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Netflix Sucks


bountyhunter

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The good news is, a low price... the bad news is: the slower they get the movies to you, the more money they make.

That's the problem: you pay a flat rate each month, and that means they make more money by dragging their feet in sending the new movies after getting the old one.

I mailed one in this week on Monday... and here it is saturday, and all I have is my usual case of acid reflux.

I read that Netflix had already paid off on a class action law suit for this same problem. The "distribution center" is supposed to be close by and they are supposed to process returns quickly.... but they don't.

I guess those two-dollar-an-hour illegals just aren't as quick as they used to be....

I am going to dump Netflix like a hot rock and try the Blockbuster service. At least I can return the movies myself and eliminate tje mail transit time going one way. :angry:

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I must say I like the Blockbuster service much more since I started being able to swap titles out at the local store ---- and a return there triggers the shipping of more titles, on top of that......

I return three mailed movies to the store, and get three more rentals free there, and they ship three more titles the next day.....

Some of their mailed movies come from a central distribution center, others come from individual stores in the outlying geographic area....

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Does Netflix have an icon to click where you can report DVD issues? When I was with Blockbuster, 3 days after the movie was shipped, you could report the DVD as returned but hasn't cleared my list (even if you still have it at home.) Then they'd ask what you want to do and you simply click "send the next movie on my list." You just gotta learn how to play the system.

I agree if you wait for them to clear it and process a new one you're lucky if you get one a week.

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I agree! I put mine in on Monday and didn't get them back until the NEXT Monday! So I had to go to blockbuster for the weekends movies anyway. I dumped them and am trying blockbuster now myself.

I read somewhere that Netflix purposefully throttles (they used a different word) the flow of movies depending on how often you return them to make sure they make money on your that month. They had a class action suit against them for that as well.

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I read an investigative report on Netflix. The information that they learned is that they use an algorithm to give priority to folks that only rent one or two movies a month and aggressively de-prioritize folks that turn the movies quickly. The faster you turn the movies around, the lower your priority gets.

As you know, since the fee is fixed, the more movies you take, the less they make.

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I've been using Netflix for over a year now. It's usually 2 days to send it back and 1 day for them to send it to me. I can shorten the time by dropping it at the post office they use which is an extra 3 minutes if I do it on the way to work. But I normally send them back on Monday and get the new ones Thursday.

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USPS is really inconsistant. If I drop off the DVD at the post office they use, usually it shows up on Netflix system the next morning. The slowest I've seen is 2 days. OMG 2 days to go from the front of the post office to the PO box inside the same post office.

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# 1... for those of us that choose to live "nearly" off the grid... there are no local video stores.

#2 On the other hand I have been a Netflix "user" for over two years ... and they have only screwed up once... and I average 3 DVDs a week.

I generally mail back a DVD and have a replacement in two days or three at the worst.

A year ago they did a computer conversion which wiped out the database of DVDs I wanted to "rent". I sent them an e-mail and in less than 6 hours they responded with apology and a offer to give me 4 months fee service... as a "paybnack".

I think it depends on where you are located.... But I liked their service enough to buy stock in the company.

It is up 40%.

Edited by MichiganShootist
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Does Netflix have an icon to click where you can report DVD issues? When I was with Blockbuster, 3 days after the movie was shipped, you could report the DVD as returned but hasn't cleared my list (even if you still have it at home.) Then they'd ask what you want to do and you simply click "send the next movie on my list." You just gotta learn how to play the system.

I agree if you wait for them to clear it and process a new one you're lucky if you get one a week.

yes

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Does Netflix have an icon to click where you can report DVD issues? When I was with Blockbuster, 3 days after the movie was shipped, you could report the DVD as returned but hasn't cleared my list (even if you still have it at home.) Then they'd ask what you want to do and you simply click "send the next movie on my list." You just gotta learn how to play the system.

I agree if you wait for them to clear it and process a new one you're lucky if you get one a week.

yes

Where is this Icon please?

