garyb

I'm lucky to have a distribution center in my city. DVDs only take one day to get here and vice versa.

BigDan

I have one in my city, too, and DVDs take a day to get to me when they're mailed, but Netflix is very often delaying mailing these days. As a matter of fact, they've delayed every day for the past week (and a large percentage of my discs are now being sent from alternate shipping centers far, far away, something that was uncommon prior to this month).

So, being very near a center won't necessarily guarantee good service in the future. In my case, it's not the post office that's causing trouble. Netflix is acknowledging returns the day after I send them and I receive discs that are sent from Coppell, Texas the day after they say they ship them. The problem is that when Netflix receives a disc, they don't send another one out until the next day at the earliest (and the whole thing with shipping a large percentage of discs from Tacoma and Salem over the past week).

For a while, I would read people's complaints about Netflix and wonder how their service could be so bad while mine was so consistently good, but now mine is consistently bad, too. It may well happen to you at some point, as well.

garyb

Quite possible, though I have a friend in town who has been on netflix for a while and still has the one day transit time both ways. I'll do the wal-mart trial next but I will probably settle on Netflix.

MasterofDVD

They received my recent returns early Monday. They shipping details then said Shipping Today beside my next two movies. I checked around 6pm Monday and it now said Shipping Tomorrow. So I checked back yesterday and it took until almost 6pm until both movies shipped.

I broke down and bought a movie on my queue today because I knew it was going to take forever for me to see it if I waited.

Looking over my last 30 days with them is seems I was able to still rent a good number of movies this past month. But things have really slowed to a crawl again. It's still far cheaper than any other way to catch up on movies and I can't see Blockbuster getting movies to me any faster. In 1 month I might give them a chance.

BigDan

Once again, though, transit time isn't the issue, it's how long Netflix waits before putting discs in transit.

And it may well be that your friend or even you are not or would not be a heavy enough renter to trip whatever it is that makes Netflix slow the service down for you.

But clearly, there's something there or the service would not have changed.(and it can only be Netflix since they're the ones not shipping the discs).

PerksGTI

My service has also started to suck...an extra day in turnaround time (at least) and last week I had a title ship Tuesday, and it said the expected arrival date was the following Monday! Bullshit they shipped it on Tues. then...my normal shipping time is next day. I still get titles a day earlier than the expected arrival date, but when they hold the discs an extra day or two before shipping it doesn't really matter.

bdots48

Yeah, mine is starting to slow down too. Their math is a little funny ,too. I had a dvd which they shipped on 1/5; I received it,watched it and sent it back on 1/8; they still don't have it listed as received, so I tried to report it late. Their response was to give it 6 days, so if it is still missing on 1/15(!) report it then. What the hey?(That looks like 10 days to me) I'm a grandfathered member and love the convenience of the mail, but I hope this improves soon.

nightmaster

Count me in guys. My service has went to crap just this month. Same symptoms....check in on moday but don't ship new ones till tuesday or even wednesday. I wonder, are there any Netflix employees here on the forum? Seems like they might be in the know as to goings on.

justwantmymovies

I'm sure they snoop in here and watch posts.... But, probably do not care what a few of us say here... At least not until we tell everyone we know ;-)

The Antipodean

I have to admit, I'm starting to have issues too. Took me nearly a week to get Napoleon Dynamite (and it wasn't worth the wait, but that's another story), and now Sex In The City Season 6 has been sitting in "shipping soon" for over 2 days. How many folks having problems normally get them from the Salem, Ore. plant? I wonder if there's some kind of computer issue or something there.

I'm nowhere near saying it's bad enough to leave, but if it kept up like this for a month or so I'd consider it. I still think netflix is miles better than B&B rental shops for me.

BigDan

I don't think it's something that's limited to one shipping center. Mine shipping center is D/FW (Coppell), Texas, though I did receive a disc from Salem, Oregon this week.

For the first time in several weeks, my service worked sort-of properly today. Netflix reported discs received today and shipped out replacements today. However, the discs were delayed somewhere along the line because I mailed them on Monday (and 99 times out 100, Netflix receives the discs the day after I sent them), but that could be a rare post office delay (I did mail them back fairly late in the day Monday).

We'll see if this "working properly" is a trend or an aberration.

texasgator

Ditto here! And then to add to this, my Estimated Arrival is usually two days from the ship date (which ends up being one day for me) and in this case, one of the movies (The Village) has an estimated arrival 5 days from ship date!

