Netflix: prices going up, service going down

[Suttree]

Is anyone else pissed at Netflix? I must have been one of the very first customers and I've seen their service go down the tubes yet they keep raising prices. In my queue all 23 movies that have been released are out of stock. 0 for 23! Anf this isn't unusual now, some films have been in my queue for more than a month. When the film is finally "released to ship" it can stay in that limbo for days on end. I think all this is a scam to prevent people from renting too much - a way to shave days off each month. Just to look at my queue pisses me off - then they raise prices again this week. I love getting the films in the mail but if this continues I'll quit on principal. Does anyone else feel the same?

[Schu]

Yeah. As much of a Netflix fan as I've been the last two years, I'm pretty fed up with them too. Fed up enough where I poked around the CA Attorney General's website a bit this afternoon. They're jabbing me for a few bucks here and there and when I think about tens of thousands of customers being jabbed it seems like a situation begging for an outside remedy.

[Lurker1999]

Yep, two of my declared delayed discs have not been checked in for a week and a half.

[jriems]

Get this: I've currently got two declared delayed's out that I mailed back two weeks ago, AND I just declared two others lost that should have gotten to me two weeks ago. This is by far the worst it has every been for me, so I emptied my queue and am hoping these turn up in the next few days so I can cancel and bail from this sinking ship.

Anyone else experiencing these same problems over the last month?

jriems

[GodzillaMusic]

I have been renting from them now for just over 2 years. The service USED to be great. I live on the east coast and used to get my movies within 2-3 days of shipping and had them checked back n within 2-4 days of shipping them back. Ever since they went to the "keep the movie as long as you want" instead of 1 week, 90% or more of my list is always "Out Of Stock". They have raised prices twice in that time plus added sales tax. Now they hold discs in "Released To Ship" limbo for days at a time and routinely take 10 days or more to check in titles I mail back to them. That means where I used to be able to turn titles around in about 1 weeks time (from them shipping to me and checking them back in) it now routinely takes 2-3 weeks. I will definitely be quitting before the next billing period.

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http://welcome.to/GodzillaMonsterMusic

[Jnuke]

I've been with them three months and I'm just experiencing my first "released to ship" delay right now. I'll have to wait and see if it turns into a trend.

I have to admit that my service has actually been a little FASTER lately, since I upgraded to 8-movies-out last month. I've always figured that I'd remain a member until I'd rented a certain number of movies, rather than a certain length of time. By that reasoning, I actually think I'm saving money in the long run by paying the 39.95 per month for the time being. My turn around time is pretty fast and at least now I've always got at least 3 movies on hand.

However, I can't see myself sticking with them too much longer, either. The out-of-stocks in my queue mock me every day, and even at their fastest shipping, it would still be cheaper renting elsewhere. So once I've gotten all the hard-to-find-elsewhere stuff out of the way....

[TomMiller]

I am still quite happy with them. Yes, they aren't as good of a deal as they used to be, but I can still rent 6-8 movies a month from them for $20, which is a better deal than I get from Blockbuster, and I get an infinitely better selection and the disks are of better quality (half the disks I rent from B&M stores lock up on me).

I haven't experienced a "released to ship" bug yet. Also, I do tend to rent films that are usually in stock, however, the top ten films in my queue are all "out of stock", and one of them still gets mailed to me about half the time.

[CWirick]

I used to rave about Netflix. Now I'm really feeling burned. Suddenly my queue shows me getting only 3 movies out at a time? When did they change the terms of my account????

I also feel they are intentionally slowing down the process. For the first time in a long time, I don't have a single Netflix movie on hand. And I'm not one watching a movie every night either. Maybe 2 on the weekend, if that.

Add the fact that 9 of the 11 movies in my queue are out of stock and have been for weeks. I will be sad to see Netflix go. I don't want to go back to the mob scene at Blockbuster. But Netflix has really been going down the drain the past few months. Probably due to all the new DVD player owners from Christmas.

Are there any comparable options to Netflix?

[Kudama]

I live right up the street from them so my turnaround is really good (barring the "released to ship" debacle that happens 4 out of 5 times), but guess what. I can no longer find a movie that I'm excited to see that's in stock (I'm not just talkin' new releases, nothing is in stock anymore). I'm gonna let it go for one more month (one last more expensive month) and do the math. If my movies work out to be more than $2.50 apiece I'm out. I'm also out if I have to settle for the MOST obscure releases just so that they're in stock.

