For everybody that has Blockbuster Total Access: Just got an email saying that the 3 dvd plan, which I have, will be $34.99 from now on. That's a $10 increase, a few months after the other $10 increase. I'm thinkig of switching to Netflix. Does anyone use them?
Well here was my response to BB: I would just like to inform you that I "had "switched from Netflix to your service as youÂ’re in store swap and cost of service seemed to be at par if not better than Netflix. Well after a few months of use I can tell you that you have work to do. The movie selection area is too bloated. Availability is not as great as Netflix, new movies for the week you must wait until the day the movie comes out (Tuesday) before you can see them listed under "new releases" Netflix list them on Sunday i.e. the start of the week. Netflix now offers streaming downloads to PC and I'm completely set-up within my house and have been awaiting reliable cost justified download service, which I think Netflix has provided. This service in my opinion puts the swap service out of business, as now I don't even need to run to your store to be told that I need a movie to swap or I pay the $4.99 fee for a new release, if I'm lucky a new release is even on the shelf. All of these thing I was accepting as differences to the services, but yesterday I get e-mail that my service will be increasing by $10 and then you have the audacity to write a diatribe of sales crap of what I'm getting for the extra $10. Well I read it a few times and all I can see is I'm getting the same service for ten bucks more. Well I banned BB from my house before do to your outrageous late fee practices, but decided to give you another chance after you changed your late fee policy. I will always give a business a second chance, well you had yours. I will be communicating to all I know via, e-mail, text, verbal, x-box and live to dump BB and go to Netflix. I signed about 50 people before and I will do the same again and who knows how many people they convinced to sign-up. You can take me as just a pissed off consumer or you can put this in your hat as if it means nothing you will be out of business sooner than I hope. In todayÂ’s age especially in the type of consumer you serve. Between my wife and I we are in contact with well over 100,000 people between blogs and the forums mentioned above. Rumors spread like wild-fire and we will be posting all over the web tonight spreading your unjustified cost increase. I rarely write a company about there service, but the $10 increase for no increase in service is an outrage and I find it pretty hard to believe that if you asked your employee's within your company if someone sold you an item on Monday for $1 and then the next day the same item was now $10 do you think everyone would think the $10 fee was fare. DidnÂ’t think so, but your business strategy is for the people who didnÂ’t know it was $1 on Monday, your strategy is to maintain the lemmings that will stay and hook the newbieÂ’s that didnÂ’t know what it was before. I'm tired of your misrepresentation of your competition on TV your company has always had this self-righteous attitude "Were the best and we can do and screw as many customers as we want". Well guess what take your philosophy and stuff it as we have a choice also and god I hope the majority do the same as I. I can not wait until I hear the news that BB is going under, as this consumer will again yell at the top of my lungs that BB SUCKS. And there lame response: Thanks for contacting BLOCKBUSTER Online Customer Care. We work to send out the next movies in your queue within one business day of receiving your last returns or reports. Our shipping days are Monday through Friday. We normally have a healthy amount of returned items on the weekend. If an item is checked in on a weekend (including Friday,) then the next expected business day for a new shipment would fall on the following Tuesday, with limited shipments on Monday. Regarding the ability to download movies, our acquisition of Movielink and its digital content is the next logical step in our planned transformation of Blockbuster. In addition to the entertainment content we provide through our stores and by mail, we have taken an important step toward making movie downloading conveniently available to computers, portable devices and ultimately to the television at home. ItÂ’s a Blockbuster triple play - movies through our stores, by mail and now online. Blockbuster is committed to keeping pace with the changing needs of customers by offering them an expanding array of convenient ways to access entertainment content. Movielink has one of the nationÂ’s leading movie download services. Formed by five of the major motion picture studios to offer customers the ability to legally download entertainment content. We believe the acquisition of Movielink gives us a distinct advantage in this space. The acquisition gives Blockbuster access to one of the largest libraries of downloadable movies and a large array of television content-more than 3,300 movies and TV shows for downloading and nearly 6,000 total titles in its digital library. Blockbuster plans to continue to operate the Movielink service and to eventually make elements of the service available through blockbuster.com. Our