Block Buster Online - Slow? Unreliable? AND Now New Higher PRICE!

Indiana

Indiana

CAGiversary!
I was curious what some other people's experience has been with Block Buster Online.

They are very slow compared to Netflix. I have also received one DVD a day later than the other 3 even though they were all mailed from BB at the same time. The most disturbing thing is that the one that arrived late was already opened! Do the mail people watch the movies?

Or is this just a strange occurance?
 
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I know I had problems with it a couple months ago. Mainly they were very slow in shipping and receiving. That could of changed though since they were new to the business then and maybe have improved since then, but I doubt it.
 
Did you check where your nearest shipping centers are? Here in NY, I get all my DVDs the day rite after they've been shipped. Occasionally, you will get a DVD a day later than the rest. That's because they ship them out in the order you request them, so if one shipping center doesn't have it available, it'll be shipped from another one instead.
 
[quote name='Indiana']I was curious what some other people's experience has been with Block Buster Online.

They are very slow compared to Netflix. I have also received one DVD a day later than the other 3 even though they were all mailed from BB at the same time. The most disturbing thing is that the one that arrived late was already opened! Do the mail people watch the movies?

Or is this just a strange occurance?[/QUOTE]


almost all my movies come open. the post office says they rip open by themself because of the machines and handling of the mail. (what is werid oceans 12 took 6 days to get to me and it was open) I cant prove it but i think sometimes they do watch your movie and they give them to you the day after. you will never be able to prove it though
 
I agree the price is right. But they have bad shipping locations. For some reason my location is Lansing or Grand Rapids Michigan. My neighbor has Chicago.

WTF??? We are both in Indiananpolis with the same zipcode!!!
 
Just started my two-month trial (for Netflix customers that switch over) and the distribution center is in the same town as Netflix's. I've been getting my movies next day just like I did when with Netflix.
 
For me it usually takes a day after they ship to arrive at my house, it's quite fast and a great price (6-months free for me). None of mine have been opened.
 
I've yet to try Netflix so I can't compare to them, but I used both Blockbuster and Walmart for the free 30 day trials. Blockbuster was significantly faster than Walmart for me during the free trial. I think I received 18 in 30 days from Blockbuster as opposed to 6 from Walmart. Of course BB lets you have 3 out at a time instead of 2 from Walmart but that's a big difference.

I actually decided to keep BB an extra month and ever since they have been awfully slow for some reason. Now instead of getting a movie in almost every day I'm getting them every 3 or 4 days. I won't be keeping it after this month.
 
As someone who works in a post office I can say it does appear that Blockbuster is kicking the crap out of both Walmart and Netflix. Most of our Netflix seem to come in on Monday but we get a lot of Blockbuster DVDs every day. I would say the Blockbuster DVDs in the town I work in outnumber Neftlix about 10 to 1. Walmart wouldn't even figure into the equation. They were very rare to see. BB do tend to be open more because of that perforation on the front of the envelope that the others don't have. If it gets caught in a mail machine the perforation causes it to tear easily.
 
[quote name='Indiana']I agree the price is right. But they have bad shipping locations. For some reason my location is Lansing or Grand Rapids Michigan. My neighbor has Chicago.

WTF??? We are both in Indiananpolis with the same zipcode!!![/QUOTE]

im in fort wayne and i been bounced from

lansing then chicago then cleveland
 
[quote name='Indiana']I agree the price is right. But they have bad shipping locations. For some reason my location is Lansing or Grand Rapids Michigan.
WTF???[/QUOTE]

I don't think Lansing or Grand Rapids are bad shipping Locations. I'm in G.R. , so I always get my DVD's the day after I order them. I think the service is great! :p
 
It seems to depend on where you live. If you live in the same town as a shipping location, you'll get them fast. Personally, I found them to be much slower than Netflix, 60% of the titles in my queue had waits (opposed to virtually zero with Netflix), and they sent the wrong movie four times in one month (received the rated instead of unrated version of Bad Education twice, I received Scarface 1983 instead of the 1932 version, and instead of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, I received Tout Va Bien).
 
