I recently signed up with Netflix because I am sick of cable TV prices and decided to cancel. I hoped Netflix would be a low cost alternative.
The tally so far:
Shipment #1: three discs, one of which was cracked in half. I duly reported said disc (both on the mailer and by telephone) and requested expedited shipment of a replacement of the damaged disc. I returned all three discs. Have never received another copy of the disc that was damaged.
Shipment #2: three discs, one of which was so scratched that it froze and pixillated (if you’ve ever seen it, you know what I mean.)
You won’t find anyone worse at math than me, but as far as I can tell, that means a 33% defective disc rate so far. I am not favorably impressed.
As I say, a lame rant, but I am very disappointed.
I would like to upgrage to get more discs at a time, but not with a 33% failure rate.
I’ve received 2 broken discs the past month myself. I have the 5 disc at a time program. I now try to inspect them as soon as I receive them. I received Star Trek Season 2-Disc 4 on Wednesday, sat down on Friday night to watch it, and found out it was cracked. I still will remain a subscriber, but I’m hoping that Netflix will do something about the cracked dvds.
First, check your mailbox. We had a problem with cracked disks; however, we realized that they were being damaged as the mail carrier forced them into the too-small mailbox–and as we forced them out.
We put up a note requesting that all Netflix deliveries be slid under the door. Smooth sailing since then–no cracked or scratched disks at all. Netflix never penalized us for the damages either.
I’ve had Netflix since mid-November and have watched ~80 movies in that time with only one disc, Ronin, that was defective. I wasn’t liking it anyway so I took it as a sign and returned it. I did have an incident last week when my copy of Empire of the Sun had a spot on it that wouldn’t let me play about three minutes of a scene but I just fast-forwarded and watched the rest without any issue whatsoever.
My problem with them is the sudden slowdown in delivery time. I used to get eight to ten movies in that time (I’m out of work and homebound, recovering from an injury) but since about mid-January, I’m lucky to get five or six. It wouldn’t bother me if I had something else to do to pass the time but twiddling my thumbs and counting the spackle on my ceiling gets boring after a while.
Figured I should weigh in on this. I’ve been a Netflix subscriber since summer of 2000…when I got my first DVD player and about when they came into business. Because I got in on the ground floor, so to speak, I’m getting four movies at a time for the same price that most others get three movies at a time…and was pleasantly surprised that, last year, they dropped their rates across the board.
I’m guessing that damaged discs happened in transit…unless the person prior to you who received it didn’t report the problem with the disc. And you say you notified them on the mailer and by phone? You do realize that there is a “Report Shipping Problems” in your queue, no? When you indicate something is wrong, they are usually very good about shipping a replacement disc immediately.
I’m in a bit of a unique situation in that I have five movies out at a time now. I recently received the incorrect DVD in the correct sleeve, and reported it as such, and they not only sent a replacement disc, but then sent ANOTHER disc when the one I sent back was received. We’ll see if that works itself out…
Longtime Netflix subscriber here - about 4 years, if I remember right.
I get about two or three bad discs a year. I get a few more that have goo on them, and won’t play but work fine once I clean them. Only once have I ever gotten a cracked disc - most of the bad ones are simply scratched, either through misuse or overuse.
Whenever I get a bad one, I go to the Netflix Web site and report it as damaged. They send me out a new copy the next day, and I send the broken one back at my leisure.
I’ve been using the service for 2 months now. I had quite a few problems witth the West Wing season one disks that I got. However, I think it was because they were two-sided discs. One disc had a completely unplayable side and others would skip a bit. The “report problem” section on their website is great, because they’ll send you a new disc right away before you return the bad one.
I’ve had netflix for a couple years now and I’ve only had about 4 issues with discs, be it cracked, scratched, or lost. Netflix was wonderful about responding to issues (via the report problem link on their site) and I’ve been more than pleased with the service. I can remember getting a few unplayable regular rentals as well - just comes with the territory - (most) people are not as careful with items that don’t belong to them.
I’ve had Netflix for a little over a year, 3 DVDs a week, and only two problems, ever. If you go to the website and report the damaged disk, even before you return the one you’ve got, they’ll send a replacement that day.
I just cancelled my Neflix account. Mostly due to money trouble. But I have had my share of bad disks. I have received disks that were literally broken in half. (My mailbox is plently large enough to accomodate the Netflix package) Many were so dirty, I believe that were used as coasters by previous renters. Some seemed to have been used as frizbees…
So far, ours have all been pretty clean. The DVDs i take out from my university library, OTOH, are often absolutely filthy. I’ll never quite understand why so many people appear to have trouble grasping the concept of “Hold the thing by the edges.”
I stopped using Netflix because at lot of the discs I was getting were defective in some way. Most of them just caused me to skip scenes, but I got a disc that was broken in half, as well as some deeply gauged ones. I really wanted to support Netflix because the plan was such a good idea, but eventually got way too irritated by the bad discs. Now I use Blockbuster and haven’t gotten a defective disc yet, but the delivery times are very slow (if I drop them in the mail Monday morning, I might or might not have a new movie by Saturday). Are there any other options besides Walmart for this kind of service?
We canceled Netflix because a movie we had viewed and returned got lost in the mail, and they dinged our credit card for the cost of the DVD. We communicated with them and told them we didn’t steal their movie and had mailed it back the same as always, but they didn’t believe us. That Wallace & Grommet movie was expensive, too. Those Netflix packages are really distinctive, and what’s to stop someone from pinching a movie in transit?
I use the Amazon service and have no gripes. All discs have worked and I get a new disc within two or three days of popping the other in the post. This is in the UK so perhaps post is quicker, being a postage stamp sized country.
I’ve had a few Netflix go missing - either they never showed up here, or they never recieved them after I’d mailed them back. In each case, they didn’t seem to even really care. They just said “OK” and went on with business as usual.
Are you sure the pugs didn’t take it? I mean, it’s Gromit - they’re probably big fans, and wanted to keep the DVD.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of Netflix charging someone for a lost disc. Normally, they just say “okie-dokie” and replace it without a fuss. They do keep track of lost discs, however, and may investigate if you lose a lot. Did you have a history of damaged/lost discs?
I’ve had exactly two discs (out of about 300) arrived cracked, and a third which was defective due to a mastering flaw (Escape from Sobibor – returned it THREE TIMES and each disc had the error at the exact same spot!!!) Another disc got “damaged” because it was fullscreen when it was supposed to be widescreen…ooh lookie here, looks like someone ran over it with a computer chair!
Another three movies in one shipment also vanished, which was almost certainly due to the mailperson putting mail in the wrong boxes (I kept finding my Netflix envelopes tacked to the bulletin board at the time, along with messages from other residents saying, “PLEASE PUT MAIL IN THE CORRECT BOX!”) The person who kept them probably thought they were something cool like Lord of the Rings or something…wish I could have seen his face when they turned out to be three quirky independent films nobody has heard of! Too bad he was too stupid to realize he could have used the envelope to send them back and nobody would have been the wiser… :mad:
This seems odd to me. I’ve had a few discs go missing (I think the neighbors were stealing them from the outgoing box) and wasn’t charged. The only way this makes sense is if you’d already lost beyond whatever their quota for missing discs is.
