kitkat

Wow! I didn't realize they'd added new plans. I never moved up to five because that would be just be too many for me most of the time, but I'm going to seriously consider moving to four. Thanks for the heads up.

rw2516

I've had Netflix for about 9 months and never had a shipping problem. I have the 5 at a time plan and average 8 a week. There is a distibution center where I live(Kansas City) and 90% come from there. Those shipped from other parts of the country sometimes take a day longer. I try to keep an even flow going but occasionaly they get bunched up and I'll receive 5 at a time after none for a few days. I've never had a disc lost in the mail, receive one that was split and a couple scratched to bad to play correctly, received replacements right away on all of them. The only real problem I had was Gilligan's Island season 2. These were discs that Netflix had WB make for them so instead of being double sided each side was a seperate rent. The first time I received disc two the sleeve and disc were marked correctly but it was actually the opposite side(disc one), returned it. The replacement said disc 2 on the sleeve and the disc but had the first disc episodes listed on the sleeve and the disc was still disc one. Emailed them about it and they told me not to try for another replacement at this time. The title went to "Very Long Wait" status for awhile. When it became available again I tried it and everything was correct.

jah

A minority of customers, for some unknown reason, manage to have acceptable service. I'm sure there is some reason for that, probably that particular market is full with few new customers and not so many old customers that they get behind.

In short, what I resent is being deceived during the trail period and for a few weeks afterwards and for not being valued as a two year customer. During the trail they deceive you into thinking that they speed your rentals to you immediately with no delay. Then after a few weeks, it changes to their normal sucky service. The difference is like night and day, they don't even try to wean you off the good service lol... One week I was on the "let's make the new customer think we have fast turnaround" service and the next I was on the "old customer, lowest priority" service. a) they deceive new customers and b) they take long time customers for granted. Typical greedy American corporation. If they honestly represented what the turn around was going to be and gave everybody equal priority starting from day one, then I would have no complaints.

Now that they have reduced the price I'm tempted to increase my subscription to the 4 disc plan but that just sends the message that "yes I'm so pleased with your service that I'm going to buy more from you" and that is definitely not the case. I'll just hold out until if and when Intelliflix builds their service up to the level of Netflix. At least if it turns out they suck equally as much they will be sucking for $8.25 a month rather than $18.

kbjorn

I am a 2 year member, in NYC. I have a feeling there's plenty of 'old' customers here.. and I know that my freinds and colleagues who have Netflix enjoy good turnaround as well.

I think use of the word 'minority' is a little off....

jah

I don't know the percentage is but I've seen a lot of people complaining, not just in this forum, myself included. Somebody already said that their friend, a Netflix employee, told him that they definitely give priority service to new customers. Not that it isn't obvious anyway. Like I said before, my service went from high priority to low priority from one week to the next. It's pathetically obvious. And that priority service for new customers is why older customers get degraded service. Whatever the reason, I have no way of knowing, some customers get better service. Lucky them, I wish I was one of them.

kbjorn

This forum is NOT the best way to guage complaints of 'society'. People in this forum complain about EVERYTHING..even down to the type of shrinkwrap their DVDs come in.

As for knowing friends of friends, unnamed sources, people who 'work' for Netflix....that's all hearsay at best. Even if it is true- are they really depriving you of some right???? The right to a DVD in 3 days? Their policies are explicity stated on the terms of use.

If you want one day turnaround- best to goto your local Blockbuster- otherwise when you sign up for Netflix, you note in their agreement that turn around is ABOUT one day. But alas, you are the consumer- if you really don't like them and are truly unhappy- no one is forcing you to stay on with them.

jah

I said "not just this forum" in my last post. I see complaints everywhere. Pay attention before you rebutt.

No, just deceiving potential customers by giving them instant turnaround during their trial period, then throttling their turnaround after the first month. At best, unethical. Additionally, the degraded service older customers get is a result of new customers getting such high priority. Deceptive for new customers, shitty for old customers. Bad on both counts. I made that point previously too, you need to improve your reading comprehension.