bad thing is they dont ship in order


Priority # Movie Title Rating Availability Remove

Subhuman R Available Now

Are We There Yet? [WS] PG Available Now

Dead Doll R Coming Soon

Life Aquatic R Available Now

Face of Terror R Long Wait

Alien Abduction Short Wait

Blood Trail R Coming Soon

Earthsea Available Now

Memorial Day R Short Wait

Son of the Mask [WS] PG Available Now

Black Cadillac R Available Now

Hard Ground Available Now

Vampires: The Turning R Available Now

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events PG Available Now

Boogeyman PG13 Coming Soon

Submerged R Coming Soon

Submerged R Coming Soon

lets see later today if i really get the top 3 movies doubful
 
[quote name='whitereflection']Did you check where your nearest shipping centers are? Here in NY, I get all my DVDs the day rite after they've been shipped. Occasionally, you will get a DVD a day later than the rest. That's because they ship them out in the order you request them, so if one shipping center doesn't have it available, it'll be shipped from another one instead.[/QUOTE]

Ditto...I am in NYC and am amazed with how fast the turnaround time is.
That is because they have a warehouse in Queens.

I think with all of these online rental services (Netflix, BBO, GameFly, etc...), its all about where you are in relation to the nearest warehouse.
 
[quote name='bballplaya210']I live in Ohio and it would take around 4 days to get a DVD after they sent it. It wasn't worth the price to wait that long.[/QUOTE]

I live in CIncinnati. And I get them either one or two days after they ship them. Very fast response time. I am impressed.
 
I only had 3 problems with BB, one took 4 days to get even though all 3 movies were shippped the same day from the same location. The other 2 times they shipped the wrong movie and wrong format.
 
Mine usually arrive pretty quickly.. i can't complain..

I've had one DVD arrive and be damaged.. They replaced it right away.

Another had only the address label arrive. The worst on it was that you have to wait a mandatory 3 days before you can report it to get a replacement sent.
 
I've been using the BB service for free this month and so far it's been great. I'm in Melbourne (FL) and the dist center is directly on the other side of the state in Tampa. Basically it takes two days for me to get them. So if I get the email saying "shipped" on Monday, I'll get the DVD on Wednesday. I can't complain about that.
One of the cool benefits of BB is that they give two coupons for free in store rentals of movies or GAMES, per month. Games cost like what, $5-$6 to rent nowadays, so that's at least a $10 value right there. Normally I don't rent games because it's too expensive but for free it's cool.
 
I noticed that the 6 months free that was changed to 2 months free has now been changed to 1 month free. They have fixed all the mistakes and took away the free months!!!
 
They seem to be improving.
Guess they now have a shipping center in chicago, so I'm getting the disks in two days max.

Tho, when my free trial was about to expire, they (it seemed) held my next shipment till my cc was charged.

At least for this month, they are on par with Netflix was before I quit (November last year).
 
[quote name='Indiana']I noticed that the 6 months free that was changed to 2 months free has now been changed to 1 month free. They have fixed all the mistakes and took away the free months!!![/QUOTE]

yea they took my 6 months down to 2 then to 1 month. I cancelled today.
 
I know I'm late to this topic, but my free trial is almost over, and this is my experience with Blockbuster online:

* MOVIES * 3/5 * Out of the 20+ movies I placed on my queue, about half of them were "Available Now" and the other half were on a "Short Wait." In nearly 30 days, I have only received 7 movies and am waiting for 2 more to ship before I finally cancel. This will bring my total to 9, or about 1 movie every 3 days.

* SHIPPING * 1/5 * The distribution center is only an hour or so drive from me, but it still takes nearly 3 days for movies to get from their distribution center to my mailbox. If it's shipped on Monday, I most-likely won't see it until Thursday. If it's shipped Thursday, I probably won't see it until the following week.

