I usually do OK with Netflix, but I mailed back 3 dvds in one envelope a few weeks ago and they say they never received them. It’s within the realm of possibility that they were stolen from my mailbox (I put them in and put the flag up for the mail lady to pick up) but I doubt it. I caught her today and asked her if she recalled my flag being up and nothing being in the box and she said no, she didn’t. Anyway, now those are marked as lost. A while back I had a movie out that I lost the sleeve to so I did EXACTLY what they said to do and wrote my information with the movie and put it in an envelope along with another movie. They claim to have never recieved THAT movie, either (but they got the one I had the envelope for). Crazy.
So I’m wondering how many more I can lose before they cut off my membership. I’ve been a member for a few years now.
To answer the OP’s question, as someone suggested, the Post Office normally ignores the specific address printed on the Netflix return envelope, and sends it to the nearest distribution center. That’s because of a special arrangement Netflix has with the USPS.
This way Netflix doesn’t have to bother printing specific return addresses for each envelope it sends out, but can use stock envelopes for the distribution center the movie happened to come from. Normally that IS the distribution center closest to you, but sometimes it isn’t.
I get the same service. I live a few miles away from a dist center. If I drop the disk into the mail on Sunday evening at the PO, it will show as received by 11:00 AM the next morning, at which point another is sent. I get that one on Tues. I couldn’t be more pleased
I’ve been a member for about a year, and have reported about 9 lost, not all at once. That seems like an incredible number considering the possibility of someone stealing from my mailbox is quite remote. All but one eventually turned up and my account was credited, although sometimes it took weeks and of course they don’t give any explanation what happened.
I think the envelopes are so flimsy that they get mangled in equipment sometimes.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I got two DVDs that they claim were mailed the previous day after 6PM. If only they would keep that up.
I did a test once, and mailed three disks at the same time, separately, to widely spaced receiving points. The closest one arrived first and the others arrived a day later, exactly as I would have expected if the shipping addresses are to believed, and if the email time stamps are valid.
So maybe this special arrangement doesn’t apply to all locations all the time.
If my Netflix turnaround was any quicker, I’d receive my next discs *before * I sent back the watched ones.
I’ve been a member for 3 years or so, and have never waited more than 2 days for my next DVDs. Pop in the mailbox Monday morning, new DVDs arrive on Wednesday.
I guess it’s a combination of a distribution center about 15 minutes away, and Post Offices that open at 7:00 in the morning and close at 8:00 at night.
I wish. (Yeah, I know, you said “normally,” and I’d be the first to admit that the staff at my local PO are abnormal.) I had this happen to me for the first time this week. But apparently unlike the PO, I was forewarned–I got an email from Netflix advising me that my next selection was not available at my local distribution center (San Jose) and would be shipped from Lexington, Kentucky. It took three days after the shipping date to arrive. I returned it on Saturday morning and still haven’t gotten notice that it has been received, three mail-days later, so I can only assume it’s going back to Lexington.
Previously, except for one or two short delays, I’ve always gotten one-day turnaround.
Wait a minute… doesn’t Netflix know that the movie came from you by scanning the barcode on the envelope? Does that mean the envelopes are mass-printed, and then the barcode is printed on at the time your DVD is slipped in the envelope? It looks like slightly different colors of black, and not like the bar code and address were done with the same printer.
I don’t see any different shades of black (“none more black”). But if the bar codes on the envelopes are unique, they wouldn’t need to be printed at the time of packing to identify the customer, just scanned.
Isn’t it also possible that whoever stole these movies put the flag down?
I’ve been toying with the idea of joining Netflix or a similar service lately. But I don’t understand why it is a problem that it takes one extra day for a movie to show up? Someone want to tell me why?
At Casa Odds, we’ll generally watch our 4 Netflix DVDs on the weekend, put them in the mail Monday or Tuesday, receive 4 more anywhere from Wednesday to Friday, and repeat. Accounting for the weekends where we don’t get through all 4, we end up watching 12-16 discs/month for $18.00 and never any extra fees. IMNSHO, that’s a bargain. It’s been years since I’ve been in a Blockbuster, but I don’t think they charge $1.50 or less per rental, and they still have late fees if I hold onto the disk an extra week.
MusicCat and D_Odds, thanks for the info. We watch videos so infrequently that I think I’ll just stick with the specialty video store I’ve got an account at.