"I have been a BlockBuster (BB) online rental customer for several years. I have not had any major issues with them. Occasionally, about 1 in 15 discs, I receive a cracked DVD. But this is due more to rough treatment by USPS than BB. USPS runs all mail here through their automated system and sometimes it cracks the disc. I guess the USPS machines were designed before mailing DVD's became popular. We're probably going to have to put up with cracked discs until the USPS machinery is too old to repair and must be replaced. ;^)

One problem I've had with BB is with ONE DVD title: "The Thin Red Line", 1964. I rented it 3 times. Unfortunately, the first one they sent me was cracked and the last 2 they sent me were the 1998 version staring Sean Penn. BB has since fixed this problem by no longer offering the 1964 version. Thanks to USPS, I'll probably never see the 1964 version. Apparently BB only had 1 in stock.

One irritating feature of BB's queue is when they say "Coming Soon", "Very Long Wait", and "Long Wait." For DVD's I have added which have these availabilities, their status has never changed. Essentially, this means "YOU'LL NEVER RENT THEM." Even DVD's which say "Short Wait", their status do not change for a month.

Luckily, most popular movies show as available for rent.

Last month, I also started a Netflix membership trial. I wanted to rent "ER - Season 7" and the BB status was "Very Long Wait", meaning I'd never rent it. Nearly every single Netflix title has an availability status of "Now." Netflix has a much larger selection of DVD's which are available for immediate rental.

The most notable difference between Netflix and BB is speed. Both companys' DVD's return to #25,xxx PO Boxes, same zip code. They are probably in the same USPS building! BB claims when I return a DVD to their retail store, they will ship faster. Yet, if I return them in the morning, NOTHING HAPPENS until the next day. It's the same when I return them via USPS. NOTHING happens for 2 days. When I return Netflix DVD's, they receive them the NEXT DAY and immediately mail the next DVD the same day. Netflix is ALWAYS one day faster.

Finally, Netflix's website Queue is much quicker and easier to use than BB's. When you change a DVD's position by dragging and dropping, it's immediate. For BB's Queue, when you do the same, it redraws the entire page and your CPU usage jumps to 100% for several seconds, causing FireFox to freeze or stutter. Netflix's Queue is far better.

If you want to exchange DVD's in a store for an immediate rental, then use BB. If you don't want to pay extra for this or don't have a BB store near you, use Netflix instead.
"

"we used bluckbuster online for 7 months. we always returned our three online movies to the store every friday. the first two months our new movies arrived every tuesday. the second two months our new movies would arrive every wednesday. the third two months our new movies arrived every thursday. then they cancled us and said that plan is no longer available. would you like to sign up for our new plan? its the same thing you had but the price has increased by 39%.

I dont see how they could be in business for this long and do something so fishy to teir long time customres. we will never ever rent a single movie from blockbuster again. I couldn't care less about a few extra dollars, what I do care about is not being screwed over by some corporation.

try netflix, they have some issues too but the overall rating is much better than blockbuster.

heres a lawsuit:
http://www.state.nj.us/lps/newsreleases05/pr20050218a.html

complaint files with comsumers affair: you have never seen this many complaints agains one company:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/entertainment/blockbuster_late.html

blockbusters better business beura track record. so many complaints, just scroll down!
http://www.dallas.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bid=3000020
"

"Words can't describe the moronic responses that the Blockbuster "Customer Care" (that's a laugh) group puts out on a daily basis. They never investigate your issue that you contacted them about but they quickly send out a generalized statement with an overview of their policy which may apply to why you didn't receive your movies in a timely manner or it may not! They couldn't offer a reasonable response to why they couldn't send a movie that clearly stated it was available on your movie que but was passed by time an time again to go further down your list and you can forget about having any new releases shipped out on the day that they are supposedly available on that Tuesday. I believe it's clearly because Blockbuster has staffed their Customer Care (actually Customer Don't Care) facility with a group of mentally challenged individuals. I finally responded back after several back and forth emails without gettting a response to my original issue by telling them that they were throughly entertaining with their off the wall responses. I just wish someone would start up an online movie rental company that would do what they say and say what they do!"

