NETFLIX SCREWS ME AGAIN!
Goddamn, I hate Netflix! I'm one of the thousands (if not millions) of poor bastards the company "throttles" because I watch and return DVDs too quickly. I can't help it; I love movies and no other rental service beats their selection! Maybe you've heard about this "throttling" tactic on the news. Netflix supposedly offers "unlimited" rentals each month, but secretly penalizes customers for returning DVDs too quickly. This penalty includes several asshole strategies such as:
1) Failing to acknowlege receipt of the DVDs I returned on the day I know they received them (their distribution center is within 30 miles of me and I always drop off my DVDs inside the post office, not on the street);
2) Acknowledging receipt of my DVDs "on time" but then refusing to ship the next DVDs in my rental queue the same day like they are freakin' supposed to (usually by marking them as "shipping today" but then later changing the date to "shipping tomorrow");
3) Shipping DVDs from remote centers like New York, Texas or Florida so it takes 3-5 days to get to me (worse, the return envelope is addressed to the same cross-country location!); also note that they love to do this with series disks more than any other;
4) Skipping over series disks or deliberately shipping them out of order--the only thing worse than not getting a TV series is watching the episodes out of order;
5) Creating bogus "wait" times (that vary by customer based on rental habits, not availability) to prevent me from getting popular new releases for weeks or even months, but not limited to just new releases.
6) They start you off in your free trial period with excellent customer service, then once you start paying for it, said customer service becomes a crapshoot, eventually degrading to the point of ridiculously bad;
7) If you complain about bad service, they blame it (unfairly) on the US Post Office instead of their own deceptive shipping practices;
8) They make finding their contact information (to complain) practically impossible; it's not on their website!
So why do they do this? It's allegedly a profitability issue for the company; each disk costs Netflix seventy-eight cents to send each way. Look, I paid to receive "unlimited rentals" (based on how fast I could return DVDs) and not hit some bullshit artificial glass ceiling. In my opinion, if not outright fraud, it's deceptive. If they would just change the way the way they advertise (removing the "unlimited rentals" bullshit) and specify exactly how many rentals you can have in any given month, then that's fine. Just gimme good service for however many flippin' rentals that is instead of screwin' me over so I never know if I'm gonna have my goddamn movies on time! Raising prices is fine, too, so long as there's no more "throttling" and I get what I'm paying for.
How do they do this? Allegedly, returning your DVDs too quickly sets off some kind of "red flag" in their computer system to start targeting your account for "throttling", which will slow down the number of DVDs they ship you.
Here are some of the tricks I've tried (and the results) to get around the Netflix "throttling" crap:
TRICK #1: Upgrading membership (mine is currently set at 8 DVDs out at a time).
RESULT: While theoretically this helps mitigate "throttling" somewhat (since there are more DVDs constantly going back and forth), it just means you keep getting hit with more "throttling". For example: Today, Netflix refused to acknowledge having received four of the DVDs I returned yesterday; furthermore, they waited an extra day to acknowledge receipt of a movie they received Monday, May 15, then said my next DVD would ship Tuesday... but from the East Coast! It was supposed to be here Friday, but wasn't. Now I'll be lucky to have two movies to watch over the weekend when I should have had five! This is the worst case of "throttling" I've received yet!
TRICK #2: Create a subaccount.
RESULT: I read somewhere that doing this would "fool" Netflix into giving the new subaccount good service. That proved to be incorrect. I subdivided my rentals into five for my primary account and three for my subaccount. I then filled my subaccount's queue with series disks Netflix was constantly refusing to ship to my primary account. Netflix said all of the DVDs were available "now". However, around slot ten (after MIKE HAMMER, PRIVATE EYE and POLICE WOMAN), I had a few non-series new release disks. Netflix skipped over all but one of my series disks to get to the regular movies (they delayed shipment a day on the series disk then sent it from the East Coast). I did get both of the new releases, at least, with no "wait". Today, they failed to acknowledge receipt of one of the DVDs they received today, so bingo, that's one more movie I won't be watching over the weekend.
TRICK #3: Fill your queue full of old movies.
RESULT: This does seem to help a little, but they still "throttle" you, even on these. They do tend not to skip over them like series disks or new releases.
These are the three tricks I've tried (although one isn't so much a trick as a personal preference); you can see they all resulted in dismal failure.
