30 day Lidl Movies trial

young_victor_meldrew

sheilapeter wrote: »

I had an email from Lidl informing me of the 30 day free trial so tried to sign up.
It rejected my card so tried 2 others and it did the same thing. All the card are active and in credit.
I have had previous trials with Lovefilm and blockbusters but not this company.
I have emailed them twice over the last week to ask why it would not let me sign up and had no response.
Think I will give them a miss

Thats very odd... my sis emailed them an got a reply within 3 hours... shes really pleased with the service she is getting, telling everyone she knows, I had to ask her if she's secretly working for them!

masterbrown

One word of advice with Outnow, always get a certificate of posting when returning discs, if you don't and it goes missing they have a policy of charging you the full value of purchasing a replacement rental version (anywhere between £40 - £90).

young_victor_meldrew

masterbrown wrote: »

One word of advice with Outnow, always get a certificate of posting when returning discs, if you don't and it goes missing they have a policy of charging you the full value of purchasing a replacement rental version (anywhere between £40 - £90).

Masterbrown, I have an account with OutNow and have just recommended Lidl to my little sister, well shes in her late 20's, but all the same stil my little sis!

I have to correct you because I have been in the same situation myself! If a disc goes missing in the post and you let them know, they send you a form to fill in, if you fill in the form you dont get charged.

Secondly, they charge £10 per disc not £40-£90 per disc, so you have actually made that up.

Thirdly, and I have this in writing from one of their reps - you only need a certficate of postage when sending your last set of discs if you cancel!

I am going to Email them to let them know there is some stuff on this board that needs correcting, I am all for consumer rights and warning people about bad practice, but where is making it up as you go along going to get anyone? Unless you work for their competition of course!

It just means that I will take all you say in future with a pinch of salt because you exaggerate the truth!

A quick check of their site terms and conditions also backs up what I have just said!

JAG

Read this website for reviews on their service which gets 2 out of 5 from 167 reviews.

http://www.choosedvdrental.co.uk/dvd-rental-review/outnow.asp

phillh79

I had the 3 month free trial with lovefilm i was impressed and then after I won my blu-player i signed up with them. I'm receiving upto 6 films a week now using their 3 at a time service and even through the royal mail strikes im not missing any viewing.

They have put a policy in place where if you miss rentals due to strike action they will add them to your account for another time.

Stick to the big names its worth the extra you pay for the service.

dnomyar

young_victor_meldrew wrote: »

Masterbrown, I have an account with OutNow and have just recommended Lidl to my little sister, well shes in her late 20's, but all the same stil my little sis!

I have to correct you because I have been in the same situation myself! If a disc goes missing in the post and you let them know, they send you a form to fill in, if you fill in the form you dont get charged.

Secondly, they charge £10 per disc not £40-£90 per disc, so you have actually made that up.

Thirdly, and I have this in writing from one of their reps - you only need a certficate of postage when sending your last set of discs if you cancel!

I am going to Email them to let them know there is some stuff on this board that needs correcting, I am all for consumer rights and warning people about bad practice, but where is making it up as you go along going to get anyone? Unless you work for their competition of course!

It just means that I will take all you say in future with a pinch of salt because you exaggerate the truth!

A quick check of their site terms and conditions also backs up what I have just said!

So your going to email outnow, good luck on a response! If you look closely at the Ts and Cs in the paragraph before they mention the £10 / £15 charge, they use a very good legal term in relation to what is a lost disc "at our discretion". Therfore if they determine that a disc was not lost (effectively calling you a theif) as they have not quoted what charge applies when they class a DVD as "not lost" but stolen, they can charge what ever they like, take the money from the card details you have given them (as earlyer in Ts and Cs you give them perimission to charge whatever fees to your card), meaning they can effectively acuse you of stealing a disc without actually saying it and get a way with it. Also the Ts and Cs changed very recently (states last updated 30/09/09). But if you do a search for mymoviestream and Outnow reviews / problems, I found some people who did get charged a fair bit for lost discs, people who got charged after cancelling, and I myself was charged for a months rental after I had cancelled even though I posted my disc back well in time and provided proof of delivery.