"Rented two movies from them -- both horribly scratched. Came back to get a better copy or my money back. One DVD they had a better copy of -- for the other one, the other copy was even worse so I asked for my money back. They said okay and gave me a coupon, which I didn't want. They refused to give my money back for the bad DVD, even though I returned it an hour and a half after renting.

I will never deal with Blockbuster again, and I'll be reporting them to the Better Business Bureau tomorrow. Horrible experience."

"So far so good. Customer service is excellent. I accidentally returned one of my own DVDs in the envelope. I realized this when I found the disc I meant to return in my player. I sen them an email before they even recieved the envelope. They assured me they would return my disc as soon as possible and I can send back theirs with another disc. They did as they promised and let me know when their disc was recieved so I would not worry about being charged.

Movies go out a little slow sometimes, but quick enough to where I would continue using."

"I'm writing this review primarily to let people know that if you cancel membership after you're paid up for the month, you will lose that money. Blockbuster says their policy is to continue membership for 15 days after cancellation as a courtesy, but they consider the date you cancel as the cancellation date, regardless that you prepaid for a month. I cancelled on 4/4/07 but my membership was paid through 5/3. They stopped shipping movies to me after 4/20 despite that there were several movies listed as "Available" in my queue - and refused to give me a prorated refund. They gave me some bull about how the movies are at different centers and if one can't ship timely they move down the list which would correspond with the previous reviewer's comments that he kept receiving movies from the middle of his queue. If it's "Available," it should be available, otherwise no earthly point in having a queue and things in order within it. Ridiculous.

But anyway, if you cancel your membership, do it the day before you're to be billed for the next month; otherwise you will lose the last 15 days' membership you paid for. It's not worth it for me to spend more time fighting with them than I already have for a week's refund, but I hope I can save someone else the same headache.

So for the full review, I tried them out after having been unhappy with Neflix shipping times, and they were the same. It was often 24 hours or more between logging in a returned movie and shipping out a new one, and that just wasn't acceptable to me. It wasn't terrible, just for me doesn't seem a good value for the monthly fee.

Blockbuster's focus is very heavy on the brick-and-mortar store. The fees are higher than Netflix which I suppose is meant to account for the "extras" that are available to you - brick and mortar coupons, free rentals when you return your movies to the store instead of through the mail - but the reason I want online rentals is because I want...online rentals. So again the higher fees are not worth it for me.

Their website is annoying and difficult to navigate, no comparison to Netflix whatsoever. I kept a separate window of imdb.com open so I could see their reviews.

Definitely stay away from them if you don't want them stealing the last few bucks of your membership unless you manage to time your cancellation down to the minute. If some bonehead customer service rep wouldn't refund me the grand total of four dollars and fifty cents after refusing to ship available movies until my membership ran out, they're certainly not in the business of making customers happy.

FYI - I was still unable to use a gift card for online purchases as of 4/07. Blockbuster has been saying for some time they're "retooling" their website and unable to accept gift cards for online purchases. I think this is just blockbuster-ese for "Our focus is on our brick and mortar stores." Give their online membership a pass -- they're not up to speed yet. "

"Blockbuster seems to be getting worst after the first month. First time I've gotten a wrong disc in a sleeve. Alot of the discs are really scratched up but I believe that it's the fault of the people that rent them and the post office people. At the moment I am getting 4 movies at a time but they only sent me 3 and there's been a free spot for 2 days now. I emailed them about it and they sent me some bs about available movies in my queue being low but I have over 200 in queue which most are available. They also said something about some movies may not be able to reach me in the allotted time, which I think is more bs. If you can't get it to me in 2 days because it's too far, then when will it ever be close enough? Does blockbuster ship it to different branches then send it to me? Why not just send it to me and it'll get to me in 3 days at most even from the other side of the country. Blockbuster and all the other online retailers and service provides need to stop lying to their customers. This will be my last month with blockbuster, I'm going to netflix."