Other ideas for tricks are:
1) Only returning one or two DVDs at a time (if they receive three or more on the same day from you it may target you for heavier "throttling"), but this means a daily trip to the post office when you have eight out at a time like me. Also, you might not see any visible effect for weeks depending on however long it takes for them to stop screwing with your account (meaning when they decide to stop red-flagging you as a heavy renter);
2) Limit your rental queue to just enough disks so they have to ship you what you want. This is not practical for me, as I have over 300 movies in my queue;
3) Cancel your account and apply for a new one. Then the "fun" starts all over again as you get good service for a few weeks, then bad again. This isn't a good long-term solution, especially if you have a lot of movies in your queue.
When I had a Blockbuster DVD Freedom Pass, I would rent three DVDs in-store at a time and would take out an average of 30-50 movies per month. Sometimes I'd go in two or three times per day to swap out movies, especially if one or more were shitty. I gave up renting in-store because they no longer had any movies I wanted to see after about a year, aside from the occassional new release (membership was not transferable from store to store). I thought Netflix was the solution but it obviously isn't working out to be all I hoped for. However, I hear that Blockbuster Online and similar services (Peerflix, etc.) are even worse! So, I'm stuck with the Devil I know, or else out of luck completely...
I really wish Netflix would take action to resolve their profitability issues without constantly resorting to all this deception.
1) Failing to acknowlege receipt of the DVDs I returned on the day I know they received them (their distribution center is within 30 miles of me and I always drop off my DVDs inside the post office, not on the street);
2) Acknowledging receipt of my DVDs "on time" but then refusing to ship the next DVDs in my rental queue the same day like they are freakin' supposed to (usually by marking them as "shipping today" but then later changing the date to "shipping tomorrow");
3) Shipping DVDs from remote centers like New York, Texas or Florida so it takes 3-5 days to get to me (worse, the return envelope is addressed to the same cross-country location!); also note that they love to do this with series disks more than any other;
4) Skipping over series disks or deliberately shipping them out of order--the only thing worse than not getting a TV series is watching the episodes out of order;
5) Creating bogus "wait" times (that vary by customer based on rental habits, not availability) to prevent me from getting popular new releases for weeks or even months, but not limited to just new releases.
6) They start you off in your free trial period with excellent customer service, then once you start paying for it, said customer service becomes a crapshoot, eventually degrading to the point of ridiculously bad;
7) If you complain about bad service, they blame it (unfairly) on the US Post Office instead of their own deceptive shipping practices;
8) They make finding their contact information (to complain) practically impossible; it's not on their website!
So why do they do this? It's allegedly a profitability issue for the company; each disk costs Netflix seventy-eight cents to send each way. Look, I paid to receive "unlimited rentals" (based on how fast I could return DVDs) and not hit some bullshit artificial glass ceiling. In my opinion, if not outright fraud, it's deceptive. If they would just change the way the way they advertise (removing the "unlimited rentals" bullshit) and specify exactly how many rentals you can have in any given month, then that's fine. Just gimme good service for however many flippin' rentals that is instead of screwin' me over so I never know if I'm gonna have my goddamn movies on time! Raising prices is fine, too, so long as there's no more "throttling" and I get what I'm paying for.
How do they do this? Allegedly, returning your DVDs too quickly sets off some kind of "red flag" in their computer system to start targeting your account for "throttling", which will slow down the number of DVDs they ship you.
Here are some of the tricks I've tried (and the results) to get around the Netflix "throttling" crap:
TRICK #1: Upgrading membership (mine is currently set at 8 DVDs out at a time).
RESULT: While theoretically this helps mitigate "throttling" somewhat (since there are more DVDs constantly going back and forth), it just means you keep getting hit with more "throttling". For example: Today, Netflix refused to acknowledge having received four of the DVDs I returned yesterday; furthermore, they waited an extra day to acknowledge receipt of a movie they received Monday, May 15, then said my next DVD would ship Tuesday... but from the East Coast! It was supposed to be here Friday, but wasn't. Now I'll be lucky to have two movies to watch over the weekend when I should have had five! This is the worst case of "throttling" I've received yet!
TRICK #2: Create a subaccount.
RESULT: I read somewhere that doing this would "fool" Netflix into giving the new subaccount good service. That proved to be incorrect. I subdivided my rentals into five for my primary account and three for my subaccount. I then filled my subaccount's queue with series disks Netflix was constantly refusing to ship to my primary account. Netflix said all of the DVDs were available "now". However, around slot ten (after MIKE HAMMER, PRIVATE EYE and POLICE WOMAN), I had a few non-series new release disks. Netflix skipped over all but one of my series disks to get to the regular movies (they delayed shipment a day on the series disk then sent it from the East Coast). I did get both of the new releases, at least, with no "wait". Today, they failed to acknowledge receipt of one of the DVDs they received today, so bingo, that's one more movie I won't be watching over the weekend.
