Comments on: Blockbuster Allows Returning Mail Movies To Stores. Brilliant!

By: Verity

Verity — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:39:17 +0000

I have a collection of DVD’s most of which I purchased from CouponAlbum site. They are having branded stores of DVD’s with lots of exciting coupons.

By: dave williams

dave williams — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:52:44 +0000

I had Netflix for about 16 months, and then I joined Blockbuster for their free trial. I kept both running for an additional month after the Blockbuster trial expired. I keep several hundred movies in my queue at all times. I dropped Netflix after I saw how much better Blockbuster did with getting me movies at the top of my queue. With Netflix I rarely ever got a movie when it was first released. With Blockbuster I have yet to get the newest movies on either Monday or Tuesday when I have a return that day. Both services have a distribution site in the same city, about 120 miles from my home. I received on average 20 movies a month from Netflix, and 27 from Blockbuster. I dont know if Netflix is closed on Saturdays, but I never showed a movie either received or shipped on Saturday. With Blockbuster, Saturday is always a business day. Due to the extra day to receive and ship, I was able to get 6 movies each week. As far as I know, frequent renters do not get recent releases withheld and shipped to less frequent users at Blockbuster like they did at Netflix. I dont live close enough to use the in store service, but for those who do, its frosting on the cake. Say what you like about my post, but these are the facts in my case. Your experiences may not be the same as mine with these two services, but either one is far better then going to a video store and renting.

By: dlmtahoe

dlmtahoe — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:18:36 +0000

I’ve been with Netflix and Blockbuster. Netflix doesn’t have the stores. Blockbuster has the stores but doesn’t have many movies in them. Blockbuster also “throttles” and gives you some BS excuse about not having enough movies in your queue. I’ve heard more excuses from these people than I’ve heard in my entire lifetime. It seems like when you hit a high number of movies being sent to you they start slowing down shipping new ones to you. So much for the “unlimited” part of their deal. I had a free 6 month trial with them and it was more like a horror story. I got the same story from some of their own employees at the stores I’d swap discs at.

They still can’t get it right in shipping series as well. I would put CSI Season 5 in my queue. They’d ship disc 1 and 2 and then I wouldn’t see disc 3 – 6 for a month or so. Either that or they would ship disc 6 and make me wait a month for the first discs in the set.

I now go to Hollywood Video locally in Las Vegas. Screw Netflix and Blockbuster. Hollywood Video stocks more movies in their store than Blockbuster stores do.

Does anyone know if someone is filing a class action against Blockbuster for their screwed up online service? If so email me at
dlmtahoe@yahoo.com

By: TN

TN — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:42:58 +0000

AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY…..UPDATED NEWS FLASH…ONLINE ACCOUNT FRAUD!

I have been an participant with Blockbuster Online for several months. I wanted the public to hear the other side of the story so they could judge for themselves whether they wanted to deal with the headache, frustration and fraud I had to deal with!

Beware…Beware….Beware! Once Blockbuster Online has your credit card info they can (and DID) charge my card for another month without my permission. My card was about to expire and they sent me several email notices, which I ignored since I was intending on canceling the membership in the next few days. My account credit card expired on the 1st of Feb. My membership was going to expire on 1st of Feb. so guess what they did? YOU GOT IT….they ran my card 3 days earlier without my permission to force me into another month’s membership!

Several emails later to the On-Line Customer Service reps (located in the Philipines, by the way)….an On-Line customer service rep just up and cancelled my account! (Said he misunderstood my emails and was just trying to make me happy by cancelling my account!) Well, this presented a problem because they had just charged my credit card for the full month of February and according to Blockbuster Online…..THEY HAVE A NO REFUND POLICY! No matter what day of the month you or one of their employees cancels you…you get no refund of monies and no more movies!

It took my IN-Store District Manager, emails to the out of country customer care and the McKinney Texas (Dallas) call center to get my account re-instated. All that time…I was requesting to speak to a Supervisor….Someone in Charge?….or Corporate Headquarters but NO ONE RESPONDED!