"I had netflix for a year and was quite happy with them (except for the occasional throttling). But then came blockbuster with free in-store rentals when you turned in your dvds. I think the greed twisted my mind. I thought with blockbuster online I could do two things that netflix can't offer:

1. I can personally hand over my dvds to a store associate, no "lost in the mail" crap that netflix claims from time to time when they throttle you (it will happen a few times until they've slowed you down enough and then just start sending the movies out at a normal speed)

2. More free rentals for impulse moving watching

I did the 30-day 3 at a time trial. Everything was great; dvds came on time and in order. Then the free trial ended. The first movie was sent to me cracked in half with what looked like superglue on it in a poor attempt to fix the movie. When I reported it missing and returned the dvd to the local blockbuster store, it took 4 more days for it to be removed from my "shipped" category. Then my "shipped" section had an empty slot for 5 more days. I emailed "customer care" stating that if it is a high demand movie (the lion king) that they can just ship me the next movie in my que. I received an email that made no sense (i think they sent me the wrong email),thanking me for my support. And this was just the first disc of my first paying month.

The other 2 discs I was sent were number 12 and 16 in my que. I currently have a 32 disc set series in my top que. During the trial, I received discs 1-6 of the series in order. I am ending my first month as a paying customer and I have yet to receive disc 7 (yes it's all listed as ‘available’). I became annoyed over the next couple of weeks with receiving out of order dvds, so I called their customer service number. I sat on hold for over 35 minutes and when I talked the associate, he stated, in a very snotty tone, "if you want a series in order, you have to add the series as a block, not individually." When I told him that blockbuster didn't offer that option for my series, he stated, "sucks to be you."

And then there’s the "ship out the next dvd in your que the next business day." Every disc that I return to a blockbuster store takes 2-3 days to clear my "shipped list", then a day of an empty "shipped" list and the following day they will ship out my dvds- with a 3 day delivery time. The same dvds in the series I received during my trial were received and shipped back out, all in about 2 days. Now it’s a 4-5 day process.

Being a web programmer, I can tell you that their website is awful. There are loads of functions that do not work correctly. The interface is slow. There are a lot of broken links and dead pages. Little to no information on dvds (I have to look up the series' volume numbers on wikipedia to find them on blockbuster website and to keep them in order (some of the dvds are listed my volume number, some by the volumes title).

The customer service is a joke. You can send them any kind of email and they'll send a generic email stating that they "value your support" and give you another coupon. You could probably send them an email that simply reads "what are you wearing right now" and you would get a coupon back with a "thank you for your support" message.

All in all, if you could combine nextflix's website and shipping operation with blockbusters return to store policy, you would have a killer operation. Trust me, save yourself the aggravation and just go with netflix with its next day delivery and returns. You can time your returns correctly and never really be without a movie. Me, I'm heading back to netflix at the end of this month.

"

"I give up!!!!!!!! They constantly send movies out of order! All the movies are available in my queue and they send number 14? I have yet to receive a series in the correct order, It is so annoying to receive part 3 before part 1 and 2!!

They keep coming out with new services but they have yet to perfect what they already have going.

1 star out of 10"

"I've been a Netflix member for 6 years, and last week, I decided to give the Blockbuster free trial membership a shot. I will not extend the membership beyond the trial...

Strike 1: Website problems. Site does not support Firefox.

Strike 2: Customer service problems. They send "Copy & Paste" generic replies to customer inquiries, and requests for additional help were ignored.

Strike 3: Product & service problems. I placed 6 titles in my queue, all of which were listed as "available." The first DVD they sent was in position #6, while numbers 1 through 5 were "available." The second DVD they sent was in position #3, and 1 & 2 were "available." That's pretty bad, but what makes it worse is that the DVDs in positions #1 through #5 were part of a series (part 1, part 2, etc.), and locked together, so what good is part 3 if I have yet to see parts 1 & 2?

No support for Firefox is something I could live with, but I'd never PAY for a subpar product, with subpar support. "

"Arg, what a mess. I've used both Netflix and Blockbuster over the past 3 or 4 years and have had difficulties with both. I've been using Netflix for the past year and must say they've got much better at both delivery time and dependability. However, when Blockbuster recently announced the ability to return the online DVD rentals to the store and receive a free in-store title (in addition to your monthly coupons), I was enticed to switch back to Blockbuster. So, I signed back up, filled up my queue, printed my e-coupons and started using the service.