Also be weary because there Ts and Cs under the free trial paragraph b. also state that they get validation for 3 months payment from your card (some card companies will deduct this from you available balance until the validation is removed), thus leaving you short of your available funds for this period.

sheilapeter

Just to update, I had an email saying to try signing up again and have successfully done so and 3 discs are on the way.
My only concern is that of the 48 discs in my list over 40 state that there will be a long wait.
The other thing is that living in the wilds of Cornwall, although I have a post box across the road, it is a major expedition to get to a post office to get proof of posting which someone advised.
I never bothered with that with my Lovefilm trial and never had any problems.
I will just see how it works out. I don't think the selection of DVDs is as good as Lovefilm, but I suppose it depends on what you want.

uniball

I can't say I was not forewarned by the various posts but indeed this is an offer better to stay away from.
Firstly the service is appaling compared with other services such as lovefilm.

Secondly customer service is unresponsive and cancellation is a nightmare.

When cancelling one must obtain a proofn of postage, which I duely did.
As was ment5ioned in some forums surely the last DVD alledgedly never arrived back (no surprice).
I scanned and emailed them the proof of postage. They then go ahead and charge you for another Month and emailing back they don't receive email attachments (gotcha #1)
I then asked for a fax number which initially they did not supply.
They then insist you send the proof of postage -but signed for only!- at your own cost naturally.
When I got sightly irate they finally supplied their fax number (why so late...?)
Their fax number is 0160 4589014
It took them over a week to get me the fax number.
In any case I recommend to stay away from lidlmovies.
(They don't received DVDs on Saturday either so most DVDs sent back on a Thursday are not recorded as received until Monday or Tuesday the following week!

pippitypip_2

The surefire way aorund these issues is to post back your last films as usual. While waiting for them to receive them, clear your list so there are no more to send out.

Once they have confirmed they have received them - then cancel.

I've done this at least three times with outnow and not had any problems whatsoever.

Incidentally I also do that with the other rental companies, make sure they have received them first before cancelling..

hth,
pippitypip.

Neptune

Thought I would try the Lidl Movies Free 1 month trial.

Took a week for the first 2 movies to arrive, so allowing me to watch and return them, them get 2 more would by my calculations take about 14 days. So the best I could hope for is 4 movies per month, so the unlimited deals are useless.

Onto the main problems:

Got two discs: 1 worked OK, the other stopped right in the middle of the film (so much for tested before despatch), tried this on 3 DVD players, film stopped every time at the same place.

Yes I know it's just me, but could not work out how to return the films. So contacted their customer service - well if you want to be laughed at and belittled these people are for you, personally would rather spend my money on something else. First guy hung up as I was' frustrating' him!
Called back and spoke to supposedly the 'Customer Service Manager' - IMHO must previously have been the Customer Service Manager for inmates at a Russian Prison! Absolutely no CS skills what-so-ever, just made matters worse. In the end 'I' had to hang-up.

Got called back by the Customer Service Director, who in all fairness was pretty good, listened, apologised and offered 2 more free months, a good offer but the damage had been done. So declined with thanks.
(Can also confirm they are 'OutNow' and was advised they are soon to do the DVD rental for Empire, so there's one to avoid also)

So now have cancelled and would advise others to do the same, just not worth it, the CS Director did advise that he would personally ensure everything with the cancellation went well.

I personally felt the CS Director was very good at his job, but the normal CS staff seemed like they hated you and saw you as a real inconvenience. If I were they I would sweep clean and start again, maybe their current crop have become too tainted to work in CS any longer or don't enjoy their work.

Would also have to agree that the choice of films is not good.

Think this experience has put me off postal DVD rental. My local DVD shop is much better, good selection, very friendly and quick. I just wanted to up my film viewing for the long winter nights and this seemed cheaper, not by that much either. So a big apology to 'On the Video Front' in Bath, please don't be mad at me!

Now will write to Lidl HQ and find out if anyone there uses the service and why on earth they partnered with these people. 1 out of 10