Finally…the out of the counrty customer care person that had “accidently” (yeah…right!) cancelled my account reinstated me. What followed has been a month of lengthy delays, movies arrive broken in half, movies never arriving and the “icing on the cake”…..they stopped mailing me out my last 3 movies they owed me for my plan, 4 days ago because they knew I was cancelling my account today.

Summary of what has happened to me and what I learned through much headache and frustration:

***Blockbuster Headquarter is located in McKinney TX. Corporate address is 1201 Elm St. 21st Floor, Dallas, TX 75270.
***According to Online info the Chairman and CEO is John F. Antioco. Two of the Board members are Robert A. Bowman and Jackie M. Clegg. Spokesperson is Randy Hargrove.
***Dallas distribution headquarters is located at 3000 Redbud Blvd,McKinney TX, 75069. Spoke to one of the customer care people at length and he admitted that the call center is hard up for more help. My hold times to get to talk to support ranged from 35 minutes to 1 hour waits…and that was the days I got through!
***ON Line customer support is located out of the country but they did try much harder than the US call centers to make up for the wrongs done me even though they have the least authority!
***My IN Store District manager has been wonderful and tried to intercede on my behalf. Even though he did not have to…he offered to finish out the month I had paid for with a free IN Store membership.
***Read their ON-Line agreement very carefully because you are giving them permission to charge your credit card anytime they want. They even have a statement about what they will do to you should you cancel your credit card so you will not be billed in the future.
***Pay close attention to their comments on cancellation and don’t be fooled into thinking you are protected! Once they have your card in their data base….they basically can do anything they want and you have no recourse!!!
***If you have “Sets” of movies in your Queue…they will send you out the first movie of the set and then never send the second…so you don’t get to see the ending of the movie!
***It really doesn’t matter in what order you arrange the movies in your Queue as the computer scans your list and sees which one it can get to you the fastest. So if your top 10 movie choices are housed in a warehouse far away…you will never get to see them as they will send you the movies that are available in the closest distribution center.
***They are closed on Saturday and Sunday so there are significant delays when you turn your movies in to your local store on the weekend…thinking your next movies will be shipped right away as they tout in their ads! Reality is….they are swamped on Mondays and Tuesdays trying to ship out all the movies owed for the weekend returns. So, if you return movies late Friday, all day Sat. & Sunday, chances are you still will not get any moviess until Thursday or Friday of the next week. So,basically you get movies only 1 time a week no matter what they want you to believe thru their false advertisments.

I could go on and on about movies arriving broken, movies not arriving at all, movies not reaching the return center and them contacting you about where they are (like you have control over that once they are returned), movies arriving on the average of 5-6 days instead of the 2-3 they tout, etc. but I think you get the message by now. I have read many of your replies here and am glad somebody is being treated right. Others….take heed and beware. Your membership could turn out to be an nightmare like mine!

By: washington

washington — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:53:00 +0000

I’ve been a longtime Netflix customer, but recently tried out Blockbuster Online. I have to agree with the people that say that Blockbuster’s inventory does not match Netflix’s. Indie, foreign, Anime, music videos – you name it – Netflix’s selection is much better. It doesn’t take much time comparing the two sites to figure that out. Also, I can’t remember the last time I had to wait for a movie at Netflix, but it’s pretty common at Blockbuster. Plus BB’s website is pretty horrid. All the extra perks that Blockbuster offers are compelling, but the cons totally outweigh the pros for me.

By: James

James — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 10:30:44 +0000

The major problem I’ve had with blockbuster is that if you choose a more obsure title, sometimes they send you the wrong one. On two seperate occasions I recieved Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride w/o it ever being in my que.

By: Zuke

Zuke — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:35:19 +0000

This has me more interested in the online rental action than ever before!

