Netflix, Blockbuster (and others) Online/Kiosk Discussion Thread - Page 9

Flame suit on but throwing out some levity here. I am not for throttling(I was throttled by Blockbuster cancelled and returned 3 month later to no problems) but if you own a business don't you get to determine who you want to do business with? If I found that I was losing money with a customer I need to determine if the PR is worth the loss or move on. There is no entitlement here and you as a customer have the choice not to do business with them....so if you don't like what they do then leave. Perhaps to challenge this further, why do you expect the get 10 discs a week? It's abussive beavior that creates problems like this. Cringe. Be nice. I am really on your side but am playing devils advocate.

A solution to the heavy users may be another tier of 5 out and preferred service @$3x.99/mo.

What does it mean you your disk arrive, it's been taped closed and there's a note from the Postman saying "good movie" I don't know.

I do notice poor service if I mail from the Capitol Hill area of Seattle (different mailboxes), so I don't do that anymore.

That's fine, but Netflix is providing "unlimited rentals" for a flat fee per month. If they want to say "up to X rentals per week" instead then that would be different. They need to either provide the service they promise or revise their business model. Throttling is more like cheating, they say you're getting unlimited rentals, but if you go over a certain number they punish you without even informing you that they are doing so or even how and why.

"Unlimited" does not mean "infinite", nor does it imply "optimized for maximum usage". No matter how they run their operations, there is going to be some X which represents the practical maximum rental rate. Their priority algorithm may have the effect of reducing X (and improving service for low volume users), but it doesn't create a "limit" where there wasn't one before.

No. We have laws that enforce businesses treat all customers equal. Otherwise, some businesses my discriminate against Italians, Blacks, Womens, etc.

NF's big mistake was to treat some customers differently than others. Which is akin to saying: "Hey fat guy at the buffet... you better wait at your table a bit and let a few of the skinny folks get on line before you!!"

Imagine the outcry across the land if buffets treated customers this way.

-T

C'mon, most businesses discriminate in favor of their more profitable customers. High rollers in Vegas get all kinds of comps. 100K flyers get bumped to the top of the upgrade queue. Get over it, this ain't a civil rights issue.

Rather than a buffet, consider instead an 'unlimited' restaurant with table service. The waitress is very likely to balance her time among the tables, even if there is a table of sumo wrestlers always waving at her.

What you describe above is "rewarding" good/repeat customers... no harm in that, and it's done all the time... but that is far different than "punishing" good customers like NF did.

It's not civil rights like you say, but it is a civil issue (as verified by the civil court case).



Again, wrong analogy... you say the waitress will "balance" her time, and that is expected. But that it is not what NF did... NF had the waitress purposefully delay getting to the sumo wrestler's table, purposefully delay taking their order, and purposefully delay bringing out the food. BUT, the waitress wasted no time in handing out the bill...

-T

Darn it you mean I can't discriminate aganst handicaps? In reality you are taking me out of context since you are referencing physical characteristic.

What about the argument of being a responsible consumer? Do you feel it is right for millionaires to qualify for state Medicaid? It happens all the time because of a loop hole. All you have to do is ----- and ----- and you get basically free healthcare that burdens other taxpayers. Analogy. It is perfectly ok as a consumer to gouge Netflix by maximizing all reasonableness in a deal that can be beat (loopholes) and cry foul when they reduce their loses by manipulating you back or increasing prices to moderate users to fund the overusers/abusers. Too bad huh? We all lose sort of. LOL. Another devil's advocate response.

I'm cancelling my account tomorrow. I reported a disc missing yesterday after 1 week of waiting for them to receive it. Their system said a new disc would ship out today. Today it says it will ship out tomorrow. I'm not really a heavy user either, I'm just sick of this crap. I'm going to give Netflix a rest for awhile and then probably sign up again under a new name.

I just get a hand written note saying, "I saved you the trouble of watching it and sending it back. Trust me, you wouldn't like it. -- USPS".

larry

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Netflix lawsuit over misleading advertising - not slow or two-tier service? I assume they no longer advertise the short turnaround. Seems to me it's reasonable to have a shorter return time for those who watch 1-2 movies a week as compared with those who receive 6 a week, if both are paying the same. Of course they should disclose it in their literature. Once you know what the service will be, continue or cancel, but don't beetch about it.

Can you please clarify your statement?

I don't care if my queue is full of old or new releases, actually one of the main reasons I subscribe was to get old movies not available at the video rental store. The other was that the video store brings very few widescreen DVDs.

I wish to have a turnaround of 2 days like some of you have; instead it is taking 3 to 5 for them to register the movies as returned and another 3 to 5 days for me to receive movies after they sent them, 6 to 10 days! But I would be satisfied with the service that I have during the first 8 months of my subscription where the turnaround was usually 4 days.

On top of that, if I understand you correctly, what you explained happens. I start receiving new releases after very long delays. All of them are listed as long or very long wait. I haven't received "40 Old Years Virgin" yet, and it is still listed as very long wait!

My cousin with the same last name lives a street over from me. USPS has mistakenly left them my movies on at least two occasions.

Throttling is definately allive and well. Sent two back on Monday, they should have had them both Tuesday. Then onlt one shows up as returned yesterday and the other today. I was going to report them missing today.

Funny how when you report them missing they just show up there miracurously. Ya like I'm gonna wait 6 days to report it missing when I'm only 20 miles from the return site.

Oh, howdy neighbor Larry.

They won't LET you report them missing until it's been 6 days. I reported a disc missing two days ago, they still haven't shipped me a new disc, but it's supposed to go out today, and as you said the old disc miraculously showed up this morning as returned.