* RECEIVING * 3/5 * It sometimes only takes 1 or 2 days for the distribution center to receive an envelope, but it has taken nearly 4 days for my last couple of DVDs to register.

It's possible that my complications with shipping are because I signed up during the "free year" exploit, and BBO is finally getting back to normal after fixing all of their mistakes. It's also possible that my last few DVDs have been slowed down so that I somehow get suckered into another month while I wait for them to ship a new set.

* AVERAGE SCORE * 2.3/5 * I will be cancelling before my next cycle.
 
[quote name='Odibil']I know I'm late to this topic, but my free trial is almost over, and this is my experience with Blockbuster online:

* MOVIES * 3/5 * Out of the 20+ movies I placed on my queue, about half of them were "Available Now" and the other half were on a "Short Wait." In nearly 30 days, I have only received 7 movies and am waiting for 2 more to ship before I finally cancel. This will bring my total to 9, or about 1 movie every 3 days.

* SHIPPING * 1/5 * The distribution center is only an hour or so drive from me, but it still takes nearly 3 days for movies to get from their distribution center to my mailbox. If it's shipped on Monday, I most-likely won't see it until Thursday. If it's shipped Thursday, I probably won't see it until the following week.

* RECEIVING * 3/5 * It sometimes only takes 1 or 2 days for the distribution center to receive an envelope, but it has taken nearly 4 days for my last couple of DVDs to register.

It's possible that my complications with shipping are because I signed up during the "free year" exploit, and BBO is finally getting back to normal after fixing all of their mistakes. It's also possible that my last few DVDs have been slowed down so that I somehow get suckered into another month while I wait for them to ship a new set.

* AVERAGE SCORE * 2.3/5 * I will be cancelling before my next cycle.[/QUOTE]

i live in backwater utah the distribution center used to be in Phoenix and now it is in Vegas.. i've been getting them 2 days max.. so 4 days turnaround basically i can't complain with the services. I don't think they are "out to get you" like you lead people to be by your post. for the most part they don't care they fixed the problem they are now serving everyone they can. it can be you're just trying to get older titles that they may not have at that particular distribution site so it'd have to get sent to from the nearest distribution site (which could explain why it took the full 3 days for you to recieve it). I don't know how their distribution system works, but I think that would be how it works.. you can't expect all those distribution centers to magically have all the movies ever printed and in the system? thats crazy.. now if you were getting a movie like say, the Aviator and it took 3 days then maybe.. but also realize that is when they tell you it should arrive. i could be slow postal service (sometimes my dvds get shipped the same day but i'll recieve one one day and the other two the next day).. so don't fault their service just because the PO can be lame sometimes.

i love my BBO account.. and getting 2 free weeks of a new release game every month is very cool.
 
I'm going to sign up for the 4-week trial (with a promotion code that hopefully stil works, otherwise it will be 2 -weeks) mid july.


Since it will go into August, will i get 4 free in store rentals? 2 in july and 2 in august?
 
My only problem with BB online is that there are some movies that have been on long wait for literally months. Some movies have also been on the coming soon list since the service was started and they are still "coming soon".

Also they supposedly take requests, but I requested the clone wars cartoon when the dvd came out and it's nowhere to be found on their site.
 
I had the year long thing that got changed into 2 months, jerkwads, and at first it took upwards of a week for them to simply RECEIVE the DVD, but eventually it got down to a 2 days out and 2 days back thing.
However, as of late, my DVD packages have been coming in opened, and I don't approve.
In fact they ripped the entire cover off one so it no longer had the seal and the USPS sent it to me in one of their envelopes.
Since I had the free year, I never intended on paying for the service, because frankly, Netflix is just better for me, faster recieves and sends, and a better selection of DVDs in terms of the stuff I rent.
So I'll be canceling blockbuster after I get my next 3, as I still have 11 days left on my account.
 
