While i love Netflix and the fact that I can now rent ANYTHING on dvd, I am getting increasingly frustrated with the turnaround on things...which strangely seems to slow down when i return more than one a day. Example from this week:

Tuesday returned Film A
Wed. returned Film B
thurs. returned Film C
Fri - they acknowledge receipt of Film B, still nothing on Film A. Send out Film D.

The place is only 150 miles from here and should never take more than two days...and Film B was logged early this morning so i suspect it arrived the next day - as does any mail i send to friends in the same town.

the more egregious example was from last month...I returned both discs of a two disc set together in the same damned mailbox, Disc 2 was acknowledged 2 days later, Disc one wasn't acknowledged for another 5 days after disc 2 had been received. what kind of shit is that? there are other examples too....

This is really starting to bug me, and has me rethinking this whole thing altogether....i'm starting to think it's a deliberate ploy to get us to pay more for the 5 or 8 out service....

Nope, things aren't much better on the 5 out plan at times. Since the holidays returns to them have easily taken 1-2 days longer than previously. My guess is they had a huge influx of new subscribers and are getting buried by the requests/processing.

Sounds like you are having a postal issue - I have had the same thing happen. I get better results by dropping them in my office mailbox than the one around the corner from me. Of course the ORDER in which they receive them and the volume of discs received on any give day could affect the acknowledged receipts too. I mean you get say 500 DVDs on one day... who is going to expect them to get them in any particular order.

I think your "conspiracy theory" would require far too much work to make it work their while to "dick you around".

BTW - I usually have a 3 day turn around.

I've been doing Netfilx for about 4 months now & my return time has always been 2 days for everything I rented. i.e. I send something back Monday, I have my next movie in my mailbox by Wed. That said, these past 2 weeks have been the first time EVER this has taken longer. I returned 3 movies on Monday & still haven't had anything come back to me. I've noticed recently in b/w sports on TV there are Netflix commercials. I've never seen these before so maybe this has something to do with it.

Personally this really bums me out. Even though I've gotten on the netflix bandwagon really late, if these commercials cause a massive amount of new members, which I'm sure it will. I expect to see more & more let DVDs as well as more & more long waits for DVDs, as well as an increase in membership price.

I've been a member for over two years and in the old days they had to go to Cal. (I'm in Ohio). This would usually take about 4-6 days for receipt. Now they have local distribution and I've put them in the mail in the morning and gotten emails in the afternoon saying they've received them.

Are you always mailing from the same post office? I had one post office that I mailed from three separate times and all three times the movies never arrived at Netflix. Sounds like someone at the USPS was spotting the envelopes and adding them to their collection.

There is away around this madness. If your movie ever takes longer than 3 days to get checked in just list the movie was LOST. Then they will send you the next movie the same day. Then a couple later your movie will get checked in. It helps with the waits. I reported 10 lost last month and they didnt say anything. Eventually they all showed up. One took over a week. If your movie hasn't been checked in my noon it isnt going to get checked in so just list it as lost. Netflix likes to play games. Specially when you cancelled. They tried to charge me for 2 discs the last time I cancelled.

If I have any more than four or five days I always mark them sent.

Thanks puddytay....i went ahead and marked it lost since it didn't show up today either...and that's just impossible really. I could drive it there in 2 1/2 hours. Do they not ship on Saturdays though? it says now that they'll send my next one out on Monday....

and no, i don't think its a giant conspiracy theory, i just find it interesting that this only seems to happen when i'm sending them back quickly - perhaps its a law of averages kinda deal....but i'll certainly use the "lost" feature from now on if its been three days....

No, Netflix doesn't ship on Saturdays.

I now think Netflix is dicking me around as well. I was just going over my credit card bills & have just notice I've been being billed twice a month by them since I first joined. I only have the 3 out program.

Has this every happened to anyone esle?

lol I had problems like this with a UK company, I left.

Netflix used to ship on Saturdays.

yeah I don't think they need to bother with any sort of system of slow down. The simple fact that they are getting more and more memberships, added to idea that most watch films over the weekend and return on monday makes for a slow down.