In regard to their "released to ship" scam, here's a cool story that actually happened:
I would gripe at their customer service every time that this lasted 3 or 4 days (it seemed like it got the movies shipped finally). The last time I did, I explained that this was "effectively cutting the amount of movies that I could have out per month to ½ to ¼ through no fault of myself or the postal service" and that "a ½ to ¾ discount would be decent". I just said this to rile them because it was getting old having to compose an email every time I'd turned my movies back in and got sick of seeing the next four movies sitting on that list for 4 days. Next thing I knew, the movies shipped and I got a 50% discount for that month. I'll bet if everyone composed similar emails every time they were stuck in "released to ship" limbo, they'd either quit the scam or actually hire some non-imaginary IT guys to fix the problem.

These guys obviously weren't prepared for any growth of their company, and don't seem like they want it now that it's happening. They're probably trying to liquidate their holdings on Ebay before declaring bankruptcy (that's why nothing's really in stock).

It did seem too good to be true, I guess it was. http://talk.dvdtalk.com/ubb/frown.gif

[eluminati]

Kudama: bingo.

Think about all those damaged discs, kept as lost discs, postage, and constant inventory changing. No way will this company be in business in the forseeable future. Either they won't make enough money or they will charge too much to compensate and lose their customer base.

Good things always come to an end, and it did.

[Lurker1999]

So I finally had to declare my first two discs lost in the mail because they still had not been checked in after 2 weeks after two discs I mailed in afterwards had already been processed.

Now the question is, do these titles eventually make it into the checked in listing or are they lost in that limbo they call a warehouse forever?

Also it's pretty amusing to note on that javascript pop-up window that they have the gall to imply that you should "send the discs back when you find them" as if this were never their problem.

[dvde]

You guys are finally experiencing the things I was saying here about 4-5 months ago. As for them going under, it may or may not happen, but a few months back they pulled their filling for an IPO. Most of the time I see a company pull an IPO, it means their in financial trouble. That may be the reason, but who knows. I think it sucks to see a great idea fall so short, but only because of the company itself and not the idea. By the way for you people who are dreading going back to Big Blue (Blockbuster), they have that 19.95 a month for a rental every day. I went back to them and don't seem to have to many problems like I use to, you know scratched discs, not enough of one title and the selection has gotten a hell of alot better. It may just be the Blockbuster in my area. Anyway, never thought I would give props to Big Blue, but it seems my Blockbuster has gotten serious about the dvd market.

[emovieman]

Used to be a member as well and left some time ago. In case anyone's looking for an alternative, there's another online rental place worth checking out that's been around a while - dvdovernight.com - they don't have the monthly charge that netflix has and are pretty good about carrying just about everything.

[cdiedrich]

I can echo all the frustrations already posted here. In addition, and it may point to their troubles as a company, my last call to their customer service was disheartening to say the least, and I subsequently cancelled my membership.

The girl I spoke with indicated, and I quote, "we are having trouble now" and "we are getting a lot of calls about the out of stock problem". They know what is going on, which makes what they are doing that much worse.

I quit for a few different reasons. Like most of you, when I began over a year ago, things went really well. Then the first price increase hit and service declined. They put my account on hold 3 times because they couldnt get an auth on my credit card, which had plenty of credit available.

The worst infraction came recently. They again put my account on hold because my "lost disks" were up to four in their files. I received an email from their head of security who, in a side ways, backhanded way, made the accusation that I had stolen the discs and that if the suddenly "appeared" and I sent them back, they would release my account. I immediately called and they said there was a mistake and that my account did not yet qualify for the Gestapo tactics they employed. I then indicated to them that two of the discs on the lost list had eventually shown up and they failed to remove them from the lost list.

I pushed through the that incident, but when I got the email from the founder letting me know that my fee was increasing AGAIN, I called them. That is when I spoke to the person who clued me in to the bigger picture.

Also, for the final 5 weeks of membership, we ended up watching repeat movies and lower rated flicks because our queue was in a perpetual state of "Out of Stock".

Netflix is the fast becoming the last word in that ever present question:

"What ever happened to _________?"

[Sanjuro68]

Did anyone else get this plastic disc rack in the mail from Netflix? It seems like a company in such obvious trouble shouldn't be sending out pointless items like this. They could have kept the racks and bought some extra copies of the more popular movies, no?

[jriems]

Just a follow-up to my previous post: The 2 discs I declared delayed on *January 17* FINALLY "arrived" today (2/7) -- over 3 weeks to get them checked in. The other two that I declared lost and received a stern automated reprimand for, never did reach me (I'm more sure than ever they never even shipped them). Ironically, before I got my queue completely cleared after reporting the two discs as lost, their automated system released a replacement disc for one of the lost discs, and that shipped in a matter of hours -- I received it 3 days later. Talk about running hot and cold...

