No "Throttling" for Blockbusters Customers

[redeye13]

Every email I receive back from BB has the exact same cut & paste apology that is worthless. I even start my email asking them to not bother with their programmed replies & explain that I know how their shipping process is supposed to work, how they ship from different locations & their "terms of use" reads but they still give me those same replies. I've replied rather strongly to them about this but they couldn't care less. Talking on the phone is not much better. I've called many times & explained they don't ship in a timely manner after movies are returned to the store & some of them didn't know the next movies are to be shipped within 1 day after scanning. I had to read this to them from their advertising. I've talked to a "supervisor" several time but this is not much help. They are the ones that have probably been there longer than 3 months. The last one did tell me the online "customer service" is not located in the U.S. & there may be communication problems. (???)
I explained that grade school kids could be programmed to use the canned excuses I received.
Netflix has it's problems (obvious throttling & terrible customer service) but I find it hard to understand how a company as big as BB can continue to operate with this unacceptable performance track record. I guess the "Total Access" really boosted their subscribers (I am one) but I think the glitter will wear off when people realize how bad a company can really be & then insult your intelligence while trying to cover this fact up.

[BR7]

Well said

[doctorhardware]

What about a class action law suite? Maybe that would get their attention.

[jm1647]

Every email I receive back from BB has the exact same cut & paste apology that is worthless. I even start my email asking them to not bother with their programmed replies & explain that I know how their shipping process is supposed to work, how they ship from different locations & their "terms of use" reads but they still give me those same replies. I've replied rather strongly to them about this but they couldn't care less. Talking on the phone is not much better. I've called many times & explained they don't ship in a timely manner after movies are returned to the store & some of them didn't know the next movies are to be shipped within 1 day after scanning. I had to read this to them from their advertising. I've talked to a "supervisor" several time but this is not much help. They are the ones that have probably been there longer than 3 months. The last one did tell me the online "customer service" is not located in the U.S. & there may be communication problems. (???)
I explained that grade school kids could be programmed to use the canned excuses I received.
Netflix has it's problems (obvious throttling & terrible customer service) but I find it hard to understand how a company as big as BB can continue to operate with this unacceptable performance track record. I guess the "Total Access" really boosted their subscribers (I am one) but I think the glitter will wear off when people realize how bad a company can really be & then insult your intelligence while trying to cover this fact up.

BB is having growing pains with the TA thing. In November when it first started I received 22 DVDs in the mail, used the 4 weekly ecoupons they still had in November and got 2 more ecoupons for a lil trouble. 50 DVDs in a month for $17.99 + tax, ya couldn't beat that with a stick December & January were pretty good also. In February I got 1 cracked one and 2 never made it to me and 1 was shipped back to BB and I never received it. The envelopes probably got damaged in either BB or the USPS sorting machines.

If ya only get 10 DVDs in the mail from BB and swap em in it still is as good as NF and everyone above that makes it even sweeter.

[katzdvd]

Will someone please return "Green Acres: Season 01"? I've been waiting months for that one!

It keeps coming up in my queue as "short wait"...what is short wait - 8 months?

[photo_angel2004]

Will someone please return "Green Acres: Season 01"? I've been waiting months for that one!

It keeps coming up in my queue as "short wait"...what is short wait - 8 months?

You may want to remove it then add it back again.

[katzdvd]

You may want to remove it then add it back again

Sounds like a neat trick, I will do that!

[mahoney19]

In case anyone is considering using BB online to try and rent Hercules the TV series Season 1 dont bother, I have now received 3 different season1 disc 5 that were broken, 4 different broken disc 6, and 2 broken disc 2. They are not even the same broken ones I started marking the center hubs with red marker the first time I got what appeared to be the same broken disc in the mail twice. I have gotten other movies from them during the same time as well with out problems so it is not the post office breaking them.

[Steve83]

I think it probably is USPS breaking them. I got a cracked disk last week, and the replacement that arrived yesterday was chipped, but it played fine.

NetFlix now lists Disney's original classic "Song of the South" (save only - not available yet), so everyone add it quickly to get them to hurry it up!

[redeye13]