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Does Netflix have an icon to click where you can report DVD issues? When I was with Blockbuster, 3 days after the movie was shipped, you could report the DVD as returned but hasn't cleared my list (even if you still have it at home.) Then they'd ask what you want to do and you simply click "send the next movie on my list." You just gotta learn how to play the system.

On netflix, the "send next movie" option does not appear until the movie is more than six days late.

BTW: I found the netflix customer service number which is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on their website by going a search:

888-638-3549

When I told the lady that the service was slow, she suggested I "upgrade" to the "send two at a time" membership..... which costs 60% more money.

I told her I had a better solution: I was going to upgrade to Blockbuster.

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The good news is, a low price... the bad news is: the slower they get the movies to you, the more money they make.

That's the problem: you pay a flat rate each month, and that means they make more money by dragging their feet in sending the new movies after getting the old one.

I mailed one in this week on Monday... and here it is saturday, and all I have is my usual case of acid reflux.

I read that Netflix had already paid off on a class action law suit for this same problem. The "distribution center" is supposed to be close by and they are supposed to process returns quickly.... but they don't.

I guess those two-dollar-an-hour illegals just aren't as quick as they used to be....

I am going to dump Netflix like a hot rock and try the Blockbuster service. At least I can return the movies myself and eliminate tje mail transit time going one way. :angry:

The problems I had at first with Netflix and Blockbuster was receiving busted DVDs. I started with Netflix then tried Blockbuster. Dropped Netflix, because it seemed that Blockbuster was getting movies faster to me than Netflix although Netflix has a distribution center in my town and Blockbuster has one forty miles away. What I noticed was that movies going back to Blockbuster almost always went to the closet distribution center, Netflix on the other hand got returned all over the Country. For example the three movies I have now from Netflix one is going back to my town, another is being returned to Gaithersburg, MD, and the last is going back to Richmond, VA. I'm not sure if this makes a difference or not, but I've also received movies from all over the Country and that surely slows down the process. The week of New Years I didn't receive any movies from Netflix. With all of this I went back to Netflix and dropped Blockbuster, because Blockbuster continually sent me movies out of order or never had movies that were available while Netflix had just about all the movies ready to go.

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I use blockbuster, mainly because for my location they are better. Which is only because they got to measure market deamnd somewhat before building infrastructure. I'm in NJ, which is small witha dense population. As their customer base has grown, i don't always get the titles at the top of my list depending on demand, but I get SOMETHING near the top within 48 hours.

In thoery, to try and get this behavior for a larger portion of the customer base, they have some deal with USPS that has BB notified that your DVD is en route back to BB, and they consider that returned.

Down side of BB is that they are adding more and more options to their plan that really just set you up for paying late fees at the brick and mortar stores.

I've gotten the best service out of them with turning over 9-10 dvds a month on the 3 dvd plan. Which is better than renting them at BB, which is about the only other choice. Netflix pretty much gave you the best service with about the same number of rentals, but had a longer turnaround. Which ment you had to watch them when they came in and stagger them right to get the most out of your buck.

If you are looking to watch a lot of old releases, either is good. If you want to watch new releases, they both have funky math going on that will impact your service. Regardless, you will find they make it difficult fro you to pay less than about $1.75-$2 for a "rental" unless you are hitting up the oldies.

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This probably wont fix it. Everyone I know who uses Netflix gets movies 48 hours after putting a batch in the mail to return. The delay is with your local USPS and not Netflix.

Maybe.... but I contracted a service with Netflix. They chose the delivery system.

Netflix sucks because:

You can not even report a DVD as late until six business days after they send it out. Not six days after you send it back, six days after they send the e-mail notifying you the next one shipped. One average, that is two to three days after I send it back.

That blows.

Bottom line, I still haven't seen a new DVD after sending mine back last Monday (1-8).

Maybe the USPS is not a good service.... so they shouldn't use them.

They can't sell me a service and then make up finger pointing excuses as to why the service sucks... which is what they did when I called them.

I am blowing them off as soon as the membership expires.

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