So now I have 3 discs in my possession that need to go back to Netfux before I cancel my account. Should I put them all in an envelope and send them registered mail? Or should I do a return receipt request on the individual envelopes? The last thing I want is to cancel while they are en route back and be accused of stealing them. Whaddya think?

jriems

[kardut]

Originally posted by jriems
So now I have 3 discs in my possession that need to go back to Netfux before I cancel my account. Should I put them all in an envelope and send them registered mail? Or should I do a return receipt request on the individual envelopes? The last thing I want is to cancel while they are en route back and be accused of stealing them. Whaddya think?

jriems

I just cancelled my Netflix account yesterday and had the same concern -- that my returned disks would not show up within the 7 day window and that I would be charged MSRP. After cancelling I emailed them explaining that my returns have been taking an average of 10 days to 2 weeks to be logged in as received, so Netflix marked all my enroute disks as temporarily lost in the mail so I would not (hopefully) be charged.

[jkzahn]

Well, I have nothing new to add except that I have been experiencing the same thing. Which is a shame because their service is a great idea, and they have all of the titles that my local stores don't even carry on VHS, much less DVD. I average about 10-14 days from the day I return them to the day they "receive" them - and we all know it doesn't take more than about 4 days for items to cross the entire country - from NYC to LA.

[Kudama]

I was thinking about how I don't want to start using DVD overnight because of the smaller selection and minimum of 75 cents per movie shipping and figured I'd gripe at netflix.com some more (to see what happens) before canceling my account. I realize that this only represents a big increase in expense because I live on the West Coast, but, hey, it's a big increase. If I played my cards right, I used to be able to pay under a dollar a rental.
I think that the theory of them intentionally using "released to ship" as a delay tactic is not too far off base, so I figured I'd say something. If we all complained (what's to lose) they might realize (and maybe even care) that this pisses people off. I encourage everyone to complain!

Here's what I said to 'em:

"Please look into my account being frozen. There has been some activity there, but my two current "released to ship" movies are going on two days now.
I did some math and with the "released to ship" problems that you are unable to fix, I'm getting less than 1/2 the movies per month than I can normally get. Combined with the price increase, I am paying just under 3 times as much per movie.
Is this "one two punch" an intentional maneuver on your part? (I ask this because usually software that cannot be fixed is replaced. You've had this "released to ship" problem since you've utilized that program (3 or 4 months?). It might be a good move to trash it and go back to your old operating system (which was relatively free of bugs).
Thanks for listening."...:mad:

(I actually didn't put in a mad face)

[jkzahn]

I recently got an e-mail that said you could write to the owner and he would listen to your complaints, but I lost it. Does anyone know what that e-mail address was?

[Kudama]

Check out this reply that I got back from Netflix after complaining about my movies being frozen in "released to ship" hell:

" Thanks for your inquiry. I'm sorry to see that there was a delay in processing your shipment. Our records indicate that you have two movies in the Released to Ship Status. These movies did not ship in a timely manner due to non-receipt or damaged DVDs from previous customers.
However, we did not want to cancel these orders since we are still expecting more copies to arrive shortly. If you do not want to wait until we receive additional copies of these titles, you may notify us to cancel the processing of this movie at any time."

They're basically saying that their "software releases to ship" movies BEFORE they come back into stock. So now, apparently, they ship things arbitrarily and if it's not in stock, well your tough luck! That slot's frozen 'til someone returns it.
:mad: :( :mad:

Yeah, I know I'm complaining the most, but I had to share this bit of lunatic lameness. I've never seen a company TRY so hard to lose business. Would they get in legal trouble if they just stopped accepting customers or WHAT???

[Suttree]

"Released to ship" is an all out scam. Netflix does not have enough copies of each film. Period.They raise the prices, they change the rules and then they respond to the problems with lamest apologies imaginable."Virgin Suicides" has been number 1 in my queue since the day it was released. After it was "out of stock" for a month or more I wrote and complained. They responded about a week later laying the blame on their "supplier" and that it was out of their control. Hey Marc whats-your-name GO OUT AND BUY 10 COPIES!
The problem now is that there isn't anybody else online who has anything like Netflix's breadth of titles. Where else am I going to be able to rent "Chang" or "I Know Where I'm Going"? Sadly, I'm stuck with Netflix for a while, stuck with a second full time job - renting dvds from Netflix.

[davcole]

I think that Netflix would better serve themselves if they instituted a 30day return policy as opposed to keep it how long you want it. This certainly has to do with their perpetual delay problem! That works better than raising the price 2x with 8 months.

