Idiots at Netflix

The BBQ Pit
1

A couple of months ago I started a CS thread asking for movie recommendations. You guys pulled through, and I’ve seen some great movies thanks to you. However, one recommendation was for Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. I ordered it from Netflix. I tried it in my girlfriend’s DVD player, and it wouldn’t load. So I tried it in mine, and it actually crashed my player. I looked at the disk, and lo and behold there was a big yellow spot on it. It was damaged to the point of being completely unplayable.

I checked off the little box on the envelope indicating that it was damaged, and the little box asking for a new copy. They never sent the new copy.

However, my girlfriend really wanted to see it, so she put it in her cue. She got it a week later, and we tried to play it – nope. Looking at the disk, it was the same one. Instead of retiring it and sending out a new one, they just sent her the same one. Of course, she checked off the little boxes, this time in red ink, and mailed it back.

So they sent her a new copy, in a brand new envelope.

You can see where this is going.

Like a Christmas fucking fruitcake, like the undead, like an obnoxious relative who never fucking leaves, this disk just will not go away. It’s like trying to flick away a booger that just keeps coming back. We’re stuck with it. We might as well give it its own damn room and buy it some toys, because it’s clearly here to stay. And all because some fucking moron at Netflix does not understand the concept of damaged disks.

2

How about cracking it in half before sending it back?

3

What, so they can send us back the pieces?

Actually, I think that’s the plan.

4

Go to the Rental Activity page on Netflix and report a problem with the DVD.

5

Or keep it until you have a free spot in your queue, order the same one, and wait until a functioning one comes before sending the old one back :wink:

6

They only seem the check the boxes about half of the time. I wash every disc I get from them, otherwise they usually won’t work.

I had a bad one a while back. I put a big crack in it, so that they gouldn’t ignore it and send it back. I also checked the damaged and send a replacement boxes, not expecting them to do anything because they hadn’t the last time. Then I went on the website and reported it as unplayable, and put it back at #1 in my queue. So, of course, that time they paid attention to the box, and I ended up with two of the same one.

I have 146 discs in my queue.

7

Well, I hope not. :slight_smile: I was thinking that would make its unplayable status more obvious. You said in the OP that you didn’t notice the yellow spot until you’d already tried it in two DVDs. I could be that they did see the check in the damaged box, did a hasty visual inspection, shrugged, and tossed it back into the “okey-dokey” pile.

8

**Sattua **just gave me the code to get a free trial account and this is the third or fourth thread I’ve read about their incompetence since then. I hope it wasn’t all for naught.

9

The web site really gives you better results, they send out the replacement as soon as you report it, rather than as soon as they get your bad disk.

A few months ago, I wrote them a very long letter stating that if anything would ever cause me, a subscriber for years, who kept his subscription active during the 4 months after my baby arrived and I didn’t have time to watch a single movie (simply so I wouldn’t have to reload my queue), to cancel my subscription, it woudl be because of the large number of unplayable DVDs that had been sent to me.

I haven’t had an unplayable DVD since (about 4 months). Of course, I also got a new DVD player in that time which appears to be a little more forgiving.

-lv

10

Their selection really is amazing, and they recently dropped the price for subscriptions. I’ve had bad discs, but had I rented the same number of movies from the local store, I probably would have gotten a bad one at some point too.

For me, the “killer app” of Netflix is TV shows, rather than movies. You can’t rent them at the local video store. I’ve saved a hundred dollars by being able to watch season 4 and 5 of Stargate without buying the whole set. I’ve also got Sports Night, Monty Python, and Andromeda in my queue, none of which I can justify buying, but all of which I’d like to see.

11

BAM. Exactly. The $240/year I spend on Netflix is totally worth the $500-or-more-worth of TV on DVD that i see.

12

The flaw in disk is not obvious from the label side, but even a cursory glance at the shiny side should be enough to see that something’s wrong. But I went to see my girlfriend last night after I read your first post, and told her your advice. There is no way Netflix can not see how damaged it is now. :smiley: It should now be called Lock, Stock, and Two Broken Shards.

I also like the advice of reporting it online. I didn’t know you could do that.

13

And that is why I love my local video store. Six Feet Under, Python, Stargate, any thing you want, they’ve got for rent.

14

My local Blockbuster has an entire section (and a large one) devoted to TV series on DVD. Except, no ST:TNG, which sucks.

15

Hm…I’ve only ever had one unplayable disc from Netflix (it was cracked), we checked the box, sent it back, we had a new copy in 3 days. shrug

I adore Netflix, we’ve been going through Buffy, Angel, Jeeves and Wooster, The Office, To The Manor Born (I know it’s old, but I loved that show) and Coupling, and an incredible 8(?) part Blues documentary directed by Martin Scorsese that was originally broadcast on PBS…we don’t watch TV, and I couldn’t justify paying for the box sets, so I love that we can rent em thru Netflix.

Also, Blockbuster can suck a fart out of my ass.

We occasionally still walk in and rent from them when we want a spur-of-the-moment DVD…sometimes only having 3 out at a time from Netflix means we’re movieless for a day or two.

For the FOURTH motherfucking time, after returning the movie to the store on TIME, they’re trying to charge us two weeks worth of late fees plus a missing movie charge.

I repeat, this is the FOURTH time they’ve tried to do this. Fuck Blockbuster, when I went in to argue the charges with them earlier this week, I told them to cancel my Rewards account, and that the avg. 25-50 bucks a month we spend with them (we have a tendency to impulse buy previously viewed movies for dirt cheap) will now be spent elsewhere, because I’m tired of this bullshit.

If they can’t manage to hire competent enough people to check the movies back in and not lose them when they’ve been returned on time, I’m certainly not fucking subsidizing their wages, or paying for their mistakes.

I then went home and bumped my Netflix account up to 5-at-a-time, since they’ve dropped the price of that plan to 29.99 a month.

Yay Netflix, fuck you Blockbuster.

16

I’ve heard that about Blockbuster. They have a reputation for pulling that kind of shit. At my local one, however, they never do that. It’s probably hard to get away with when you only have seven titles to rent in the first place.

17

Hmm, looks like I’m not the only one complaining about Netflix…I just reported 3 discs missing today (they mailed 'em last Monday and they never showed up) after reporting another disc broken this weekend. :mad:

Blockbuster’s never tried to charge me for a missing movie; of course, I always use their “Movie Pass” which allows you to check out three movies at a time for as long as you want, no late fees. I always take the movies I’m returning to the clerk before checking out the next batch, which is what they recommend, so it’s hard for them to claim it’s gone missing. It costs about the same as Netflix and while it’s limited to that one store, you can visit every day or even twice a day if you want.

Unfortunately, with BB, the chances of receiving a coaster instead of a DVD are about 50/50, at least at the store I used to go to. Some of those discs look like they’ve been cleaned with sandpaper! Netflix also beats them hands down on selection, not only with TV shows but with obscure foreign films, which I like.