we used bluckbuster online for 7 months. we always returned our three online movies to the store every friday. the first two months our new movies arrived every tuesday. the second two months our new movies would arrive every wednesday. the third two months our new movies arrived every thursday. then they cancled us and said that plan is no longer available. would you like to sign up for our new plan? its the same thing you had but the price has increased by 39%.  
 
I dont see how they could be in business for this long and do something so fishy to teir long time customres. we will never ever rent a single movie from blockbuster again. I couldn't care less about a few extra dollars, what I do care about is not being screwed over by some corporation.  
 
try netflix, they have some issues too but the overall rating is much better than blockbuster.  
 
heres a lawsuit:  
http://www.state.nj.us/lps/newsreleases05/pr20050218a.html  
 
complaint files with comsumers affair: you have never seen this many complaints agains one company:  
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/entertainment/blockbuster_late.html  
 
blockbusters better business beura track record. so many complaints, just scroll down!  
http://www.dallas.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bid=3000020  

Words can't describe the moronic responses that the Blockbuster "Customer Care" (that's a laugh) group puts out on a daily basis. They never investigate your issue that you contacted them about but they quickly send out a generalized statement with an overview of their policy which may apply to why you didn't receive your movies in a timely manner or it may not! They couldn't offer a reasonable response to why they couldn't send a movie that clearly stated it was available on your movie que but was passed by time an time again to go further down your list and you can forget about having any new releases shipped out on the day that they are supposedly available on that Tuesday. I believe it's clearly because Blockbuster has staffed their Customer Care (actually Customer Don't Care) facility with a group of mentally challenged individuals. I finally responded back after several back and forth emails without gettting a response to my original issue by telling them that they were throughly entertaining with their off the wall responses. I just wish someone would start up an online movie rental company that would do what they say and say what they do!

Rented two movies from them -- both horribly scratched. Came back to get a better copy or my money back. One DVD they had a better copy of -- for the other one, the other copy was even worse so I asked for my money back. They said okay and gave me a coupon, which I didn't want. They refused to give my money back for the bad DVD, even though I returned it an hour and a half after renting.  
 
I will never deal with Blockbuster again, and I'll be reporting them to the Better Business Bureau tomorrow. Horrible experience.

I'm writing this review primarily to let people know that if you cancel membership after you're paid up for the month, you will lose that money. Blockbuster says their policy is to continue membership for 15 days after cancellation as a courtesy, but they consider the date you cancel as the cancellation date, regardless that you prepaid for a month. I cancelled on 4/4/07 but my membership was paid through 5/3. They stopped shipping movies to me after 4/20 despite that there were several movies listed as "Available" in my queue - and refused to give me a prorated refund. They gave me some bull about how the movies are at different centers and if one can't ship timely they move down the list which would correspond with the previous reviewer's comments that he kept receiving movies from the middle of his queue. If it's "Available," it should be available, otherwise no earthly point in having a queue and things in order within it. Ridiculous.  
 
But anyway, if you cancel your membership, do it the day before you're to be billed for the next month; otherwise you will lose the last 15 days' membership you paid for. It's not worth it for me to spend more time fighting with them than I already have for a week's refund, but I hope I can save someone else the same headache.  
 
So for the full review, I tried them out after having been unhappy with Neflix shipping times, and they were the same. It was often 24 hours or more between logging in a returned movie and shipping out a new one, and that just wasn't acceptable to me. It wasn't terrible, just for me doesn't seem a good value for the monthly fee.  
 
Blockbuster's focus is very heavy on the brick-and-mortar store. The fees are higher than Netflix which I suppose is meant to account for the "extras" that are available to you - brick and mortar coupons, free rentals when you return your movies to the store instead of through the mail - but the reason I want online rentals is because I want...online rentals. So again the higher fees are not worth it for me.  
 
Their website is annoying and difficult to navigate, no comparison to Netflix whatsoever. I kept a separate window of imdb.com open so I could see their reviews.  
 
Definitely stay away from them if you don't want them stealing the last few bucks of your membership unless you manage to time your cancellation down to the minute. If some bonehead customer service rep wouldn't refund me the grand total of four dollars and fifty cents after refusing to ship available movies until my membership ran out, they're certainly not in the business of making customers happy.  
 
FYI - I was still unable to use a gift card for online purchases as of 4/07. Blockbuster has been saying for some time they're "retooling" their website and unable to accept gift cards for online purchases. I think this is just blockbuster-ese for "Our focus is on our brick and mortar stores." Give their online membership a pass -- they're not up to speed yet.

