I, rather stupidly and late at night, dropped a DVD into the red envelope without putting it in its white sleeve first. Then I tossed it into the mail not knowing my error. Now I find the sleeve but, of course, the DVD is now long gone with no way to credit it to me.
Netflix’s “Help” page doesn’t cover this. It mentions losing the white sleeve and sending the orphan DVD back with a note saying your name and address but I can’t find a solution to say “Hey, this is what I did and when you get that DVD, it’s mine”. And there is NO simple direct e-mail to a customer service rep that I can find on their site.
Why do you think they won’t credit it to you? The red envelope has your information on it (view bar code) and the DVD has its name on it. I imagine it is a routine issue and they don’t even blink as they do the exception insta-match and print a new sleeve for it. Wait a day or two and you will probably see it shown as returned. They are a highly automated operation. I doubt a customer-service call can do much at this point.
Shagnasty, that bar code is on the white sleeve; it shows through a slot in the return envelope. Jophiel, I couldn’t find a direct link to a customer service e-mail either, but there is this:
I can only imagine how hard it would be for them to match a plain DVD without reference to where it came from. I’d be hopeful it didn’t happen too often though, so it might not be too difficult once they were notified that particular disc will be unidentified.
I just looked at one of my envelopes. You are correct that the movie bar code shows through the sleeve but there are others on the envelope itself. I just got Netflix and spent a fair amount of time pondering the inner workings of their business recently. I can just about promise you this happens a lot because even smart people do stupid things and they have a lot of envelopes coming in every day. The bar codes on the outside envelope will tell who it came from and all will be well.
I’ve done something similar. I returned a library DVD in a Netflix sleeve. I noticed it the next day and called them. I returned two Netflix DVDs in the same sleeve with a sticky note on the sleeve as per their customer service request. I was credited for both DVDs.
Of course, they never returned the library DVD to me as they said they would.
No doubt. I’m just thinking the fact they provided the caveat about the delay indicates they really don’t have a super-automated way of dealing with this particular issue.
And Jophiel, if you really want to send a note, there’s a form available on the site, but it’s not obvious. Go to Help page, and click on one of the FAQs they provide links for. At the bottom of the page with the answer to that question, there should be three links with small graphics: “Back to Help Center Home”, “Instantly solve problems online in Your Account”, and “Email Customer Service for further assistance”. This last will bring you to another page where you enter a short description of your problem; once you submit that, you can click a “Still Have Questions” button to go through to a web-based e-mail form.
Thanks for that. Good heavens, that’s not very intuitive, is it?
When I was working my way through their labyrinth of links, one of them was the sleeve comment that you mentioned as well. I’m in no terrible hurry to get the movie credited – if it takes longer, so be it – I just wanted to be sure that it eventually DID get credited. Here’s hoping, anyway.
As a quickie follow-up, I received a “We just got your DVD” e-mail today so I guess someone there noodled it out. Since I was waiting a few days before I sent a letter or reported it as “not yet received”, I’m actually rather impressed.
I’m amazed they credited it. I lost a white sleeve and did exactly what they said to do- I put it in the red envelope with my name, account, and every bit of information you can imagine. They show it as never returned, even though they credited the other movie (in it’s correct sleeve) that I returned in the same red envelope.
I’m just thinking the fact they provided the caveat about the delay indicates they really don’t have a super-automated way of dealing with this particular issue.