Every now and then it may take a more than a day to make it to Worcester, but the rest is probably then throttling.

larry

I'm running an experiment this week to see if movies turn around faster if I drop them off before the 11:45 pickup in my town VS. the 5pm pickup. I feel like the 5pm stuff doesn't actually mail until the following day.

From the American College Dictionary:
un-lim-it-ed adj. 1. not limited: unrestricted. 2. boundless; limitless.
NF has changed their wording so this is probably meaningless however, what ever method you use to limit the amount of DVD's that can be viewed in a given period it no longer falls under the definition "UNLIMITED". I do not have a problem with a contract that says you may rent up to XXX number of movies per month for XXXX number of dollars. But, do not offer unlimited rentals then "LIMIT" the number I can have. Now, it's time to get over this as NF has changed their terms.
Scott

Still throttled here. 3 movies returned yesterday, only 1 sent out today. 2 to be sent tomorrow.

Honestly, I really don't get it sometimes with Netflix. I'm on the 2 at a time plan, and my wife has a queue with 1 out and I have a queue with 1 out, so it's really easy to keep track of what's what. She returned one movie on Saturday, and I returned mine on Tuesday.

Her Monday new movie says:
Shipped Est Arrival
3/1 3/4

My Tuesday new movie says:
Shipped Est Arrival
3/2 3/3

So I'll get mine on Friday and Her's will have had a full week turnaround?

It's really hard to predict what's going to happen sometimes.

apparently they're throttling your wife... sorry couldn't resist

Hard to predict in advance, yes. What actually happened is clear. Your movie was in stock at the local distribution center; hers was not, and is being shipped from somewhere else.

And do you know whether the envelope she used to return her disc had a local address or not? The USPS is very inconsistent as to whether they send Netflix discs back to the "Nearest Facility" or to the actual printed address. I always relabel any envelopes that have remote addresses (including the bar code) just to make sure I don't get stuck with an extra 2-3 days of postal delay.

Letting your disc go back to a remote location hurts you another way, too. It wasn't always true, but over the last two years when a disc is sent to me from a center other than the one the previous disc came back to, it is ALWAYS shipped the next day rather than the same day. So if your disc goes back to a remote distribution center, they will usually send your replacement disc from your LOCAL distribution center - the next day. This has nothing to do with priorities (throttling), but is just the way their operations seem to work now.

In my experience, discs arrive over 95% of the time in exactly the time predicted. The rest of the time, there's just no telling. Just last week I had one which took a full week to arrive from my local center, which is normally one-day away. My wife called me just before I was about to report it missing. From NF perspective, there's a lot of extra cost involved in sending replacements out, so I can understand why they want you to give it a few days.

Conspiracy theories are hard to quash, but it would be really useful if a group of Netflix subscribers from a common location (like an apartment building) kept records to prove/disprove the notion that the time from mailing until acknowlegment of receipt depends on usage level. There's really no way to know without a large sample size under controlled conditions.

Thats not how it has worked for me. Once I've reported a disc missing (usually after three days) within hours they confirm it and queue up a new movie for me. It may not ship that day, but usually the next day. Then a day later, the lost one shows up in their system.

I live 25 miles from a warehouse. And the expected delivery is usually the next day unless they ship from a different warehouse. I had one disc that came from San Jose - 3000 miles away. When this happens I double up and return it to the local warehouse for faster turn around.

larry

I just renewed my Netflix membership and am getting throttled right from the start. I was with Netflix for over a year and had accepted the fact that if I had the 3 at a time plan I would only receive 3 movies in a week. If I had the 5 at a time plan I would receive 5 movies a week. Then the throttling started, all of the new release were showing up as either 'short delay' or 'long delay' so I cancelled my membership.

It's been several months now and I thought I'd give it another try, after all, I have a list of movies which weren't new releases so I thought this shouldn't be a problem. Yea, right! I restarted my membership Wednesday morning at 9:00am EST and signed up for the 4 at a time plan. I put over 20 movies in my queue, all of which said available 'Now'. I expected my first 4 movies to be shipped Wednesday afternoon.

Well, Wednesday afternoon pasted and no movies shipped. I just now received notice that 3 of my movies shipped this afternoon (Thursday) and that my 4th movie will ship tomorrow (Friday). So I signed up Wednesday morning, all movies were available now and it takes over 2 days to ship all of them.

If I can receive at least 4 movies a week I will be satisfied, that comes out to just under 2.00 a movie when you include the monthly fees plus tax. If I receive less than 4 movies a week I will cancel my membership again.

I've read in other threads that it is a good idea to actually start up a new account rather than restarting your old account. I just cancelled today and I'm going to start up a new account in time for some new releases on 3/14 that I want to see.


How do you report it missing after 3 days? I went to the "report a problem" screen and it told me that a DVD couldn't be reported missing until 6 days after Netflix's projected arrival date.

Well I'm definitly not in the group of folks being throttled, but found if I dropped off my movies at a post office blue mail box before the first pickup of the day it cut a day off my delivery time. Definitly a habit I need to get into.

I wasn't talking about turn around time. What I was talking about was having a spot open when a new release is released. Absent that, Netflix is likely to send you one of the many older released movies you have in your queue instead of the new release, because of timing issues.

This means having an open space in your queue on Monday, which basically means having it back to them by Friday since they don't process stuff on Saturday.

Cancelling and resubscribing is probably a factor that results in throttling. They'd rather have customers who stay on.

I really doubt it matters if you're sending it to the same last name and same address. Presumably they can easily track that (and in fact need to in order to track fraudulent accounts that steal DVDs).