Blockbuster seems to be getting worst after the first month. First time I've gotten a wrong disc in a sleeve. Alot of the discs are really scratched up but I believe that it's the fault of the people that rent them and the post office people. At the moment I am getting 4 movies at a time but they only sent me 3 and there's been a free spot for 2 days now. I emailed them about it and they sent me some bs about available movies in my queue being low but I have over 200 in queue which most are available. They also said something about some movies may not be able to reach me in the allotted time, which I think is more bs. If you can't get it to me in 2 days because it's too far, then when will it ever be close enough? Does blockbuster ship it to different branches then send it to me? Why not just send it to me and it'll get to me in 3 days at most even from the other side of the country. Blockbuster and all the other online retailers and service provides need to stop lying to their customers. This will be my last month with blockbuster, I'm going to netflix.

I've been a Netflix member for 6 years, and last week, I decided to give the Blockbuster free trial membership a shot. I will not extend the membership beyond the trial...  
 
Strike 1: Website problems. Site does not support Firefox.  
 
Strike 2: Customer service problems. They send "Copy & Paste" generic replies to customer inquiries, and requests for additional help were ignored.  
 
Strike 3: Product & service problems. I placed 6 titles in my queue, all of which were listed as "available." The first DVD they sent was in position #6, while numbers 1 through 5 were "available." The second DVD they sent was in position #3, and 1 & 2 were "available." That's pretty bad, but what makes it worse is that the DVDs in positions #1 through #5 were part of a series (part 1, part 2, etc.), and locked together, so what good is part 3 if I have yet to see parts 1 & 2?  
 
No support for Firefox is something I could live with, but I'd never PAY for a subpar product, with subpar support.

Arg, what a mess. I've used both Netflix and Blockbuster over the past 3 or 4 years and have had difficulties with both. I've been using Netflix for the past year and must say they've got much better at both delivery time and dependability. However, when Blockbuster recently announced the ability to return the online DVD rentals to the store and receive a free in-store title (in addition to your monthly coupons), I was enticed to switch back to Blockbuster. So, I signed back up, filled up my queue, printed my e-coupons and started using the service.  
 
First problem:  
They shipped a movie that was #8 in my queue, when #1 through #7 were all listed as "Available". I inquired with Blockbuster support as to why this occurred. Their explanation was that the system first checks to see which title in your queue they can get to you within 2 days, then it checks that against your queue. This is quite interesting to hear. This basically means that your queue order is completely meaningless. Furthermore, 2 out of the 5 DVD's that I have received took 4 days to arrive, and were in position #5 and #7 in my queue.  
 
Second Problem:  
They shipped a movie that was not in my queue at all. Again, I inquired with Blockbuster Support as to why this occurred. I received a canned response stating that movies are shipped in the order in which they are positioned in your queue(??) Wait a minute... #1) I thought they didn't do that (see previous problem) #2) The title was not in my queue to begin with. They completely ignore my question. I replied again stating my original question, and they basically said: "I'm sorry that you are experiencing problems with Blockbuster Online. Please use this free in-store coupon for an additional rental." I appreciate the attempt to turn things around, but this is completely avoiding my original question.  
Third Problem:  
I return the DVD title that I never requested, and 2 days later they ship another title that isn't in my queue. So, I inquire as to why this continues to happen, and I basically repeat the exact same that happened above. This time I threatened to cancel, and instead of a free in-store coupon, they offered me to continue service at a discounted rate. I could have accepted the gracious offer, except that I'm not even receiving movies I request, or even in the order in which I requested.  
 
So, I've canceled, probably for good.  
 
One thing to note: Now they are using the local shops as distribution centers, which means that it takes longer to receive your titles (no longer first class mail), and you're relying on the speed and accuracy of in-store personel (which I sometimes question).

This review was modified by its author, Ishtumba, on 11/20/06 9:45 AM.

have been with Blockbuster about 3 months now. When it first started, it was pretty good, had an average movie turn around time of about 5 days. Watch a movie send it back and receive new one for one you sent back in 5 days. When getting 3 out at a time this provided a steady stream of movies.  
 
That was then, and this is now.  
 
