Blockbuster Video day 2

Apparently they've processed me now, because my first two videos shipped today. Its been about 24hrs since I signed up. Why'd they ship two and not three though? Thats what I'm wondering...

The Netflix return that was processed and shipped on Tuesday, hasn't arrived as of 2/15.

An amusing? sidenote - I ordered a package from BC, Canada on Saturday, and it arrived today via USPS. It amazes me that a product from Canada only took Mon->Thurs to arrive and yet I sent Netflix a video on Saturday that arrived on Wednesday. It takes the same amount of time to ship a package via parcel post from BC Canada to Massachusetts as it does to ship a letter via first class mail to Worcester Massachusetts - 45 minutes down the road.... Somehow I don't think my video actually arrived on Wednesday. *wink wink*

Imagine that... (Netlfix scam cont'd)

So its now Wednesday and low and behold:



The third video is posted as received on the third day. Netflix is a scam. If you read my last two posts you'll see the whole story.

I don't understand how they are getting away with this. I'd love to know if anyone has any insight on what we as consumers can do to make Netflix pay for this disservice. Feel free to contact me.

More Netflix...

And here we have it, the proof in the pudding.

It goes like this. On Friday, I mailed a disc out. On Saturday I mailed two discs out. As I said in my last post, Netflix purposely does not receive one of two discs if they are shipped together and voila it happened again only with a twist:





Trailer Park Boys were shipped together, the other disc (not shown) on Friday. Notice how it is now Tuesday and they have received two of my three discs. The thing is, shipping on Friday and Saturday means - they all arrived there on Monday. So they shipped one on Monday, now they ship the second on Tuesday and who wants to bet a quarter that the third disc "arrives" on Wednesday and ships then?

Netflix is purposely spacing out their receiving and shipping in a calculated attempt to control how many videos we get access too in one week. This has to be my twentieth experiment with them and so far in the past few months only one time did two ship at once - but never three. (oddly, it was right after I posted the blog post... Murphy's Law)

Why I Hate Netflix

Its Monday morning and I'm off to mail the two movies my wife and I watched over the weekend. See, its important to get out there before the maillady comes. Why? Because I want to get some new movies quick. None of this waiting around crap. Thats why we use Netflix. Maybe I should say "used", because I'm very close to cancelling the account and swapping to Blockbuster. And believe me, thats not my first choice. I've been giving Netflix chance after chance to get better, yet they only get worse.

So its Wednesday night as I write this. How many movies have they received? One. Odd... I sent them at the same time, yet they only receive one. Now here's the real kicker. This has happened like this every single time for months. I've gotten to the point where, in my mind, I guess which one they'll choose to have received. Why do they only receive one at a time? Well, if you do the math, it starts to add up over the course of a year. Spread this same phenomenon to every one of their users, and suddenly its a really large amount of money they are effectively skimming off the top. They have at their disposal the greatest excuse of all time - the mail.

Another interesting phenomenon, is what happens if I mail all three back at once. The returns still get spread out over two days, except without fail the first day has two returns. You'd think "well, thats not bad" but it is and here's why. The day they ship, I get a notice saying they shipped me ONE movie. Not two. But they received two (although you and I know they actually received all three). So now the shipping is spread across three days, for three movies. All of which should have been mailed on the first day.

Do the math involved with that last example. Pretend you watch all three movies in one day, mail them back and count the days required to receive them. Again, account for non-shipment/receipt on weekends, add this up over a year and you'll quickly see why Netflix is actually cheating you out of rentals.

The truly sad part, is A: we can't afford to pay for our movie habit via local rentals, B: Blockbuster is basically the devil and C: we have the basic cable, so we rely upon Netflix's dodgy service as "better than the alternative." A very unfortunate situation.