meanwhile, Rogers gave Morris a $60 credit to pay back three months of the subscription. She said she has now cancelled her Rogers Netflix subscription, but that won’t take effect until May as she has already been billed for April.
Morris said she wants her experience to be a lesson for others about monitoring their bills and what’s happening on their TVs.
“You’re going to be paying for it if you’re not paying attention.”
