I have been trying (without success) to place an order at DDD.

Are any others out there having the same problem? It appears there is a server overload as although I may get the main page, I can never make it to "final checkout" without experiening "error messages".

It is happening for pretty much everyone.

I finally place my first ever order with DDD, was able to cancel the duplicate orders that I made...Hopefully shipping will run smoothly

I've estimated i will save approx $75 from ordering from the DDD sale compared to Futureshop

Well I am fed up. They could put up an opening page stating that their secure server is misbehaving.

I have spent HOURS trying to buy a single DVD.

I wonder if they are selling DVDs to anybody?

I guess I'm going to have to actually phone them....

Just to post my experience with DDD. I ordered approximately 30 dvd's (including some boxsets, etc..) during the last 20% off sale. My order was split into 7 different shipments (because of backorders mainly). I received 6 of these shipments (for a total of 12-14 of the items. The 7th largest shipment which contained 18 dvds (4 of those box-sets), never arrived to me. I called them back 1.5 months later and they promised to resend the package. 1.5 months later I still had received nothing. I then called back over 8 phone calls to try to get this sorted out and find out why some of my packages arrived but others didn't. For each of the 8 times I was told by customer service that they could not help me since there was a separate person who dealt with shipping and orders for international customers. Each of those eight phonecalls I was told that they would forward on a note for that international person to either call me or email me back regarding this. None of those times did that person ever get in touch with me. As a result over 4 months after placing the initial order they finally cancelled my order without any reasoning to why neither of the shipments arrived yet all of the other ones did. I was tagged by customs on 2 of the 5 packages that did arrive to me. The others did not get checked or charged by customs.

Overall it was handled very poorly by their customer service. Not once did I ever get to speak with the person in charge of international orders. Every time I called she had either stepped out for lunch, was on a break, was not in today, or was in a meeting.


June 19th - First shipment of package
August 9th - Second shipment of package
October 10th - They finally cancelled my order.

Str8jkt... I feel your pain.

A year or so ago I had trouble getting one disk in Michael Moore's TV DVD collection. (Not lost, they just shipped the wrong item.)

They did go out of their way to make things right for me, so other than the server problem (which finally was fixed on Monday) I have no complaints with DDD.

I received an email Tuesday morning confirming my order.

Hopefully the workers at Customs will be feeling in a good mood when it passes through their hands.....

I would totally agree, especially if you're ordering Criterions. I ordered 18 discs at the 20% sale.

A retail 29.95 Criterion is now selling at 17.24 US = 20.98 CDN plus 3.16 (gst and pst in ontario) plus .61 shipping (they only charged me 4.95 US shipping for 18 discs and factor the 5.00 Canada Post processing charge) Total would be 24.75 CDN for a Criterion 29.95 US list disc. A steal!

Do the math on your orders, still a great deal.

If the exchange rate stays the same in the coming year, I'll wait
till next year to do the same thing with DDD.com.

Cheers

Also, Criterions are horribly overpriced in Canada.

Amazon.ca wants $64.39 cdn for Fanny and Alexander 5 disc. I paid $41.78 cdn at DDD sale.

Short Cuts: $47.59 cdn at Amazon.ca - $27.89 cdn at DDD.

Smiles of a Summer Night: $44.08 cdn at Amazon.ca - $20.87 cdn at DDD.


I save even more by not having to pay shipping or the $5.00 customs fee.

My order for 18 discs was just shipped yesterday..let you know what goes down..

Cheers

Why do you not pay shipping?

I live on the border ( I can see the U.S. from my bedroom window) and have my shipments go to my US PO Box and bring them over myself.

Do they not inspect your parcels when going back into CDA?

Cheers

They don't "inspect" them but I have to go in and pay every once in a while ( I always tell them what I have. It is not worth getting caught with unclaimed goods.). I only have to pay tax though. The $5.00 handling fee only applies to postal importations.

That's almost a duplicate of what happened to me last time, with the exception that I gave DDD the benefit of the doubt. If a parcel is lost or stolen, DDD is just as much a victim as I. I did find it suspicious when the second one also failed to materialize, but I trust that the company sent it, and I was given a refund when sufficient time had passed to conclude the parcel was gone (actually, because of the complexity of the order - several out-of-stocks shipping separate from a large main order - they ended up shortchanging me by about $20) .
Very true. As you and gjamesm point out, some DVDs are much more expensive up here for some reason (?!), while others are potentially cheaper at Sam's, HMV, or Future Shop. Generally, non-mainstream, foreign, and documentary DVDs are a great deal cheaper at DDD, CDUniverse, or Digital Eyes, even without the DDD sale.

Thankfully, they've gotten much more lenient. I remember in the old days, when I would buy a VHS video in the US, and when I brought it back, customs would ask me what I had to declare, and I would say "A video". They would immediately get a suspicious look on their face and ask "What kind of video?" (like I would actually declare a porn tape or something. ). Sometimes they would actually ask to see the tape, just to make sure. And sometimes this would actually happen when I declared a music CD too. WTF??? I don't miss those days at all. Now I bring tons of stuff over, and no one bats an eye (it helps that I'm familar with most of the customs officers, because I cross the border every day).

Unfortunately this is because there is no Canadian division of Criterion, so most of these discs are techically imports, and therefore have higher prices. I get all my Criterions from DDD.

I also had the same problem as some previous posters during the last 20% sale. I had one order of 17 titles broken into 3 shipments of 15, 1, and 1 as there were a couple of back-orders. The back-orders arrived and the larger order never did - after a month and a half I called them and they sent a replacement no questions asked, which promptly arrived in 2 weeks and with no tax charges.
While I really enjoy these sales I do think about that someone might rip off my big box of dvd's at customs now. Hopefully my recent order of 18 that are in transit goes thru fine.

Canadians...how long does it usually take to recieve your dvds?

Anybody recieve their dvds yet from the sale?

Thanks

Hey chowchris13 - I'll answer you if you can figure out another forum for your question to appear in...

In all seriousness, no, none of my three orders has made it to Victoria yet. Of course, one of them only shipped this morning, so I'm not too concerned.

From DDD, a full order of 10+ discs takes 3-6 weeks. I don't mind that because of the savings realized from the flat-rate shipping...as long as I actually get my order at some point.
On the other hand, a shipment of one DVD usually arrives much faster.

My orders shipped...
November 16, 2004
November 19, 2004

Still have not recieved them..

Who else has gotten their dvdS?

Finally got recieved my dvds today.....Took pretty much a whole month to get them...oh well

Glad you got yours chowchris -- here's hoping I get mine in Victoria sometime soon (3 orders: one 11/16, two 11/20).

I think its a given that most orders from DDD to Canada usually take about a month.. 3 weeks if your lucky. I got my order of 17 dvds last week and I have one small order in transit still.