Blockbuster over the last month and a half has slowed down, selection has become more limited, many new releases are out, and you get them 2 weeks later than when you wanted them. And forget about kids titles, they are just not in stock. Average turn around time in between 7 and 9 days. now I am lucky if I get to see one or two movies a week from them. The one that I do receive are scratched and dirty and a few have been unplayable.  
 
Customer service just answers with a copy and paste answers from their FAQ page. No real help there. When asked about their turn around time they simply said the mail was slow. So I performed my own test and sent them back on my own dime with delivery confirmation from the US post office. They received the movies back in about a day, however took another 24 or 48 hours to acknowledge there return and reissue new ones. Once they said they sent them out it took 3 days from Pittsburgh Pa to receive. average delivery time from Pittsburgh via USPS is one day. So they are sent out later than they tell you they are sent.  
 
The store coupons, so what they do not have the movies in the stores anyway, so what good are they?  
 
I have just Started netflix, and currently they are sending about 1.5 movies to blockbusters 1. so they are able to deliver at the speed of which Blockbuster is no longer able to maintain.  
 
All items posted here are personal experiences and experiments. your results may vary from mine. And God I hope they do because I am cancelling my membership.  
 

This review was modified by its author, farseer911, on 8/1/05 9:17 PM.

I had netflix for a year and was quite happy with them (except for the occasional throttling). But then came blockbuster with free in-store rentals when you turned in your dvds. I think the greed twisted my mind. I thought with blockbuster online I could do two things that netflix can't offer:  
 
1. I can personally hand over my dvds to a store associate, no "lost in the mail" crap that netflix claims from time to time when they throttle you (it will happen a few times until they've slowed you down enough and then just start sending the movies out at a normal speed)  
 
2. More free rentals for impulse moving watching  
 
I did the 30-day 3 at a time trial. Everything was great; dvds came on time and in order. Then the free trial ended. The first movie was sent to me cracked in half with what looked like superglue on it in a poor attempt to fix the movie. When I reported it missing and returned the dvd to the local blockbuster store, it took 4 more days for it to be removed from my "shipped" category. Then my "shipped" section had an empty slot for 5 more days. I emailed "customer care" stating that if it is a high demand movie (the lion king) that they can just ship me the next movie in my que. I received an email that made no sense (i think they sent me the wrong email),thanking me for my support. And this was just the first disc of my first paying month.  
 
The other 2 discs I was sent were number 12 and 16 in my que. I currently have a 32 disc set series in my top que. During the trial, I received discs 1-6 of the series in order. I am ending my first month as a paying customer and I have yet to receive disc 7 (yes it's all listed as ‘available’). I became annoyed over the next couple of weeks with receiving out of order dvds, so I called their customer service number. I sat on hold for over 35 minutes and when I talked the associate, he stated, in a very snotty tone, "if you want a series in order, you have to add the series as a block, not individually." When I told him that blockbuster didn't offer that option for my series, he stated, "sucks to be you."  
 
And then there’s the "ship out the next dvd in your que the next business day." Every disc that I return to a blockbuster store takes 2-3 days to clear my "shipped list", then a day of an empty "shipped" list and the following day they will ship out my dvds- with a 3 day delivery time. The same dvds in the series I received during my trial were received and shipped back out, all in about 2 days. Now it’s a 4-5 day process.  
 
Being a web programmer, I can tell you that their website is awful. There are loads of functions that do not work correctly. The interface is slow. There are a lot of broken links and dead pages. Little to no information on dvds (I have to look up the series' volume numbers on wikipedia to find them on blockbuster website and to keep them in order (some of the dvds are listed my volume number, some by the volumes title).  
 
The customer service is a joke. You can send them any kind of email and they'll send a generic email stating that they "value your support" and give you another coupon. You could probably send them an email that simply reads "what are you wearing right now" and you would get a coupon back with a "thank you for your support" message.  
 
All in all, if you could combine nextflix's website and shipping operation with blockbusters return to store policy, you would have a killer operation. Trust me, save yourself the aggravation and just go with netflix with its next day delivery and returns. You can time your returns correctly and never really be without a movie. Me, I'm heading back to netflix at the end of this month.  
 

This review was modified by its author, howieazb216, on 3/16/07 11:49 AM.

I give up!!!!!!!! They constantly send movies out of order! All the movies are available in my queue and they send number 14? I have yet to receive a series in the correct order, It is so annoying to receive part 3 before part 1 and 2!!  
 
They keep coming out with new services but they have yet to perfect what they already have going.  
 
1 star out of 10