David

[HmbleGoals]

I've been a Netflix user for over a year. The fact that I no longer have to go out for rentals is great. I understand that damaged/lost discs and postal delays are inevitable, but my question to everyone complaining:
If you're so unhappy, what's stopping you from canceling?

I'm amazed at how many people think Netflix is "out to get them." Do you really think they have that kind of time on their hands? Let's think logically about that one.

[StevieD]

I agree....Netflix sux....I cancelled.

[nachos]

I agree. First of all, when I signed up in Feb '00, it was at 16.95 which they increased the next month to 19.95. Then sometime down the line they started charging tax. As far as service goes, my average per month has dwindled from 13 in Mar '00 to 5 in Jan '01.
I also ended up watching a lot of movies that I generally wouldn't have, as the ones I want to watch (especially new releases) are always out of stock
I promptly cancelled end of Jan, which turned out good as they increased prices to 24.95 the next day. I joined up the 30 rentals in 30 days at Blockbuster for 19.95. Have already rented a movie each day this month and even though this deal may not last long, it's better for now at least and (I don't believe I'm saying this but) dealing with the pimply faced teen behind the counter actually seems less frustrating than the 'Out of stock' - 'Released to Ship' status on my queue entries and seeing no disc in my mailbox, a week after they were suppossedly shipped.
At the rate netflix seems to be losing customers, they will be out of business soon.
Very typical of a bad .com business model. Initially offer a lot more to customers than you can afford. Then on losing money, scale back attractive pricing and service levels so far that majority of clientele gets pissed off and turn their backs.

[Suttree]

The reason I complain and don't quit is that Netflix is the only company doing what they do. I've been a member since 1999 and for most of that time I've loved Netflix - I must have turned 25 people onto Netflix. Dvdovernight has nothing but the most obvious dvds and the Blockbuster 30 for $19.95 sucks because they have vanilla films, you have to go there, and you have to go back.
You don't have to be Oliver Stone to think something stinks at Netflix - they don't have sufficient inventory and they are using the incredibly vague and meaningless status "released to ship" to shave days off the month. I've had films in "released to ship" for a week - thats a week I don't get 4 rentals I get 3. When you have 2 or 3 films in the "released to ship" hellhole a couple times a month you are really being restricted. There doesn't have to be a star chamber somewhere to orchestrate this.
You seem to suggest that damaged disc/lost etc. are the only problems there - while they are understandable problems I don't think they have anything to do with the recent problems.

[eluminati]

All 60 Movies in My Queue are OUT OF STOCK

[jkzahn]

Reply from Customer Service

"Thanks for your message. Please be reassured that we are continuing to process and ship titles from our warehouse in a timely manner. In fact, because of the out of stock issues we are experiencing, every copy is valuable. As such, they are checked in immediately upon their delivery
from the postal service and assigned to the next customer. However,since we ship by the USPS, we must go by their schedule (no Sundays,Holidays, and evenings), and there can be postal delays.

In the past the general shipping time was within 4 working days (one way), however, we have noticed an increase in the shipping times with the USPS recently and it is affecting all of our customers, even those in California (where our warehouse is located). In fact, it can be normal for titles to not arrive within the expected date. We will be
updating the expected arrival date on our web site to reflect the changes in the postal service.

In addition, the San Jose postal center (where our mail must be sorted before arriving at our warehouse) is currently backed up and not operating at its most efficient level. Both of these reasons are causing delays in our returns. We hope these postal delays improve soon. In the
meantime, you are more than welcome to utilize the "I already mailed it back" link (located underneath each title on the shipping status page)to notify us of your returns. Once we receive this notification we will release your next shipment. Since you are on the 3 out plan you will only be able to mark 1 title "delayed" at a time.

Since we recognize the potential for losses in using the postal delivery service, we do allow for a reasonable amount of titles to become lost in transit. However, once the amount becomes excessive, we will need to take the necessary actions to solve the problem. In light of the recent postal delays, you may want to wait longer before marking a title "lost".

Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us."

[JesterSlack]

This is what I got from customer service. Note.. There were two items in the lost queue.

"Hi Chris,

Thanks for your message. We do apologize for shipping delays that you
have experienced. However, this is not an error in our system.
Occasionally, movies do not ship in a timely manner due to non-receipt
or damaged DVDs from previous customers. If you do not want us to wait
for additional copies to be available, you may instruct us to cancel the
order and attempt to ship the next available title in your queue.

Also, we are sorry to hear that you are in disagreement of our recent
notice to increase your monthly service fee. I will forward your message
onto Marc Randolph, but please understand that he receives a great
amount of emails daily. He does read all of the emails that he receives,
however, he does apologize if he does not have time to answer each and
everyone.