ultimate goal is seamless integration with Movielink and blockbuster.com. ThatÂ’s down the line and much work remains to be done. Moreover, with your current subscription plan, you are entitled to unlimited free in-store movie exchanges instead of paying the discounted price. On the other hand, our goal is to strike the right balance between providing great value to our subscribers and getting a fair return for the company and our shareholders. We want to provide a variety of subscription plans to meet the needs of all our customers, both in-store and online. It's important for us to give consumers the most convenient access to media entertainment, whether thatÂ’s through our stores or by mail, and are dedicated to doing that with flexible plans and pricing. We've reviewed our pricing structure and have found that to get a better balance of providing great value for Total Access subscribers while still making it affordable for us, as of December 27, 2007, we have restructured the prices of our Total Access subscription plans. Please note that we're not changing any plan benefits; you'll continue to get all the same great benefits and value from Total Access. Of course, you're always free to change your plan. I do hope I was able to help you. Jaycee Customer Care Associate BLOCKBUSTER Online
I used to use Netflix but they were super weird (slower than frozen *hit in Jan) on shipping from time to time. In fact it was this time last year that I only got like 3 or 4 movies for the entire month of Dec. (1 at a time plan) so I switched to BB T&A. I was more than pi**ed on the last price jack from BlockBuster aka Movie Rental Mafia, this newest load of bunk increase does not affect me but if I were you in this case, I'd switch now! FBB! Netflix is a good substitute IMO, I almost switched on the last price increase out of spite but my wife talked me out of it (little does she know that I have not moved to the lower plan yet, thus keeping our rates the same before the change; still on one @ a time with unlimited store exchanges) the really pathetic thing though, is that Netflix keeps sending me these BS "come back to us" promotions.. $20 gourmet popcorn gift card...WTF!!!
Listen those blockbuster people are assholes you can steal games from em as in don't bring them back and all they do is close your account, LOL
I highly doubt that Bastages charged my CC one time for supposed non returned movies...imagine me dismay when I saw a $70 on my CC for something I had returned on time yet!
If you have a local blockbuster and watch only mainstream movie, stick with blockbuster. You get like double of the movie if you have the Total Access. And you don't have to wait in case you finished all the DVD fast but BB's selection sucks, they lack of independent and foreign movie. And some movies are never available. "Blood simple" was on top my of queue for half a year I live near a netflix center so if i return DVD on Monday i get a new one on Wednesday. And they have all the weird stuff. Their instant watch feature is cool if you have very high speed internet
BB sucks, just use Netflix. Sometimes it might take a day or so longer to get a movie back, but it's worth it, I refuse to support BB. Their late fees used to be insane and a total ripoff and I still hate them for it. I want to see them fail, honestly. Then they pissed me off even more when they introduced the "no late fee" thing, which was more of a "no late fee for 7 days", and I found the "no late fee" slogan to be purposefully misleading. The only reason BB even started doing any of this stuff was because of Netflix, if not to this day they would be content charging ridiculous late fees.
I loved the BB return in store, but when they raised the price by ten bucks to keep that I said goodbye and went to netflix. now ANOTHER increase? cripes BB, how far in the toilet are you? BB's instant watch list sucks. Look in the comedy section, there is basically nothing. Not that Netflix is any better. But Netflix is cheaper and has a larger variety of movies, so at least there is that.
Not to mention the in-store swap is a farce. You still get charged for movies if you rent more, you incur late fees when they stated "no late fees"...it's a load of crap. I basically just quit renting movies altogether. I don't have a lot of time to watch anyway, and when I do, I can usually catch something through my cable company that I can buy and watch for $3.95.
BB needs a clue on their snack selection too...no, no I don't want bubble gum in a skull & crossbones...get me some Combos dammit!
Renting movies is such a hassle now. You might as well just buy your DVDs and start a nice collection.
Tried that, too. I have around 300 dvds and several tv series. Like ahkip said: their selection kinda sucks too. I watch maybe 75% non-American/non-Hollywood movies(seen all the good ones) and there are many they don't have. The first 20 movies in my queue are 'short wait'- 'very long wait' and the hd movies are hard to get too. I'll give Netflix a try, but won't give up bb yet. Maybe just downgrade...
That price hike is crazy. The only thing that BB has is that you can return the movies at their store. But still for $34.99 for 3 movies it doesn't seem worth it to me. If I had to choose between the two I would pick netflix.