First problem:
They shipped a movie that was #8 in my queue, when #1 through #7 were all listed as "Available". I inquired with Blockbuster support as to why this occurred. Their explanation was that the system first checks to see which title in your queue they can get to you within 2 days, then it checks that against your queue. This is quite interesting to hear. This basically means that your queue order is completely meaningless. Furthermore, 2 out of the 5 DVD's that I have received took 4 days to arrive, and were in position #5 and #7 in my queue.

Second Problem:
They shipped a movie that was not in my queue at all. Again, I inquired with Blockbuster Support as to why this occurred. I received a canned response stating that movies are shipped in the order in which they are positioned in your queue(??) Wait a minute... #1) I thought they didn't do that (see previous problem) #2) The title was not in my queue to begin with. They completely ignore my question. I replied again stating my original question, and they basically said: "I'm sorry that you are experiencing problems with Blockbuster Online. Please use this free in-store coupon for an additional rental." I appreciate the attempt to turn things around, but this is completely avoiding my original question.
Third Problem:
I return the DVD title that I never requested, and 2 days later they ship another title that isn't in my queue. So, I inquire as to why this continues to happen, and I basically repeat the exact same that happened above. This time I threatened to cancel, and instead of a free in-store coupon, they offered me to continue service at a discounted rate. I could have accepted the gracious offer, except that I'm not even receiving movies I request, or even in the order in which I requested.

So, I've canceled, probably for good.

One thing to note: Now they are using the local shops as distribution centers, which means that it takes longer to receive your titles (no longer first class mail), and you're relying on the speed and accuracy of in-store personel (which I sometimes question)."

"Tried Netflix and found the turnaround time to be very slow. DVD's would take 3-5 days to arrive and almost as long to register as being returned. Signed up for the Blockbuster service and have been quite satisfied. The time from them shipping to my mailbox is 1 day. From the time I ship until they receive the DVD is about 2 days. There have been a few occasions when a DVD has been received by them and they haven't shipped the next selection out for a day or so. The in store coupons are also quite nice since you can rent something on the spur of the moment."

"i've been reasonably pleased with blockbuster, but mostly because i have low expectations. i switched from netflix because my movies had slowed to a trickle.

pros:
* blockbuster is sometimes faster, but hasn't been any slower than netflix.
* very good selection online and i like the weekly coupons to get a movie in store.

cons:
* i have received several damaged DVDs. but they have an easy means of reporting online and i've been sent replacements fairly quickly.
* processing and delivery times can be erratic. "

"I have twice been given the wrong movie and have had to return to the store. I will try Netflix because I think its not worth the hassle to drive to Blockbuster. I wasnt happy about late fees and their claim of No Late Fees. This is why I wont try their online service."

"Blockbuster online sucks -- having read all the comments here, they're pretty much similar! I'd been using Blockbuster online since Feb 05, and had rented a total of 76 DVDs so far. I think they are indeed getting worser and worser.

To be fair, their turn around time for me, in San Francisco is fast, about 3-4 days. That's not the story. The problem is their priority queue -- until recently they simply ignored my queue, with the first 3 in the order being skipped again and again for almost a month, even when all of them are marked as "available"!

You know how frustrated when I've finished the first 3 discs of the 14 series, and they just stopped sending you the rest and send you some other DVDs on your list!

When asked their customer services, they simply cut & paste the FAQ section as an answer--what are they thinking!?

Well I've emailed their customer services to complain again but I think they simply just DON'T CARE -- I reckon they just don't wanna do business with me at all!!

Update as of Mar 4 2006, their customer service responded fast as usual, but did nothing and paste the same FAQ saying that they can't guarantee the order of shipment.

I did clear my queue and left only the first 3 disc to test if they are available -- and YES, they eventually shipped them to me, only to proof that they DELIBERATELY not to ship my queue in order!!

Result? I cancel my subscription and switched to Netflix, at least they respected my queue order so far, and did it in a timely manner better than Blockbuster--I returned the discs to both at the same time at the same postbox, and received new DVDs from Netflix a day earlier than Blockbuster!

Just a simply test to proof how Blockbuster don't care with their customer -- even an anniversary one!!"