Well i have nothing bad to say about BBO they have been very fast. The first Month i had it i took out 22 DVDs (I was waching them then mailing them back right away) now i am down to 10+ a month taking my time and waching them when i want to
 
WOW, like 3 ppl replied to this topic after I bumped it up with my question - but not one addressed my question :p :D .lol.


While in free trial and the free trial is about half of one month and half of the other (or less) - will I got a 2 free in store game or movie for each month? like I will have it for the end of July and beginning of August - do I get 4 free in store rentals then?
 
The free rentals are based on the 30 day period of your sign up and not the actual month. For example, I joined on June 21 and my 1st two coupons were valid 6/21 - 7/20.
 
Worst thing about BB online right now for me is the Coming Soon tab was removed. It's been like that for a couple of months, when I asked they said it was a technical problem they were working on....

Which probably translates to too many people were putting coming soons on their list.
 
[quote name='Indiana']I was curious what some other people's experience has been with Block Buster Online.

They are very slow compared to Netflix. I have also received one DVD a day later than the other 3 even though they were all mailed from BB at the same time. The most disturbing thing is that the one that arrived late was already opened! Do the mail people watch the movies?

Or is this just a strange occurance?[/QUOTE]


Nothing has changed since BB On-line started... very slow service (up to 5 days top get a DVD), poor selection, and a low inventory (at times every item in my que was 'long wait').

NetFlix is by far the best...
 
They pretty much SUCK on their delivery of movies. Movies that are shipped out the same do not arrive at the same time. There seems to be a 1 or 2 day lag between the movies. Also I have had issues in which the movie is sent to me, but a couple of days later I get an email that states they have received the movie back. The BAD part is I never received the movie. The only good thing about BBO is that you get 2 free game/movie rental from your local store
 
I've been basically pleased with the service . . . but we watch about 2 movies per week . . . 8 dvds would cost over $25 instore but I pay $15. I also am patient and we generally have one on hand all the time . . . so even if we are waiting for one to come its not a big deal.

The turnaround has been alright and some times its happened within a 3 day period.

Plus, I love the 2 instore coupons per month . . . I never rent games if I have to pay . . . but with the "no late fee" extra week, I have a game out most of the month. I've rented: Destroy All Humans, God of War, Midnight Club 3, Psychonauts, RE4 . . . makes it easier to delay buying when I can play them for awhile and feel like I'm up with the rich kids :)
 
+ Theoretical selection was comparable to Netflix, and even carried some titles Netflix does not (like Star Trek Seasons).
+/- Shipping time was much slower for me than Netflix, but this seems to vary depending on your location.
+ Two free in-store rentals per month. Since this includes games (which rent for $6.99 each right now) this alone is almost worth the price of a subscription.
+ Lower price - $3 a month less than Netflix may not sound like much, but I suppose it adds up after a while.
+ Better return policy - when you report a DVD as missing, damaged, or wrong, they send a replacement right away, even if it means you'll have more than three dvds in your possesion at once. Of course, this also leaves open the possibility of abuse, with people falsely reporting mistakes to speed up delivery times, or receiving more dvds than they should, but it is better than Netflix, which does not send a replacement until they receive the bad disc.
- Waits. Half the dvds I requested on BB had waits on them, while not a single one of the 115+ movies in my queue at Netflix has a wait on it. Also, when there is a wait at Netflix, you ususally receive it within a cycle or two, while short waits at BB only occasionally ship that quickly, and long waits never shipped in my entire 30 day trial, despite being on the top of my list the whole time.
- Wrong dvds. I've only received one wrong dvd at Netflix, and it was a title not even in my queue, and did not count towards my rentals anyway. BB made several mistakes in my trial, especially with different versions of the same movie. For instance, they sent the R rated version of a film several times instead of the unrated or NC-17 title I requested. They also sent Scarface '83 (which I own) instead of Scarface '32, and while these are understandable mistakes, they also totally messed up one request and sent a completely different film.
 