Please note that in reviewing your account, we have noticed that you
have placed an excessive amount of movies as "lost/stolen" in the mail
and to later find them being returned. This is highly unusual, which
leads us to believe that you may be abusing our "lost/stolen" feature in
an attempt to receive more movies. We ask that you please use this
feature in the correct manner that it was intended. If this pattern
continues a hold on your account may be placed.

We sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding.

Thanks,
Andrew
NetFlix.com
Customer Service"

This is what I have stated by a customer service rep called a "Technical Glitch"

"Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply. I apologize for any confusion. "Recently we have experienced a small technical glitch" that may cause your DVDs to be delayed in shipment. Please be assured that our technical team is currently working to resolve this issue, and we expect your movies to
ship out soon. Again, please accept our apologies for the delay. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

Thanks,
Abdullah
NetFlix.com Customer Service"

So I asked them if I should pay for their technical glitch and they invited me to cancel my membership.

How about that.. I guess RentMyDVD is going to get my business from now on. This is just a waste of time renting from this place who doesn't care about their customers, just making money. First what you have to do is clear out your queue or they will ship you the next movie and send you an email stating that you have 5 days to return your movies or they will charge you MSRP for them. This is a joke.

[Lurker1999]

To add some more fuel to this flame, has anyone else noticed that discs that are sent back without being marked "delayed" are checked in more promptly than discs that are labelled as delayed?

This is the second time that I've sent three discs back, two marked as delayed so I could get more discs sent to me right away. However, the first disc that is checked in is the only that's not marked as delayed..

[Lurker1999]

I sent 3 discs back on 2/12. The first was checked in 2/16, a fairly reasonable turn-around. The second was checked in 2/17 (saturday) which seems a little strange since I would assume all three would have shown up at the same time.

Now.. today 2/19 when there is no mail delivery I receive notification that my third disc has been checked in. Obviously it must have shown up either Friday or Saturday.

Now could all this have been an innocent we're-backlogged-we-can't-check-all-these-discs-in-the-same-day error? Sure, but two weeks in a row? I'm tempted to hold on to the trickle of discs I'm receiving so I can try it with another batch of 3 discs.

[JesterSlack]

Thats all it is.. just a conspiracy...

[Hoc]

I tried them more than a year ago, when we were paying by the dvd. The service was good and cost-effective at that time, but when they went to "all the dvds you can eat in a month" I just did not see myself watching enough DVDs in a month to make this cost effective, and I cancelled. Then I tried them again about a year ago on a free trial, and realized that my initial impression was right.

I just tried them again this month -- clearly for the last time. I signed up on Feb. 3. I watched each movie the day it got here and put it back in the mail the same day. With that lightning pace, I've been able to watch 4 DVDs so far this month. I currently have 1 DVD here. One of the first DVDs allegedly sent to me never arrived. It then took them nearly 2 weeks to replace it. One that I sent back last Monday was finally checked in Saturday, and a new DVD went into "Released to Ship" Hell on Sunday. The other one I sent in last Monday awaits their acknowledgement of receipt.

Even worse, on my list of 16 DVDs I wanted to see, 13 of them are listed as "Out of Stock."

At this pace, it looks like you can rent about 8 DVDs in a month from them for the $24.95 or so they charge. Blockbuster, here I come.

[JesterSlack]

Whatever you do don't go to Blockbuster. Have you tried RMD @ http://www.rentmydvd.com

I have heard some good things about them and I plan to sign up for their service in the next week.. I won't rent at blockbuster.. it is 7.84 for two movies per shot. I will let you know how it is. Like I said I will sign up here in the next week. My friend has however signed up and he says he likes it, movies are actually "in" and not "Out of Stock" So I can't wait to try them. I will keep you posted.

[Holly E. Ordway]

I gave up on Netflix a while ago...before it even got as bad as what's happening to most of you guys!

A lot of people have mentioned renting from Blockbuster. I don't know if they mean Blockbuster specifically, or they're just using that as a catch-all term for video rental places, but I just wanted to put my two cents in that if you're going to rent from a B&M, try to find a LOCAL (ie. non-chain) store.

Every town I've ever lived in has had a local video store that had *better* prices than Blockbuster, and usuallly much better deals too (like rent 5 videos for 5 days for 5 bucks, back before I had a DVD player). The only thing I can see that Blockbuster does better is have more copies of recent movies... so what? I can live without seeing the latest thing on the first weekend it comes out! Heck, my local store even has a better *selection* than my local Blockbuster! Particularly with Blockbuster trying sleazy stuff like pushing for rental pricing, I'd definitely say give your money to the local independent places.