Netflix

I love Blockbuster video. I've been a loyal customer for years and as I would rather watch a movie than the latest tv reality show I joined their online store to have movies sent to me through the mail.

For four years we had a great relationship. I paid them $18 a month and they sent me the three movies at the top of my queue. If I ever found myself without a movie to watch, instead of mailing back a dvd and waiting for them to send me something else, I could take myself down to the local store to exchange it, for free, for any dvd they had. This was in addition to the three movies at a time from their online service.

I'd heard reports that Blockbuster's online service was struggling and wasn't really making any money so it was no surprise when earlier this year they changed the terms of service and instead of being able to exchange movies in store for no additional cost, you could use them as a coupon to get half price in store rentals.

I wasn't really that bothered about this change as we didn't really need to drive to the store to get additional movies to watch but on one occasion in March this year I did just that. Only this time, the rules had changed once more.

Instead of mailing back the movie we'd just watched, I went to the store to pick up something else to watch over the weekend, knowing that if I mailed it back in, I would have to wait until Wednesday for the next movie to arrive.

When I got home, I logged on to my online account to remove the movie I'd just rented from my queue so I didn't receive the same one twice. While updating my queue, I noticed that the dvd I'd just rented from the store was now showing on my account and it said the next movie would not be sent until the store rental had been returned.

So now any in store exchanges count towards your online allowance but a big company like Blockbuster doesn't need to inform it's customers about such changes.

The very next day, I returned the movie to the store (after watching it) and checked my online queue. The movie had not been checked in online. I waited a couple of days and it had still not cleared my queue. After about half an hour of trying to find a way to actually get in touch with someone about the problem, I sent them an e-mail and waited for the problem to be resolved.

Why is it that some companies make it so hard for you to actually speak to someone and instead of giving you a phone number or e-mail address they try to pre-empt your query by picking out keywords and referring you to their frequently asked questions?

I received a reply telling me that this was the new policy and as soon as I returned the movie to the store, it would clear my queue and the next movie would be sent. This was despite my original e-mail telling them I had returned the movie to the store and it hadn't cleared my queue.

Numerous further e-mails received various responses, either telling me that when I returned the movie to the store it would clear my queue, or advising that there was a system problem that they were aware of and working on fixing and the returned movie should clear my queue in 24-48 hours.

Two months later, the store rental is still showing as outstanding in my queue so despite paying for three movies at a time, I was only receiving two. They did send me coupons for free store rentals whenever I complained but despite them continually 'reporting the problem to the relevant department', the problem was never resolved.

I really didn't want to leave Blockbuster online which is the only reason why I gave them so long to fix the error. The store confirmed very early on that I had in fact returned the dvd to them, and even the people at Blockbuster online confirmed the same but no one was able to fix the problem.

Last week would be the start of a new billing cycle so before they took any more money from my account, I cancelled my membership with Blockbuster online. I'm now enjoying a two week free trial with Netflix that I already know will continue long after that.