If this is truly being done on purpose it won't take long for me to be back at Hollywood Video picking up movies on my way home from work. We'll see, but I'm quite disappointed right now (it was not long ago that I had nothing but praise for Netflix).

justwantmymovies

The thing I find funny about Netflix 'receiving' the discs is that Walmart in the same city/zip gets the discs that I mailed from the same post office much faster than Netflix.... Coincidence? I think not ;-)

Brett

Thanks BigDan, I actually just got an email from them today saying that they have added a local distribution center, but didn't say where. Very eerie, since I didn't even send them an email, they must be watching my email and saw the letter I sent Netflix ;-)

Worcester is where the Netflix one is. This morning Netflix marked my thrid movie as received and picked a new one (near the top of my list) to send me, that (supposedly) went out today. And that was all before 11am, let's hope this is a sign that they are trying to improve. I'd really hate to have to re-add the 500 movies I have in my Netflix queue to a new Blockbuster account.

Maybe Blockbuster should create a Netflix -> BBV queue migration tool to make the max exodus smoother.

Talkin2Phil

I’m curious, which plans do you have with Netflix and walmart? Unless you are doing a freebie trial or some comparison study, wouldn’t it be cheaper to change to the Netflix 5 out plan for $29.99?

justwantmymovies

Would it be cheaper? Yes, but I was trying Walmart to see how they are and they are MUCH faster than Netflix and every week for the last month or so NetFlix has gotten worse. So, I may just change to Walmart....

Dan1boy

I sent an email to Netflix Customer Service this morning BEGGING them to charge me the $21.95 rate again if it would return me to the same fast service I enjoyed for several years....we'll see what they say. My situation isn't getting better and I'm weighing options now...

Incidentally, they (NF) are conducting more mass-market advertising campaigns now than ever before. Radio, TV, Internet, Print -- I mentioned in my email that they might try to satiate and nurture their current, loyal customer base before acquiring thousands of new members....

mean100000

my service here in houston has started to suck, as well. movie supposedly shipped more than a week ago and i have received and sent back another pair of movies and the first movie has not even arrived. All movies have taken longer to arrive, my turnaround time used to be one day. Now it is two or three, or even more in a lot of cases. If I don't see an improvement soon, I may cancel.

substeve

Add me to the digruntled list. My turnaround time has taken a big hit. I used to send back a dvd, they would receive it the next day, send out a new one, and I would get it the following day. Now it sometimes takes 2-4 days for the DVD to show us being returned, 2-5 days for me to receive a new DVD after it ships. Forget about anything sent by Netflix on Friday getting here on Saturday. It's an automatic Monday and often times Tuesday until I see it. I've got a distribution center right near me. What gives??

I plan on cancelling my membership at the end of the month and signing up at Blockbuster and see how it goes for a month or two. The service was terrible during the beta testing trial but I've heard it's got better. It can't be any worse than Netflix right now for me. Blockbuster gives you the coupons for two free rentals each month + I can use saved up store credit from trading in DVDs to pay for the membership if I want to.

I'm ready for a change. Netflix used to be incredible in terms of speed and service and now it's around the level of Walmart for me. Too bad :-(

MasterofDVD

I just signed up for the 2 week trail with Blockbuster. I had forgotten that they give you two free in store rentals each month. I was going to look into gamefly.com for a way to rent video games cheaply but I can live with 2 free game rentals each month plus my normal 3 titles each month for less than what I'm paying Nexflix right now.

Nexflix did ship a DVD out today that said wouldn't ship till tomorrow but I won't let one quick turn around fool me.

Dan1boy

Since Netflix found it necessary to ignore my polite, articulate email (see above,) I've cancelled and signed up with Blockbuster yesterday. The lower price and two free in store coupons is a much better value. The selection seems just, if not more, as comprehensive. Even if I must endure the same, poor service I guess.

Will keep the forum updated.

trammel

My turnaround time has drastically increased. I used to be able to get 4-5 discs a week. Now I am lucky to get 3. Also, today they shipped me the sixth disc in my queue even thought the first five were available.

Nuff

My turnaround time is still going great...as of yet I have no complaints after *years* of service.

justwantmymovies

Surprisingly the 2 of the discs they said they shipped and I would recieve Thur got here Wed. And the other Thur..... Not bad, but still, when they get it before 8 in the morn, and then say shipping next disc Tue!!

taa455

More crap from NF:

I got the email Thursday morning (1/13) before 8 AM saying they had received my latest return, yet my next selection did not ship until Friday (1/14). Here's the kicker: they show the estimated arrival date as 1/20!!!