As soon as there is a good alternative, Intelliflix is a possibility, I will switch. I mentioned that before too.

tvpuff

I've been with Netflix for about 9 months. Until about three months ago, Netflix would send out another movie the day they recieved one. Now, they ship the day after, and occasionally two days after. Friends of mine ( joined quite recently) still get movies shipped out the day Netflix recieves another. For what other reason besides cost efficiency for them would this happen? Their policies are clearly stated, yes, but I expect them, along with most consumers, to perform a service just as they do for newer customers if I'm paying the same amount. Renting from any in-store place is going to cost more than a mail-in service, so that's why I'm still with Netflix. The alternatives simply aren't as good as netflix (at least based upon the trial periods). I'd just like to be able to rent as many movies as a newer customer and get the most out of what I pay.

kbjorn

Sorry, I won't turn this into a petty little flame war. I should've read your whiny..er...crtitical posts a little more carefully. Consider that an apology. :-)

jah

lol... accepted, despite that last little burn ;-) Sorry too for my tone, silly for this sort of discussion. Really, my complaint is just being deceived during the first month and then having my turnaround throttled afterwards to free up resources so they can deceive more people with artificially high turnarounds. If they just gave everybody the same service then it would just be a simple matter of is it worth the money for the amount of DVDs I can get? The answer would probably be yes but knowing you're being screwed sorta gives you a bad attitude.

nightmaster

They've been doing fine by me for pretty much the last several months. I am starting to see a few too many long waits in my queue, but I'm getting my moneys' worth on the whole.

TomOpus

This showed up on the local news and I wondered how widespread it might be...

SAN DIEGO -- Another San Diego postal carrier has been arrested for stealing mail, NBC 7/39 reported on Friday.

Investigators said Brian Anthony Dismuke allegedly stole DVDs from the company Netflix. Those DVDs are sent through the mail to customers. Postal officials said they received complaints that the DVDs weren't being delivered. Those complaints came from residents who live in the 92102 zip codes, which includes the Golden Hill area.

Investigators said they searched Dismuke's home and found hundreds of stolen DVDs worth about $400.

Dismuke is the third postal carrier in recent months to be accused of stealing mail. He faces charges including grand theft and receiving stolen property. His arraignment is scheduled for next week.

Al_Tahoe

$400 for hundreds of DVDs? He must have stolen some pretty crappy movies

TomOpus

was thinking the same thing but maybe they were talking about the rental costs.

nemein

Two steps forward... one step back....

I dropped from the 5 to the 3 plan and I don't know if it put me into the "new 3 plan subscriber" category or what but since then turn around has been back to a single day (in in the morning, replacement out in the afternoon) Unfortunately the replacements that are sent seem to be randomly selected from my queue. Atleast whenever I've had 2 going out at the same time the first will be the item at the top of the queue but the second is usually something about 1/2 dozen selections down (never mind all those skipped are supposedly available now)

Oh well... I've been trying Blockbuster too and I can't say they are much better. So far they've sent 1 wrong disk (it was disk two of a two disk set [which the website only said was a 1 disk set]) and a duplicate disk (it was a two disk set for which everything on the second disk was on the second side of the first disk) and that's just in the first two weeks

masetodd

What we all need to do is instead of complaining here, complain to Netflix. If enough people complain about service and threaten to quite, maybe Netflix will do something about it.

I've already complained a couple of times with no result. But they get flodded with complaints, at least they'll get the message that they are pissing off their core customers.

hurricane

It's a waste of time. I've sent them numerous emails and I get the same lame standard scripted response. My days with them are numbered.

nemein

Been there... done that... next room

For me the fact is they still have the best selection and turn around is still decent, not what it was before but I'm still able to go through 18-20 DVDs a month (of course we'll see if that stays the same now that I'm on the 3 out plan) for around $20 is still a bargain IMHO.

jah

While looking around for something else I just happened to stumble upon a wealth of Netflix info that confirms the suspicions that I previously voiced. Netflix does throttle your turnaround unless you are a new customer or you generally sit on your rentals and don't send them back right away. At some point they have updated their terms of use with the following disclaimer:

How nice. Having been made aware of this admission in their terms of service, why doesn't this make me feel any better about being screwed? Anyway, here's an analysis of their allocation system that is very interesting reading. At the end of the report the author makes the following suggestions:

• Update their user signup process to clearly state that as their trial and first month is finished, service is likely to degrade unless they rent a very small number of movies each month. Explain how movies are allocated when demand exceeds supply. Spell out exactly at what rental levels availability will be affected. Document whether the length of time a movie has been in a customer's queue impacts the availability algorithm. I.e. if customer "cost" is equal, is it first come, first served, random, or something else?
  
• Inform existing customers of above.
  
• Consider ways to tweak their algorithm further to meet business objectives yet be more fair to established customers. For example, the phasing in of availability differences each month is one idea to consider.