TRICK #3: Fill your queue full of old movies.
RESULT: This does seem to help a little, but they still "throttle" you, even on these. They do tend not to skip over them like series disks or new releases.
These are the three tricks I've tried (although one isn't so much a trick as a personal preference); you can see they all resulted in dismal failure.
Other ideas for tricks are:
1) Only returning one or two DVDs at a time (if they receive three or more on the same day from you it may target you for heavier "throttling"), but this means a daily trip to the post office when you have eight out at a time like me. Also, you might not see any visible effect for weeks depending on however long it takes for them to stop screwing with your account (meaning when they decide to stop red-flagging you as a heavy renter);
2) Limit your rental queue to just enough disks so they have to ship you what you want. This is not practical for me, as I have over 300 movies in my queue;
3) Cancel your account and apply for a new one. Then the "fun" starts all over again as you get good service for a few weeks, then bad again. This isn't a good long-term solution, especially if you have a lot of movies in your queue.
When I had a Blockbuster DVD Freedom Pass, I would rent three DVDs in-store at a time and would take out an average of 30-50 movies per month. Sometimes I'd go in two or three times per day to swap out movies, especially if one or more were shitty. I gave up renting in-store because they no longer had any movies I wanted to see after about a year, aside from the occassional new release (membership was not transferable from store to store). I thought Netflix was the solution but it obviously isn't working out to be all I hoped for. However, I hear that Blockbuster Online and similar services (Peerflix, etc.) are even worse! So, I'm stuck with the Devil I know, or else out of luck completely...
I really wish Netflix would take action to resolve their profitability issues without constantly resorting to all this deception.
posted by Todd Tjersland at 1:51 AM
4 Comments:
One other trick I've read about and tried (though I'm not sure if it has any effect) is to put a bunch of movies that haven't ben released yet (but have release dates) at the top of my rental queue. Supposedly, this tricks Netflix into thinking they're screwing you over by skipping your top rental choices, LOL, which is something they often do, in my experience.
I've been doing the above "not yet released yet" new release trick ever since my last comment but am not sure how effective it is.
Right now, I'm trying to watch every episode of ALIAS, in order (four six disk sets as season five isn't out until November 2006). I had no troubles until season three, when Netflix skipped past all my queued ALIAS DVDS to send me WHAT'S HAPPENING!, SEASON 2: Disk 1 (around slot #10 in my queue). That irked me, as much as I love WHAT'S HAPPENING! Then, they tried to screw me by saying the next ALIAS DVD had a "short wait." I knew that was crap, so I switched all my ALIAS DVDs over to my subaccount, deleting everything else on that queue. The next ALIAS still showed up as " short wait" but Netflix now had no choice but to ship me the disks I wanted. But they delayed shipment a day. I then transferred all eight of my rental slots to my subaccount (devoted to ALIAS). I sent back the six DVDs that I still had out and am hoping I get the rest of the ALIAS disks I want in order and in a timely fashion. But I bet Netflix screws me by shipping them from different distribution centers so they arrive out of order. ALIAS is the kind of TV series you can't watch out of order so I'm a bit stuck.
BTW: I'd never seen ALIAS before now. I am really surprised and delighted with just how much I am enjoying it. It's easily some of the finest TV ever produced! I'm kicking myself for not watching when it was originally on...
Well, Netflix screwed me on my Alias disks as I expected. They acknowledged receipt of all six DVDs I returned, and shipped me the next six disks so I'd have them tomorrow, along with the other two they said would be shipping today.
But here's the catch--the next disk I need to watch is coming from NY and won't show up til Friday or Saturday, which means I will only ZERO DVDs to watch until then, despite having seven arriving tomorrow--because I can't watch the goddamn series out of order!
What a bunch of total bastards, shipping me a DVD from NY when they have it in stock locally--just to keep me from getting the "unlimited DVDs" per month I pay them for. I hate Netflix!
No more problems with Netflix since my last trouble trying to watch ALIAS last month. I have all eight rental slots still queued to my subaccount and only ever place enough movies in my queue to fill the exact number of open slots. I am also adding soon to be released but not yet available titles I want to see and placing these as my top choices (which are unfillable until released). I did slow down my returns in October while I was in preproduction for my new zombie movie, True Necromance, so maybe that helped some. Anyway, I've been pleasantly surprised Netflix hasn't persisted in its obnoxious pattern of screwing me over, LOL. It's probably only a matter of time til they start up again but in the meantime, I've got seasons 1-4 of 24 to watch!
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