Long and Very Long Waits

I am increasingly frustrated and irritated that the movies I really want to view are not available when requested. More and more, the only ones I can rent are those that are second or third on my list. What's up. New releases are rarely available right away. I'm ready to cancel this subscription and go down the street to Blockbuster. Anyone else experiencing this?

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Permalink Reply by The Continental on May 19, 2009 at 6:37am: We joined BB for the "one-at-a-time" to watch the stuff we can't get here.
Okay fer now,, but in the " immortal word", " forever set in stone, in the recesses of my cob webbin memory bank, burned there forever and a day, the minute I joined in onna thread jus like this inna galaxy far far away,,well not that far as I'm reading this old tired shit again,,,,where was i?? Oh yeah," in the immortal Word of Spindaddydad get ready=brace yourself cause it's WHAMMY!!
You have to experience it first hand to really appreciate it,( like I did, and you soon will)!
But Whammy's for real, and ~~Ballbuster~~ blockbuster will do it to ya every time..
You have been notified,, nuff said....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Evelyn on May 20, 2009 at 6:17am: Sorry--was this supposed to convey any information to me?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Spindaddydad on May 20, 2009 at 7:08am: Sorry--was this supposed to convey any information to me?

What he was saying is that you will start out at Blockbuster getting nearly all your new releases. See, they want to make you feel good about your switch. Then you will suddenly reach a point and... whammy! The hammer will come down with longer waits than you could ever imagine.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by The Continental on May 20, 2009 at 7:33am: Don't be sorry, let me explain, I too was really PO'ed at one point cause netflix wasn't sending out certain movie's that I really wanted to see, and it seemed like everytime I'd add a flick to my Q it would be on a wait status of one duration or another. Like I said I got pissed about it and having tried ~~BallBuster~~, blockbuster's 2 week free trial some time before I thought I fire up a subscription with them to get the titles NetFlix either didn't stock or were low on stock in .Sure enough when I built up my Queue allot of the same titles NF showed as having a wait status, ~~BallBuster~~ blockbuster had as available for me "even new releases"! So I came back here and proudly proclaimed my solution to the NF problem, and was told about the dreaded BB Whammy, and sure enough after two or three weeks BB brought our honey moon to a screeching halt , and the short- long- very long- ultra long waits set in like concrete. On toppa that it took twice as long for BB to mail me my movies cause they don't have a shipping/ distribution center in my state (Nebraska).
So what I'm telling you is BB was / is just as bad and allot of times worse than NF in this area," their customer service rep's suck",( although I have noticed NetFlix is putting more waits even on Old titles in my Q than they ever did before, for me paying twice to get double PO'ed dosn't seem like a smart solution.
I'm not saying this is a bad move on your part, I hope your the exception to the Whammy rule, I'll cross my fingers. please let me know how they treat you??; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Evelyn on May 21, 2009 at 6:22am: Thanks--that's clearer. Our plan is to keep BB only as long as it's useful, so if they "bring down the hammer", we're out of there. (In addition, they seem to take longer to turn around returned discs, even though they are about the same distance from as as NF.); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by craig kurth on May 24, 2009 at 12:07pm: just recently, i have been getting some popular new releases from redbox. they are $1 and i seem to be able to get them fast. but they have a very limited selection and no tv shows.

blockbuster sucks.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Evelyn on June 4, 2009 at 6:20am: Is it possible that some of this is due to their new policy of trying not to ship movies from distant distribution centers? If the only copy of a film I want is in Walla-Walla, Washington, are they just keeping it as a "very long wait" and sending me other stuff instead?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by The Continental on June 4, 2009 at 7:56am: I'm at 8.99 one at a time right now and surprise surprise I got no Q'ed movie on wait status, they are likin me right now ,,,and I aint complain'in, Way Ta Go," NetFlix Fricken rules dude awesone" (
) !!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by isotopic on June 12, 2009 at 8:26am: Somebody explain this to me. As a BSG fan, I added Caprica to my Queue back when the movie was still in "save" mode (no release date). Once a release date was set, I moved it up to #1 in my queue. It was released April 21. In preparation for the release, I made sure that I'd have Netflix sending me a new DVD on Monday (as they tend to ship out new movie releases on Monday). However, no luck.

The DVD quickly went to "Very Long Wait". About a week ago it went to "Long Wait". I informed my brother (also a Netflix member and he lives about 15 miles from me) that I had been waiting almost 2 months for a movie that's been at the #1 spot in my queue. He offered to help and added Caprica to his queue and it was shipped to him the next day!

What kind of process do they use to determine who get's DVD's that are on "Long Wait"? We have the same distribution center, we are both on the 3 DVD plan, and we both had DVD's shipped to us yesterday. Yet he had Caprica shipped to him, and I was passed over and had my #3 and #4 DVD's shipped.

A little frustrated here.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Knaldskalle on June 12, 2009 at 9:06am: One major factor is how many movies you rent from Netflix (your turnover rate). The more you rent the longer you have to wait for movies that are in high demand. This is Netflix's way of "rewarding" people who aren't intensive users. (Netflix's business model works best when you don't actually watch that many movies, maximizing the $/movie you pay.) This practice is called "throttling" by customers (and "smoothing" by Netflix) and was subject to a lawsuit, because Netflix didn't disclose this in their Terms of Use. The suit was settled out of court and Netflix now has a description of the practice on the Terms of Use page.

So if you want to increase the odds of getting a high demand title reduce your rental rate for a while before it comes out (or upgrade your subscription but keep the turnover rate constant) and then have them receive your return movie on a Monday (like you did). That's the best I can come up with, at least.; ▶ Reply to This