The deceptiveness of their policy is what has always bothered me the most. I'm not sure sneaking that paragraph into their terms of use policy is full disclosure but if they had clearly stated all this when I signed up then it would simply be a matter of whether the number of DVDs I am able to rent is worth what I am paying. End of story. Otherwise it's a con.

dr_gothmog

I am in complete agreement with all negative posts re: Intelleflix. At first (starting last Feb), I got DVDs fairly regularly. I felt I was getting my Super Pass money's worth ($99.00/year membership) but service has gradually deteriorated. For the past 7 days, I have had only 1 DVD "out". There are 30+ dvds in in "wish list" from old dvds (e.g., Omega Man) to new releases.

Numerous e-mails to inquire why they have stopped shipping dvds elicit generic, non-informative e-mails that never answer my specific questions. In one e-mail they listed a number of generic reasons why dvd shipments may temporarily stop. The most interesting reason was "distribution center(s) being over quota".

This suggests that although the DVD may be available for shipment, the distribution center does not have to ship it if thier client load is above a certain level.

At one point (over 3 days ago) they stated that shipment MIGHT resume in 48 hours.

Of course the refuse to answer the following question:

"What about your "We ship faster than Netflix" promise ?"

Hammer99

^^^^^
I thought the only good about Intelliflix was that they rent quite a few OOP DVDs (ie. Criterion Robocop + Silence of the Lambs, Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring, and many others). Once I exhausted all the OOP's I wanted to check out from my queue, I dumped them.. still kept Nicheflix & Netflix.

sureAV421

just a general netflix question. i rented willy wonka/choc factory and i received the fullscreen version. do they not rent out the widescreen release? the description page lists it as being WS.

mrhan

Intelliflix customer story:

http://w3.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff147743.htm

On-Line Business Submitted: 6/28/2005 12:01:18 AM
Modified: 6/28/2005 12:01:00 AM


FRADULENT BILLING, poor customer service. multitude of victims out there with the same complaint


Address:
1401 Forum Way
West Palm Beach Florida 33401
U.S.A.
Phone Number:
561-697-8771
Fax:


They need to be put out of business. I joined their DVD online rental service for one month. When I finally recieved DVD's I viewed them and returned them the next day. I immediately noticed that I was not being credited for the DVD's I retuned . Concerned about this I wrote them telling them that the DVD had been returned and the date it had been put in the mail.They responded back with a ticket number,and auto response they donn't care, they don't have them, and charge me $25.00.

Then I notice that this was happening again with another disc. I wrote them the 3rd and the 4th letter stating that something must be wrong. I again get there standard canned letter. In my case they charge me for 2 disc I had returned $50. I am also a member of Netflix and Blockbuster and have rented over 400 DVD's from them with only one disc missing in two years. How can 2 out of nine DVD's be missing in one month with intelli.flix.is.a.bad.company.stay.away.from.it??

SOoooo, I decided to do some internet research on intelli.flix.is.a.bad.company.stay.away.from.it and discoved there is a multitude of victims out there with the same complaint. intelli.flix.is.a.bad.company.stay.away.from.it's habit is to claim that their disc are lost and racks up on the $25.00 per charges. I have filed with the BBB and the Dept of Consumer Affairs on this company and there are many victims out there that should do the same.

If I HAD lost the disc I would pay but I know that intelli.flix.is.a.bad.company.stay.away.from.it plays this scam. Because there are so many people out there with the same complaint and these people have also been faithful members of other online rental programs with NO PROBLEMS... something is wrong.

No one would keep a disc plus pay rental at a rate of almost $70.00 for 9 Disc in one months period of time. I wish I had done my research before I joined this unethical company. I hope this little warning saves you out there from some of the grief that a lot of people have sufferd under the hands of this company.


BE WARNED, DON'T JOIN intelli.flix.is.a.bad.company.stay.away.from.it (FORMERLY dvd.barn.is.bad.stay.away)OR YOU WILL BE SORRY

Pissed Off In
San Diego, California
U.S.A.

Tarantino

"intelli.flix.is.a.bad.company.stay.away.from.it"

What the hell does this mean?

= J

Spiderbite

I have discovered that my Netflix hub is obviously no longer working on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays. My account sits dead in the water on these days. I guess they pushed them to a Mon, Weds, Fri. schedule to save money.

Now the only activity I get is on these three days. They are logged as received & stuff is mailed out only on these days. It have severely cut into my turnaround time in both ways.

Now, no matter is I mail it back on Friday, nothing is done until Monday. If something is mailed on Friday or Saturday and they don't log it in on Monday then I am screwed until the mail it on Wednesday. If I am lucky I then receive the movie in the next day or two.

Anyone else notice this on their account?