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Blockbuster Online Denies Problems
According to bloggers and a flood of angry comments on the Internet, operations at American DVD rental service, Blockbuster Online, have come to a screeching halt. Angry customers are reporting that they have not received movies from their queues for weeks. According to one customer, repeated calls to Blockbuster customer service were fruitless and when he finally did get through, a customer service rep told him that their mail rental system was shut down.
However an official spokesperson for Blockbuster denied the existance of any problems when contacted by Ars Technica.com. “We’ve been continually shipping product. If a customer feels like they are not getting a movie, they should follow up with our customer service. But in terms of product being allocated and shipped, there has been no interruption.”
Despite what the spokesperson says, sites like DVDRR.com have been flooded with negative comments like this one from a Blockbuster Online user named Cat: “No dvds have been shipped for over a week despite 3 open slots and 26 available titles in my queue. Emails and phone calls to customer support have not succeeded in getting this resolved, just promises that are not kept. I will be canceling and switching to Netflix.”
Is it just a random coincidence that Blockbuster Online users didn’t receive any DVDs last month? Or is Blockbuster being less than truthful about possible problems with their rental service? Blockbuster is engaged a tough battle against Netflix, the market leader in online rentals. Admitting to significant service interruptions might persuade users to switch to Netflix.
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Paul Westbrook Says: March 9, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I haven’t had any problems receiving my dvds.
E.J. Says: March 9, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I use blockbuster and just Wednesday recieved two movies after having returned them to store on Saturday(the best reason to use BB over NF). I am a sample of one, but have had no serious problems with getting movies as advertised.
Bob Butler Says: March 9, 2007 at 4:51 pm
I’ve been a customer for a number of years, my current turn-around time is 2 days,
Micah Brown Says: March 10, 2007 at 7:54 am
BO sucks. i havent gotten a DVD in over a month. Netflix execs must be just loving themselves right about now. Especially after that ridiculous “No late fees” scam at Blockbuster. A couple more class-action suits and this company will be gone.
DomPaul Says: April 3, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I had Netflix and they did have a faster turnaround time but you can’t beat the exchange at the store bit that blockbuster has. Especially if you like renting TV Series on DVD. I take one mailer to the BB store and exchange it for the entire box set of whatever show I want… If I put the series in the queue online, they would send me one disc at a time. A sweet little loophole…
Sigs Says: March 9, 2007 at 1:35 pm
My butt their not having problems. I finally go through to customer service and the guy on the phone admitted they had a glitch in the sytem. He was able to fix the problem for me and send me some free movie coupons. What a bunch of liars, I may switch back to netfix.