Drewbacca – I usually find myself agreeing with many of your opinions, but the statement above that “If you go to the store to rent your movies, either you just enjoy the store atmosphere or you’re just dumb” is kind of narrow-minded. Aren’t you ever finishing dinner out or at the bars or whatever, and then you and your date/S.O./wife decide to go rent a video and kick it at home the rest of the evening? Perhaps nothing you have on que at home matches your moods of the moment…? Spontaneity? Possible? Sometimes part of the fun is picking something out together, or maybe just something she wants to watch.

Anyways, my question is this – Looking at BB’s top 100 online rentals, why are there only nine (9) 2006 movies listed? And 1 of them is “RV”! Lucky Number Slevin? Nacho Libre? Inside Man? Walk the Line? X-Men 3? We’re in November… is this even logical or is the wait that jammed up for current releases?!?! That makes me reluctant.

By: Ash1138

Ash1138 — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 16:43:32 +0000

I used to be a Netflix user and loved it (back in the 19.99 for 2 movies days). The local library in my area is really good and they let you check out DVD’s for free (7 at a time for a week). They have a really good selection as far as movies go, and they even have an online website where you can reserve titles (they call you when it’s in and hold it for you). It’s not as good as Netflix but it’s free, and I never was the 40-movies per month kinda guy anyway.

I use a service called Gamefly (Netflix for games) for my game rentals and I like it a lot. One of the features they offer is a rapid shipping service (I forget their name for it). The way it works is they don’t wait for your game to arrive to them before they ship out the next thing on your queue. They have some sort of arrangement with the post office to where as soon as the post office gets your return mailer, Gamefly is somehow notified and they send out your next game immediately. It’s amazing how fast you get stuff sometimes. Netflix never had anything like this when I used it, but I’ve been thinking of joining back up since the prices have dropped.

My question is, does Netflix offer something like this?

By: drewbacca

drewbacca — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:41:46 +0000

Netflix lied about WMD, supports no background checks for illegal immigration work visas and supports a ban on inter-species erotica. ~Drewbacca MoviePatron.com

By: Chisox

Chisox — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 03:40:58 +0000

Drewbacca the reason why Blockbuster is pretty damn close to being as good as Netflix is because they copied Netflix. As you can tell I don’t like this company, and will badmouth them to the end.

PS: Since were in the political season. Blockbuster raped my sister. Plus the CEO has had gay escorts over his house.

By: drewbacca

drewbacca — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 03:01:03 +0000

OK CHECK THIS:
I have the same exact 200 movies in both my queues (BB and Netflix).
[My BB account is curently on hold while I am trying Netflix]

Netflix
-2 movies on “SHORT WAIT”, 1 movie on “LONG WAIT”

BB online
-20 movies on “SHORT WAIT”, 4 on “LONG WAIT” and 2 “VERY LONG WAIT”

Still, how can I not take BB up on their offer?
Also, the NEW BB site is pretty damn close to being as good as netflix. The only thing they don’t have is a friends list and multiple queues on one account.

I’ll shut up now.

~Drewbacca
MoviePatron.com

By: nevadasmith

nevadasmith — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 01:58:00 +0000

I had Netflix, Blockbuster and Intelliflix at one time or another. Intelliflix was the worst online company of any kind I’ve ever had to deal with. Yes Netflix has the best site-quickest delivery-and most massive selection. That said Blockbuster online is getting there.
1) I have never received a pan and scan film from them.
2) You really should have around 150 movies in your queue to insure a good flow.
3) Before-I used to get a free coupon a week which I would use on Tuesdays at the store for new releases.
4) The new policy is great-you return your mailed movies to the store-get a free movie and get your queue freed up for the next movie in line. How are they making money on this and why wouldn’t everyone use this. You’re basically getting movies in the mail as fast as you want-and getting movies in the store as fast as you want all for (I’m paying) $17.99 per month. A single movie rental in the store comes out to about $5.00. I don’t see what the question is.

Yes Blockbuster might not have every single obscure film ever released but they’re getting there. And for those films that have short waits (usually the newer releases) so you wait an extra few days-or you go into the store and get it-for free.

I had Netflix and loved it-but the new Blockbuster is a no-brainer. I don’t even get how they’re making it economically feasible for themselves.