Have Lovefilm fooled us? 3 for 1 not as expected

[stricko]

3 dvds duly arrived yesterday, making 6 this week, perfect 1 day turnarounds. They'll be going back today, it'll be interesting to see what happens on Monday.

Anyone else seen a noticeable improvement this week? I hope it is not because they have got me marked down as a serial complainer!!!

[the insider]

My disc seem to turn a round straight away towards the end of the week. I hope it IS because they got me marked down as a serious complainer.

[zax]

Lovefilm are in breach of contract. If you are on a 3 or 4 disc at a time package then that is what you should get.

They illeagly downgraded me and now i get, after a 5 day delay ONE disk.

This is their 'fair play' policy, which means you pay for 3 disks we send you 1. If i payed them £3.00 a month would they send me 8 disks?

No. I don't think so? It's just theft, but idiots seem to swallow it, so good luck to them.

[zax]

Lovefilm are in breach of contract. If you are on a 3 or 4 disc at a time package then that is what you should get.

They illeagly downgraded me and now i get, after a 5 day delay ONE disk.

This is their 'fair play' policy, which means you pay for 3 disks we send you 1. If i payed them £3.00 a month would they send me 8 disks?

No. I don't think so? It's just theft, but idiots seem to swallow it, so good luck to them.

[bazwaldo]

Got this e-mail from Love(no)film.

Thank you for your email, unfortunately we have been experiencing excessive demands in our discs, which has generated a delay in the processing of discs.While we have busy periods we are operating a fair play policy which means our system will prioritise a customer's dispatch, allocating a next available dispatch date. This gives every customer an equal chance of getting their next disc as soon as possible. No one customer will get priority as this would be unfair.

Should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind Regards,
**********
LOVEFiLM Customer Services

This proves that they are lying as it is quite clear from this forum that some members are getting a priority service.
Also,if they are supposedly so inundated with excessive demand for discs,why are they still actively trying to bring in new members.
Hope you guys & gals who love lovefilm can see from this e-mail that they are liars,and it will come to you soon.

[stricko]

Sounds pretty sh*tty to me even though I seem to be one of the few that have started to get a decent service again......

The only evenly remotely plausible explanation I can think of is that they are still in the process of migrating customers from the old systems to the new. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe if you moan long and hard even you get accelerated.

Alternatively, and equally plausibly, we were all "downgraded" or set up on the wrong "lite" package at migration, and they are sorting us out one at a time.

Either way, it's not good enough.

[Marty73]

Yep, I had no delay in turn-around this week ... a nice change!

[shazza]

Even though I had previously reported improvement, it didn't last long (less than a week infact). This week they received one disc back Tuesday & two Wednesday, & they've just dispatched one today (Thursday). After emailing them I just got the usual standard response.

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for writing to us at LOVEFiLM.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused. We would like to inform you that although there is no limit to the number of films you can watch, unfortunately sometimes dispatches of DVDs to you may be affected by excessive demand, stock availability or postal delivery delays which are beyond the control of LOVEFiLM.

Rest assured, your next available selection will be dispatched shortly.

Please feel free to contact us, in case of any further queries.

Yours Sincerely,

*********
Lovefilm Customer Services

'No limit' indeed, what a joke! This company is well & truely doing my head in! Roll on the end of June, when my second free month ends, coz I'm outta there!

[bazwaldo]

Shazza,I'm outta there with you.
In my case it has now settled down in to a totally unsatisfactory routine. As follows:
Thursday - discs dispatched
Friday/Saturday - discs received by me.
Saturday/Sunday - discs posted back by me.
Monday - discs acknowledged as returned.None sent out.
Tuesday - message reading:you have no discs rented.Your next dvd's will be dispatched as soon as possible.
Wednesday - Ditto.
Thursday - discs dispatched.
And so on.
This has been the pattern now for 4 weeks.They are in effect limiting my
rentals to one dispatch per week.This is way out of line,as it should be standard to get 2 dispatches per week and quite feasible to get 3 dispatches in a week,as I have done before with (this shower of s***)company,when they were half decent and others i.e. Blockbuster & Screenselect.
Complaining is a waste of time,as the reply given is just as Shazza says,
a standard response which doesn't answer your complaint.
Sorry to rant on so much but they make my blood boil with their blase
attitude.It wouldn't be so bad if they admitted what they were doing and apologised,but if they did they would have to change their policy wording to reflect the limited service and nobody would sign up with them.
Aagghh.
Any good/bad reports on 2 for 1 with Screenselect.
Thinking about giving them another shot.

