I recently learned this first hand. Even more confusingly, your account is not attached to your country of payment but instead done by geoip, so travelling will mean you likely can't continue to watch the same series. This is a major ballache.
I'm sure they totally realize it, but it's not something a front-line support agent can really do anything about, so why get into that conversation with a customer who won't care about the why and will just see it as a crappy experience (which it totally is)!
If this was possible, I would get a friend of mine in USA to pay for my account. People complain about piracy in India and do not understand that torrents and streaming sites are currently my only source for good TV series. I am readily willing to pay even $40 a month for such a service.
Or even better, sign up using a Canadian IP. The their dollar is lower than the American, so it is cheaper (might be cheaper elsewhere). It doesn't limit you in any way to sign up and use in another country as far as I can tell.
Another somewhat infuriating problem related to this is with subtitles, for certain shows. I believe this is due to licensing, and if it is, it's a really prime example of licensing rules having absurd consequences.
In another region, the shows in the language of the region where you pay come with subtitles in the region's native language(s) that can't be turned off in a pleasant way through the UI. It can be done via a hack where you can provide the player with your own custom, empty, subtitles file, but this has to be reloaded for each new episode / movie that you play. It took me a good while to figure out how to do this via forums, it's certainly not something Netflix suggest or encourage, or even seemingly acknowledge, in their help sections.
A related problem is that for shows not in the language of the region where you pay, there aren't any subtitles in your language, even though back in the region where you pay, that same show is available, of course with subtitles in your language.
I don't know if it's Netflix themselves, or draconian licensing conditions that lead to this absurdity, but I suspect the latter as with Netflix's own shows, the problem doesn't exist. It basically boils down to this: because I'm in a non-English region, I can watch a show in English but I'm not allowed to just understand it - I must watch it with subtitles! If it's a non-English show, I can watch it but I am not allowed to have help understanding it with English subtitles, even though they're obviously and trivially available. What is the point of these rules?
Netflix allows you to turn of the subtitles in the UI. I have highlighted the relevant button in this screen shot (http://i.imgur.com/2jnxTJJ.png). This is from the Danish netflix.
Unfortunately they do not allow you to turn on English subtitles, and their translation is incredibly poor.
No, you can't. For certain english-language shows, the walking dead is an example, you can only choose between native regional language subtitles with that menu - there is no off option!
Even netflix support don't realise this.