Blockbuster online, I am sure many of you know as a DVD rental system by mail. They send you DVD’s by the mail and you do not have to bring them back to the video store by the due date. As swell as that sounds, I have been a customer for almost 2 years, and wanted to share the top 10 reasons as to why this company is not all it is cracked up to be.
1. The number one reason is the online availability. I have had a movie that has said ‘coming soon’ since I began the service. I don’t even know why Blockbuster has this title listed if they don’t ever intend on purchasing the video for viewers. Instead it sits their on my list as coming soon for all eternity. Not only that new releases always have about a 1 to 2 month wait until it gets sent to you. They do not have enough copies to fulfill the demand of the movie, so you wait, and wait… and wait some more.
2. They send you whatever movie they want, in whatever order they want. Say you put Punky Brewster as your next movie to be shipped, it is not uncommon for Blockbuster to just choose whatever movie they want on the list. I have had them send me movie number 15, and totally skipping all of the movies before then.
3. Turn around times are ridiculous. They now allow you to bring in your movies to the store so you can rent one for free when you exchange your mailing envelope. However once you do this, it takes almost a week for them to send the next movie. Even when you send the movie back out in the mail, it takes about a week for it to get back. When I first began the service it only took 3 days, as time went on though, turn around times increased.
4. Broken movies! It is not uncommon for this to happen. I have gotten movies that were actually broken into pieces. Blockbuster says clearly on their site that if occurrences like this happen too often you the customer will be charged! Why should be be charged for broken DVD’s or ones lost in the mail!?
5. Their online site runs so slowly. It takes forever for the frigging pages to load up, and forever to delete anything from your Que of movies. Blockbuster thought that updating the site made things easier, but now things are even glitchier than before and are running at snail like speeds, even with a high speed cable modem.
6. It takes them almost 5 days to respond back when you have an issue, or need to contact the online site. Sometimes I even get responses that they cannot answer my question due to the lack of information provided! Yet when I read over my letter it makes perfect sense to me. Why is such and such a movie still saying COMING SOON!? How hard is that to answer!?
7. How can I be an online Blockbuster member, but still have no actual in store blockbuster card? I’m sorry but when I signed up one should have been sent with my service! I still have to use my moms card because all they have available in stores are temporary pieces of paper.
8. When certain new movies are coming out to theaters they are not listed unless you keyword the directors name. Superman in particular was one of the movies not listed under the proper section. They do this often with coming soon movies, making it harder to find them. In my opinion it is so they can handle the demand. Thinking if they make it harder to find, less will be shipped.
9. No more special coupons. When I first signed up, I got a coupon every week for a $5 used title, or a free bottle of Pepsi or popcorn. Now all I get once a month is a print up coupon for a game or movie rental. Yay! I liked having a snack coupon every time I went in. They totally tossed that out the window, and gave us ‘discounts’ on snacks instead. However these discounts apply for everyone, not just online service members.
10. When they don’t have a title online, I will go into the store and it too will be sold out. It seems that the online service, and the in store service sucks the same.
Overall, Blockbuster really needs to up their collection and number of titles they have. They need to buy more than 10 of a movie, seeing how they have thousands of people to cover. I don’t understand why they would not stock up big on new releases, instead they keep you on a waiting list just like everyone else. Waiting nearly 2 months to see a new release is just a pain in the butt, especially seeing how I pay so much money for their service.
I pay nearly $25 a month to be put on a waiting list.