[stricko]

I don't believe that complaining is a waste of time.

For whatever reason there are people (including me) who are now getting 1 day turnaround out of Lovefilm. My detailed stats show my last 12 rentals have been received, reallocated and shipped on the day after I posted them. Short of delivering the things to Peterborough and waiting at the door for the next rental, it could not have been slicker. I've got less than 25 very mixed titles in my queue, so I don't think there is a valid reason that they can give for your service being worse than mine.

I suspect that I'm getting "normal" service because I kept ringing up and badgering them. I made it very clear that I was keeping detailed records, and that I was reporting them on this, and other forums.

You may well have already done this, but it seems to have worked in my case. Please feel free to use my account as an example of someone who they are giving good service to.

[doblersdream]

I signed up for the 3 for 1 offer on 22nd March. Perfect for exactly a month, then the service flushed itself down the toilet. I'm getting 3 dvds each time, but i have wait 3 full days each time before they send more out. Early complaining yielded a free week's extension to my subscription.

Since then i've been on the phone 3 times, each time getting the same woman - shauna/seana something-or-other. Totally unhelpful. It's as if she's reading her response to every question (probably well rehearsed).

Some of the laughable things she said to me;

- "This new system has been implemented to give all our members a better service."
- "The timing of the delayed dispatches has absolutely nothing to do with the end of your paid month."
- "We've had very few complaints about the new system"
- "There's nothing i can do to change the system."
- "No, you can't speak to anyone who can change it. A manager will just tell you the same as me. ("Can i speak to a manager anyway?") Sorry, all the managers are in a meeting, and i have to go to a meeting now too, so are there any other questions you have?"

My queries, eg. "How hard is it to send a title out when you get one back?", "How can this possibly be good for customer service?", "Why didn't you tell me that the service was changing during my period of a subscription?", "As a paying member, should i not have been afforded that courtesy?" are met with rehearsed answers which do nothing but make me even more infuriated.

************UPDATE***************************************

Just got a call back from a Lovefilm 'customer service manager'. Same 'We're right and you're wrong' attitude. I told her i'd had experience with other rental companies and this doesn't happen. She actually said "Maybe we just want to be different". My reply was "Yes, the other companies send out titles near the top of your list immediately. You ARE different, an awful lot worse".

She said the service was to make sure members get titles from near the top of their queue. I said "Well, 4 of my top 5 are old films. Are you telling me that if a film sits in your warehouse for 3 days waiting for my 'dispatch date' that you call that good service?" She couldn't answer that, just reverted to the mantra "We cannot change the system". I said "So you're saying it's just... TOUGH?" She said, "Well, yes, if you want to put it like that".

Unbelievable. I'm for leaving at the end of my subscription. Muppets. I actually feel sorry for the people on the phones, taking the flack for management balls-ups.

[doblersdream]

I just sent the link to this forum to trading standards UK, the director general of BVA (who bestowed Lovefilm with an award), and various consumer groups. Probably not do much good, but Lovefilm getting away with this really annoys me.

I wish i had an email address for a director of Lovefilm. I'd like them to see this forum too....

[shazza]

It's great that some people are now getting the standard of service that we all expect, but we shouldn't have to resort to ringing them numerous times to get that service!

[bazwaldo]

[ruggedtoast]

I cant believe how much you 3 for 1 lot are all whining. You paid for a month, which you all said was good, then youre next two months are free anyway.

I got a month free that was good but now Im a paying customer the service is slow. Its still good value overall though, much cheaper than the video shop.

I think you all need to get out more, how about a nice walk in the park. You might even meet someone.