[quote name='techstar25']One of the cool benefits of BB is that they give two coupons for free in store rentals of movies or GAMES, per month.[/QUOTE]

My wife and I used Netflix for a while, but I believe they "blacklisted" us for watching too many movies per month. Our service kept getting slower and slower at the same time our membership rate was increasing, went up to as high as $22 a month.

Now with Blockbuster, I get about the same service as Netflix, but I get it cheaper and with 2 free in-store game or movie movie rentals each month. Considering that Blockbuster charges $6.99 plus tax for game rentals, the two in-store rentals almost pay for an entire month's membership.
 
Is there a list of stuff that Blockbuster has but netflix doesn't?
-------------------

rebenns - Netflix DOES have ALL the Star Trek seasons.

If you mean that Netflix does not have the latest releases of the Star Trek Original Series BOXSET, then you are right.

Netflix has EVERY EPISODE but in that silly 2 episode per disc format - 40 discs for the entire Star Trek Original Series.


On blockbuster - the entire series is on 29 discs.

------------------------------------------

I have netflix right (like i said, going to do the free blockbuster trial soon) - and I have gotten 1 broken disc.

I believe that they sent the replacement out immediately - because I recieved it before they recieved my damaged one.
 
I like the service, movies show up quickly, they email me when they receive my returns and the returns are acknowledged very quickly, 2 days or less. I love the free game rentals. I milk the free coupons for basically 2 games per month. Typically I'll keep the games until they threaten me with ownership, which is about 3 weeks later. Those coupons are worth 14$ on their own, so the 20$ fee is a steal. The only problem I have is my own laziness with sending them back. But I can always rip them if I need too.
 
Netflix is much much better and faster. I live in Houston and both Netflix and Blockbuster have warehouses in Houston. When I had Netflix, the DVDs would come the very next day. With Blockbuster they'd come 3-4 days later ( unbelievable seeing as the warehouse is in the same city). I think Blockbuster holds the DVDs up even though they say they ship them on a certain day just to slow down the number of movies you rent.
 
i got in on stop netflix get blockbuster for 2 free months and Blockbuster went nuts on me.


i got 3 movies that wasnt even on my Q list. I got 2 copies of anchorman, 3 copies of Prom night 2-3 (2 movies on 1 disc) 2 copies of Hellraiser Deader

im on the plan 8 movies out at time and first week i had like 17 movies in my mail box in one day.
 
[quote name='slidecage']bad thing is they dont ship in order


Priority # Movie Title Rating Availability Remove

Subhuman R Available Now

Are We There Yet? [WS] PG Available Now

Dead Doll R Coming Soon

Life Aquatic R Available Now

Face of Terror R Long Wait

Alien Abduction Short Wait

Blood Trail R Coming Soon

Earthsea Available Now

Memorial Day R Short Wait

Son of the Mask [WS] PG Available Now

Black Cadillac R Available Now

Hard Ground Available Now

Vampires: The Turning R Available Now

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events PG Available Now

Boogeyman PG13 Coming Soon

Submerged R Coming Soon

Submerged R Coming Soon

lets see later today if i really get the top 3 movies doubful[/QUOTE]


Uh, they've shipped every movie in order for me.

This is now the second month I've had it for, and I love it. The movies really get here fast. The only problem isn't even their problem. It's that my damn family takes a few days to get around to watching the movies. >
 
I hated them, Their shipping is Ungodly slow, I would get opened movies all the time, they never had anything available (compared to Wal mart and Netflix). Hell, one time I didn't even receive the movie, I just got half of the envelope. The only good thing about them is the printable coupons that you get every month, because you can use them on movies or games. I switched to Netflix now and I couldn't be happier.
 
after rejoining i had nothing but great service 2 day shipping each way... I might even stay another month after the 2 free months cause they said i could get

1 more month of 8 out at a time for 27.49 3 cost 14.99 so that is just around 12 bucks for 5 more at a time
 
anybody in here from louisiana?? I would like to know how was their services and how long it took for them to get their dvds.
 
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