I'm sorry but I'm not buying the growing pains excuse of TA. They had the same type of slow shipping problems before TA last year so I cancelled out. I decided to try again due to TA but have been totally disappointed to the point that I'll probably cancel again.
If someone is able to get 50 DVDs from them in a month I'm sure they are happy with BB. I can't get half that amount no matter how many times I call or email. My returns to the store are never any longer than the day after I receive & sometimes the same day. They still normally only ship after they actually receive the discs physically. I even tried to speed up the process by reporting the disc as being "returned & not removed form my queue" but this takes several attempts & doesn't seem to help speed things up.
Again, if someone is fortunate enough to get 50 discs using the TA program, they should be happy - I sure would be. I can't as many with this program as I get with NF - and they have their own problems also.
I always take the discs to the post office in the afternoon & 80 to 90% of the time I get emails from NF saying they received the discs before 9am the VERY NEXT MORNING - apparently due to the post office scanning them. The balance of the time they show up a day later. Also 95% of the time when the discs show up there in the morning, more discs ship that SAME DAY! Also, I am able to see how the shipping process is progressing with NF because of hoW they update the queue.
I am not an employee of NF & have no other interest in their company. They do have their "throttling" issues that are apparent but BB is not in the same league as far as service is concerned. I've had NF for a long time & at the suggestion of some friends I decided to again try BB myself before they wasted their time in trying. You can guess how my experience with BB will influence their decisions as to which service they will start.
I read in the paper a month or so ago that BB had tremendous growth in their online sign ups after they brought out TA. The new program did what they intended it to do, get more subscribers, even though they haven't improved their overall service & apparently don't have any real plans or desire to do so. They did not have to reinvent the wheel concerning online service because those waters were already charted by NF & they could learn from the mistakes & problem that NF made during their start up. BB customer service is not about helping the service get better, it's only about appeasing us enough to string us along to keep the service going. I have never seen a large company with such terrible customer service!!! They are totally usless!!

[jm1647]

@redeye13 - I agree with the NF queue telling ya what is going on, shipping today etc. it is a whole lot better than BB.

I still have both NF and BB and don't work for or have stock in either of them . With NF shipping seems to have really picked up since TA started with BB. I was down in the mid teens with DVDs received in the mail now I'm ~20. With BB the shipping is still OK with me in February.

[photo_angel2004]

In case anyone is considering using BB online to try and rent Hercules the TV series Season 1 dont bother, I have now received 3 different season1 disc 5 that were broken, 4 different broken disc 6, and 2 broken disc 2. They are not even the same broken ones I started marking the center hubs with red marker the first time I got what appeared to be the same broken disc in the mail twice. I have gotten other movies from them during the same time as well with out problems so it is not the post office breaking them.

Thats not just with TV shows on DVD that could happen to ANY DVD mailed.

The breaking is comming from the USPS, they are getting damaged like that due to people at UPSP throwing large heavy parcells on them.

Click on your report tab to report DVD issues they by doing that it will take that movie out of your queue right away and they will ship a new one to you right away. You can still use the damaged disc for a free rental in store.

And if you conplaine to a mamager by calling there toll free number to complain that you are getting a lot of broken or cracked discs they will send you 3 free extra printable coupons.

That happened to me with a few of the Soprano's discs and I Robot.



the main problem is they are not packed in a box with bubble wrap they are just in an envolope so they can be damaged in the mail easy.

[photo_angel2004]

I just found this in my e-mail box I find this rather amussing.

A week ago I knew of this sale from the manager at my local store today I finally get this e-mail and its cracking me up. They are offering to the BB Online users only to be able to buy 3 pre viewed DVD's for $20.00, now the reason I am laughing at this is; since this sale began BB jacked up the prices on ALL pre viewed DVD's in the store. Movies that were 9.99 are now 14.99 or 16.99 and movies that were 5.99 or 7.99 are now all 9.99 or 12.99 if you dont have the TA you pay more now for used DVD's what killing me is the ones they are selling for 16.99 USED you can buy at Wal_mart for 16.99 NEW or 14.99 NEW with that in mind why buy used? They are really trying hard to get everyone to join the TA and it seems that they will stop at nothing to get everyone paying for it. Everytime I go to my local BB I hear them giving thier long speaches about how great the TA is.

[mahoney19]

PA the only DVD's I have had cracked or broken from BB wer this set, everything else has been fine. I have gotten the first 4 discs of season 2 of Herc with no problem this week. The breaks in the disc were wierd also not cracked from the center hub or broken completely as I have seen before. There were fine cracks in the top layer of the causing a weird seperation between the top and bottom of the disc that visible from the bottom as gold colored lines. I have only seen this before in bad pressing of discs and disc that have been effected badly by the heat and cold.

[photo_angel2004]

There is a much higher chance of a DVD becoming cracked or chipped or broken with DVD's that are in "demand" the titles that are shipped out the most will become the most damaged or stand a higher chance of them becoming damaged. They are supposed to be checking the DVD's once returned for visable damages, but it seems they are not taking the time to do so. I know this I tested them.


I got a copy of I-Robot that was chipped and cracked, I reported this and returned that disc the same day to my local store.

They removed the movie from my queue right away and send me an e-mail saying that one was on the way well.... 3 days later I got I-Robot in the mail and it was the VERY SAME disc. What they didnt know was I had taken a sharpie and put the letters CB small in the inside ring of the disc, the new dvd they sent had this CB that I wrote with a Green sharpie.

This prompted me to e-mail an online manager and he sent me 3 coupons for free rentals and since then I have not recieved any damaged DVD's by mail YET. LOL


The TV series DVD's are shipped out a lot more then most of the other movies are and they have less of them to ship out then they do most other movies. So they are going to be beat more then most. It is agrivating though to wait for a movie to get a broken disc that you cant do anything with but send back.