Sure, I tend to sometimes look and go "Ah ha!! I know you are just messing with me!!" when I mail back two films at the same time and only one shows up. heh.. Still, I don't think there is any real plan to cause slow downs..

For those that have a few issues.. Keep in mind even those of us that live in citys with main return centers, in my case Sacramento, still have some strange issues every now and then.. I really think they just get over loaded some times..

I love netflix and in the end I only really have two issues with them. One being that they seem to not carry as many cheap older films on DVD, that are new to DVD. Like say Ford Fairlane and a few other B grade films. Of course they are still WAY better then blockbuster etc..

The other issue is that if you don't get a return in by monday to get that "new this week" DVD on the top of the your sent to you, it can take months and months for some of the mid level films. I don't know if one should blame netflix for not getting more copies of a film or all of YOU for holding on to a DVD too long when you know I want to see it too!! hehe

I've been having a slow turn around in them shipping my movies out, not receiving them.
There is a thread on another forum where many people think that Netflix is deliberately slowing shipping titles out because a lot of us are "above the curve" and just plain renting too damn many titles a month.
Something like red flagging some of us I guess.
I hope it's just due to a high new customer rate.

Netflix does red flag people and they make those people wait longer for popular titles. If your account is flagged, titles that are popular will have long wait and very long wait while a new account will show those titles as available. It sucks.

How do you know this? Most new titles show they are available right away but some older/more obscure titles do have a long wait.

Someone could try putting these in their queue and see if it shows the same wait:

Poor White Trash R Comedy Long Wait

My Life With Morrissey NR Comedy Very Long

Tokyo Story NR Foreign Language & Int'l Very Long
Wait

The Office: Series 1 NR Television Long Wait

The Rules of the Game NR Foreign Language & Int'l Very Long

A Gun, a Car, a Blonde UR Drama Very Long
Wait

I actually read this on many different websites that reported that Netflix was testing this and went live with the program. I also found the research some guy did and posted the link in a previous thread.

I just went and found my previous post and here's the link for the guy who researched the way Netflix penalizes heavy users.

http://dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com

Yes, this explains things quite clearly. It's frustrating because my account is on of the flagged accounts.

yeah looks like my account has been flagged as well. 5 things are on Very Long Wait

capt

I'm not sure I buy his methodolgy but I'm not a statistician either so I really can't refute it. I just glanced over it but I didn't see where he tested if queue size has anything to do w/ it either. I mean the more you have in your queue the more likely you are to have something available to ship whereas those w/ fewer things should get priority IMHO. Either way I'm still happy w/ Netflix (despite all the minor things to bitch about[1]) and w/ almost 200 in my queue (only 1 on very long wait though) I've always got something coming/going.


[1] For instance I mailed back 4 movies on Sat at the same time today only 1 of them was checked in

I don't agree with the guy at all. I get 8 at a time and I always have any movie I get back at the post office by at least the next day.

Going by that theory and with what I stated earlier, I should have a hard time getting a new release but that isn't the case. I always have multiple movies getting checked in Monday morning and I ALWAYS have any new releases, ones which are coming out the next day, sent to me right away. I always put these new releases number 1 in my queue.

On the other hand, if I don't put it at number 1 it is almost always going to be a very long wait.

Right now I only have 4 very long waits and 1 is for a new release that I didn't put on my list before it came out.

You mean popular movies were hard to get?!?!?!? Could it be that they are popular so many people want to watch them, and that some people keep movies for a while since they don't have time to watch them?!?!?!

Oh the horror!!!!!!!!!

I am pissed at Netflix. I had 3 flicks I sent out Monday, knowing they would arrive today. I wanted to get the 1st 3 discs of the ST:VOY set, but they sent me out other stuff instead. Now there is a wait. What a crock of shit.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the service, but it's little annoyances like this that keep my Blockbuster account open.

No, i'm not so happy. How quickly things can change. I have ST: VOY disc 2 and 3 at the top of my queue, both of which are available. I sent back 2 movies Saturday that got there today. They are sending me my #1 choice and my #6 choice on my list, rather than sending me #1 and #2.

Did they at least send #2 first?

The other day the library called w/the Sopranos Season 4. I had both discs reserved and they just had the second half so I sent it back.