lovefilm dvd rental

davebrown

I've been with lovefilm, the online DVD rental company for about 6 months now, maybe a bit more but recently have started to notice that it takes a really long time for them to get disks sent out to me. I've had 18 items in my queue and no disks sent in 4 days. None of the disks in the queue are flagged as being 'high demand' which means it should take longer than usual to send so I decided to contact them and ask what the problem was.
When I first joined I'd tried amazon/dvds365,tesco's and lovefilm all roughly the same time and found Lovefilm to be the best, had a good selection and seemed very quick turnaround. But as I said recently its taking them ages to send me disks.

This was part of the reply ;

Our system will prioritise a customer's DVD dispatch by allocating a next available dispatch date. This gives everyone of our customers an equal chance of getting their next disc as soon as possible. - No one customer gets priority as this would be unfair.

I replied back just now asking them if that isnt in direct violation of their advertised 'Unlimited disks a month'.
Surely they are in fact limiting peoples disks a month.

After closer inspection on their terms and conditions I also found ;

We will do our best to get the discs you have requested to you as quickly as possible. However, we do operate a fair use policy that aims to ensure a balanced experience for all our members. This means that we give priority to members who don't rent high numbers of discs from us. Therefore, members who rent the most discs from us might experience lower mailing priority. By allocating discs in this way we ensure a fair system for all LOVEFiLM members.

I cant help but think that this is something they have just recently introduced as I never seemed to have problems with them before.

I wonder if they are in breach of advertising standards. :think:

I'm going to have to look for another DVD Rental company now it seems, but I wouldnt be surprised if they're all operating the same policy. Amazon had the best turn around but spoilt it for me by limiting the number of disks a month I could receive.

Foxy

i think this may be best on the vent board imo:)

NJO_3

Hi, im with lovefilm and have sent my last dvd back 2 weeks ago, they have recived it but not sent me any more in my que since? so its not just you davebrown. im also considering quiting this month and going elsewhere.

zodiac

I have the same thing with lovefilm. When I did the trial they were fast with no problems but when I started to pay it was a slower, recenly its been a week turn round. I dont get the DVDs at the top of my list (ive been waiting for 'meet the fockers' since it came out)
It use to be faster for me when they were at Harlow as Harlow is quite close to me but now Peterboughter (sp) means the DVDs go to a sorting office further from me. A friend parents brought him a years subscription with 3 Dvds and his turn around is even slower (a week to 2 weeks or so). I think once they have your money, they dont really care about customer services.

If anyone uses another DVD rental service that is better - let us know!

EKokay

As others said, free trial period is good but as soon as you start paying
it slips rapidly. I am on '3 unlimited' and have had 2 discs in the last 8 days from my queue of 26. One of these is the '7 samurai' plus a couple of others I
regard as not 'top of the pops'. It has been like this since my trial period ended and I opted to pay for 'Unlimited 3 movies'. They have also put in a series ie. "All Creatures Great and Small - 306 mins" but they send out 1 disc 106 mins. I complained, said they would send out series as stated but I just got another disc with 2 episodes rather than ' series' as stated. After I complained, the discs really dried up - said they sent out 1 disc 1 day-never arrived- next day another disc- never arrived. When I reported I was told they might not send out any more discs as I seemed to have a problem area
and that Royal Mail would send an 'mail lost investigation report' - never received. This is included in my quota and then you have to wait at least 7 days to report non-delivery. NEVER had any problems before incl ebay etc.............It seems they give you a good trial period and then get all the money back after that by not sending discs as promised..............In conclusion, you are better to keep on getting 'Free Trial Periods', the longer the better. It would seem I am going to get 2 discs per week from a list of 25-30 most of which are not in top 10. I really wonder whether it is just best to go to local video shop and take your top choice. Guess what I am going to do this week? Cancel my 'Lovefilm' account? Too right!!... EKokay

Moomin

I have been on trial with Lovefilm for a fortnight now, and it was all hunkydory until the last few days where they have been sending me DVDs way down in my rental queue (and I mean waaaay down). I can understand that the top 5 in my list may be popular requests and therefore may be unavailable, but I'm being sent discs that are numbers 15 and 12 in my list. I'm going off these guys now. Thank god for free trial periods.

davebrown

Yeah you see, they also have the indicators to show how in demand or 'unavailable' a particular disk, and the ones which were on the top of my queue rarely had an unavailable indicator. I dont use them now. I went bankrupt anyway and I couldnt pay them via direct debit. even though after many emails explaning to them I couldnt pay by cheque or direct debit card, they said emailed me, (i'm sure another automatic email) saying that my account has been passed to a debt collection agency. durr, Hello i'm bankrupt, that wont help you.
Anyway today they emailed me saying 3 new rentals are on the way. ??!?!??! Just looked at their website and it appears its down, so seems they have many problems/ admin/technical/customer service blah blah

Liz19

Yes, lovefilm are the pits. I have just been emailing them for the second time in two weeks about the slow delivery of discs. It is most definitely not an unlimited service. I am on a 3 months for the price of 1 deal just now so I don't even have the luxury of telling them to stick it without losing out. I will not be using them again in the future.

mdb99jh

If anyone is wanting to ditch lovefilm, can I recommend screenselect? They have a huge selection of disks, lightening turnaround and great customer service IMO.

TheChillPill

I can recommend mymoviestream quite highly - they show you what's *actually* available, not just whether it's in demand etc. Basically, you can adjust your queue based on which of the ones that are available that day. I've never yet been sent something I didn't put at the top of my queue.

I generally go for ones that have been out a while (get my new ones, erm...'elsewhere', lol) - but on the occasions I have requested a newly released title, it's generally been available within a day or two.

TheChillPill

Just another point regarding Lovefilm (and screenselect, because I found the same with them) - 18 items in your queue isn't enough. If you can stick upwards of 75 on there, you should get a much better turnaround (thats what I've found anyway)