I'd been a longtime (10 years) Blockbuster gold card member which means I rent a lot of movies.
I'd been on the Freedom Plan program but decided to use their online service since I'd been with Blockbuster all that time and thought customer loyalty still meant something in this country.
Well, I bought the prepaid coupon which comes with a free mousepad at my local store. The introductory one month plan cost 9.99 for three DVD's at a time.
On October 8th, I followed the instructions on the coupon. I created my login account and started choosing movies and entering them into my queue. I noted immediately that there no activity when I saved my queue selections.
On Monday, October 10th, I got three emails that my DVD's had been shipped and that I should get them in 1-3 days. The estimated date of arrival was the 12th. That sounded ok.
At this point, I noticed that I'd been charged as of the 8th instead of the 10th and I made mention of that fact in a complaint email I sent to them via their customer service.
A day later, their response was:
"Your membership begins the day your account is activated. We apologize for the delay; it can take up to 24 hours for your first shipment to process. Please keep in mind that we do not ship or check in titles on Sundays.
As of today, our records reflect your first three DVD's have been shipped to you. We want to thank you for joining our online service. If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us."
Well, that great! Then they shouldn't accept the new accounts until they're able to service them, Monday thru Friday. Accepting an account on a Saturday means a 48 hour delay, right? I think they should charge the day they either service the account or get your first DVD.
It's now October 14th and I still haven't received any DVD's. That means out of a thirty day rental cycle, I haven't received any service for nearly 7 days.
As far as I am concerned, this constitutes fraud. I sent them an email outlining the problem and requested a cancellation of my service with a full refund. I expect I'll get another flippant reply on either Saturday or Monday since they don't work on Sundays.
Either way, I'd highly discourage anybody from using their service. The customer service system is terrible. There is no phone support to talk to somebody live about problems like this which makes it really aggravating.
I'd like to add that I used the (competitor's name deleted - see below) two week trial and that I was amazed that the DVD's were so quick to ship and receive.
I will probably go with (deleted) permanently. And I will probably continue to use the local Blockbuster stores for rentals.
Alfredo
North Bergen, New Jersey
U.S.A.
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