bub

I, like many others, deal with all the poor service from CH because of the great prices we can get to satisfy our DVD addiction. We all speculated on whether or not BMG would 'kill' all of our deals. We were extremely happy and surprised that that didn't happen.

What none of us expected would be that BMG would make things worse in the 'poor service' department. Well, if my experiences lately are any indication, it is now officially worse!

I am being sent a directors selection, and being charged full price, that I had previously denied via email. I have an email from CH stating that they acknowledge my choice NOT to have it sent to me, yet they send it anyways. Many emails to CH telling them I have proof I declined the directors selection are met with the standard, 'you didn't respond in time but mark it refused', blah blah blah blah...

I am being charged full price for my first online order even though I used the $5 WEBDVD discount. Numerous emails claim they will fix their error but nothing so far.

A dvd was delivered damaged and an email to CH prompted this response, 'throw the damaged dvd away and we will send you another'. Yet, today I check my account and it has been processed as a return, I was issued a credit, with no activity regarding a replacement.

I see payments on my account for order numbers that don't show up under my orders. I see payment amounts that aren't accurate. I even see double charges on my credit card statement.

It couldn't get any worse right? Wrong, hard to believe but BMG has made CH even worse than it was before. Kudos BMG, you have done what a lot of us thought impossible!!!

Luck all,
George -bub

j-bo

If I've ever had a problem, a simple email has rectified it. I thought I had a damaged disc, they said the same thing, toss it and we'll send a new one. Which they did, promptly. I got it in about 5 bus. days.

I've really not had any major snafu's that bothered me. The occasional "lost app", but that was before BMG took over. Everyone that I've applied for lately has gone through in a speedy manor.

I agree, the "my account" portions of the website, and especiallly the order history pages are way far beyond being accurate. Once they fix those bugs, I think people will be happier.

I see a lot of USER errors happening (along with impatience) also. Plus, with us(ME) being cheap and trying to get the best deals by stacking codes, etc. etc. I can see where we think what are errors is nothing more than being "caught" trying to beat the system.

That's my take anyways. I'm happy with CH/BMG. Of course, everyone has an opinion and YMMV!

SLeopold

I've had a couple declined directors selections show up, but they were refunded pretty quickly. They sent me the wrong enrollment selection for my TV club (Flintstones S2 instead of S1), but I was planning on opening a second account to get S2 anyways, so opening it to get the S1 I was supposed to get isn't such a big deal. The only thing that's bugged me about them lately has been the slow shipping, with regular orders taking as long as 13 days to arrive recently.

cermine

They recently allowed me to place an order with the WebDVD discount, then they deleted it and readded it without the discount. When I emailed them about it they said WebDVD didn't apply to preorders. Of course I emailed them back and told them to check their own website because it doesn't mention anything about that. They finally agreed to apply the discount, but only once the movies are released. I'm not really holding my breath that it'll happen.

I've noticed the service and the website have become extremely unreliable for my last few accounts. I used to never have problems, but now I always expect something to go wrong with every order.

kaydigitech

Just received Wedding Crashers, that I declined.

bballing

^Same here, just got wedding crashers that I declined. And on my tv club they charged my cc and shipped an order for over $40 that I declined. I sent them emails and got the same response as the OP.

viking99

I've found that a phone call is much more reliable than email when straightening out the occasional glitch. Regarding director's selections, I've always declined through the website and never had one sent; so that may work better than email, returning the card or other approaches.

John Sinnott

That's what I've done too, which is why I was surprised when War of the Worlds turned up last month.

dsa_shea

Being charged 25 bucks for a declined director's selection that you've declined and having to wait 2 plus weeks for a refund is not going to cut it. They recently charged my CC $25 and some change for the Wedding Crashers that I declined. They have yet made an attempt to put the money on my account. Fortunately I caught this in time as this unexpected charge put my account in the red so I had to transfer money from savings to cover it before the $20+ overdraft fee kicked in. Now this is something that I shouldn't have to worry about from a company like CH, but lately I have had to worry. They also changed an order of mine that was a b1g1f and free shipping on 3 or more. Someone went in there and removed the $5 webdvd discount as well as added shipping charges. I had to call CH about that as well and still havent seen a refund.

Bareit

I was sent The Exorcism of Emily Rose even though I declined it and also have the email confirmation. Thankfully I don't have my credit card on file.

The auto-reply email that you get is seriously annoying. Rarely does it answer my question and never does it fix a problem. The only thing it accomplishes is to delay fixing a problem. I noticed the Director's Selection that I declined was pending and sent an email to have them cancel it. By the time they actually answered my email, the order had already been shipped 2 days prior.

DantheApe

Threads like this make me glad i've not got my credit card on file.

JoN8282

havent had a problem yet with the new boss - in fact, i've noticed better service on the phone and easier approvals via the web

sotra

To avoid getting the standard auto-reply email that you have to reply to in order to get a proper reply made by a human DON'T use the email form in the help section on their website. Instead email them directly using [email protected]. That will avoid one step and you will instead just receive an email receipt acknowledgment and usually a reply in 3 business days or less.
I never look at my order history anymore since it is so inaccurate (I have orders made 2 years ago that still says waiting to be shipped that I've obviously already received and paid for), but that has been a problem for years and is nothing new with this takeover.
Never had any DS problems so I can't comment on that. Received damaged DVDs a couple of times (cases damaged) and both times they've told me to keep it/throw it out and I've received a credit on my account.
I even managed to use more than $10 FC per boxset once. That took a little persitance and patience, but was definitely worth it (I managed to get BBB call up a manager at CH and they promptly let me use all my FC on some boxsets and threw in free shipping ).
Other than that I rarely ever deal with CH over the phone, but instead choose to communicae via email. That can be slow, but at least I have a record of everything they've said and the longest it's ever taken to solve a problem has been about 2 weeks when I had to email back and forth about 4-5 times. Sometimes CH surpise me even by replying to an email late on a Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
I realize these are individual experiences and YMMV may vary with CH/BMG, but IMHO the takeover hasn't been bad....at least not for me. If anything their special offers have been more frequent and didn't we just have the best code in history (4 DVDs for $14 with free shipping)? I certainly took advantage of that one and signed up to one of their free trial thingies during the order process making it 8 DVDs for $8 (after a $20 rebate cashback).
Anyways, good luck to everyone.

lizard

My experiences are in-line with those of sotra and j-bo above. I was worried that the BMG takeover would mean the decline of good deals and even difficulty opening new accounts. Precisely the opposite has happened. It has been easier to open new accounts. Sale offers have been excellent. Getting through on the phone is even easier than before. They even stopped charging sales tax in my state, and many others. And, unlike some others here, I haven't had any screw-ups of my orders or accounts. (But, then, I didn't try to place ten orders using BOGOF and the four for $14 glitch, as some did.)

Columbia House veterans will have noticed that some — not all, to be sure — of the problems that have been reported in recent weeks are due to impatience. CH wheels grind slowly. Calling about a problem immediately can often just make things worse. In most cases it is best to let things shake out for a few days before doing anything.

While the Director's Selections that were shipped out by mistake are a PITA, they are (fortunately) rare events.

It is normal to be told to throw away a defective DVD and have it processed on the account as a return. But there should be a replacement order in a few days. All returns are credited back then recharged when reshipped.