Blockbuster Entertainment Online Store

After watching the online movie rental industry carefully, I finally decided to enroll with Blockbuster. Main considerations: Familiar name; New Low Price; and Free In-store Coupons (in that order).

During the free trial, I noticed slow delivery times. It takes almost a week for movie turnaround, even though the envelopes indicate that the movies go to a service center in MY TOWN! After a disappointing trial period, I cancelled.

Based on industry news, as well as previous e-mail and letters sent to me, I noticed an effort to improve delivery times. Great! I enrolled again a month ago.

It turns out that they are as slow as previously described, and none of the improvement initiatives have been implemented or effective. I wrote a letter to the company, explaining the problem, in case they were not aware. They acknowledged. No improvement.

Tomorrow is the end of my billing period, and I'm seriously considering canceling. Perhaps NETFLIX has better delivery times.... The only thing that would persuade me to stay with BB would be the two free store rentals. I'll do the math and sleep on it.

I had good service until I subscribed to the mail service! Now service is in the basement. The dvd's that I return to the store go missing before they get checked in so I get charged for movies I don't have, and they're not on the shelf at the store. Obviously somebody at the Rosewood Dr. Columbia, SC store is stealing them! And because of these movies showing as still being checked out, the on-line service doesn't send me new ones so I'm paying for a service I don't receive. I am steamed! Local manager won't talk to me about it and 800 customer non-care dept. is not helping.

Blockbuster online has been a complete nightmate experience. I signed up. The process SEEMED to go pretty easy. My movies were shipped. I returned them to the store.

At the store I was told I did not have an online account and the movies scanned in with somebody else's name and address. I had to send 3 emails to customer service. Their only response was a form letter stating to call their customer service phone number which immediately hangs up when you call it.

I emailed customer service back and told them about the phone problem. Their response was to call the customer service phone number again. Duh! I have been billed 17.99 for a non-existant account. I cannot rent movies and cannot get through to anybody in customer service willing to help.

Please Blockbuster read your own home page "Never wait for a movie again". Just what exactly does that mean. How do you get away with billing a customer and providing ZERO service?

This has been 3 weeks where I am paying for nothing. I recommend EVERYBODY to go somewhere else.

Ted McCormick
Buffalo Grove, IL

While there are no late fees, you pay for movies you keep over 30 days. Go with Netflix, they have no fine print.

Forget about ever watching the movies you want to see, Yes the price is very competitive and you get an in store exchange for another movie, but then again most of the movies in the store you've probably already seen,
and when it to watching hard to get movies or specialty movies it more likely that you'll never see them cause they will never arrive, they will most like sit in your queue until your a hundred.
Netflix has a better selection of movies are always available and are always on time.

I was a Blockbuster regular. Then I switched to Netflix for selection, and quality. Then I switched to Blockbuster 3 at a time monthly pass for convienience and volume. Then I switched to Blockbuster online. During the two week trial the service was great, high quality, and fast. I even overlooked the broken DVD they sent me. The moment they billed my credit card the service crashed. I recieved 2 videos, I didn't really want, in a month on a list of 8 popular videos.

They slowed my service dramatically, the quality was insufficient, and they just didn't deliver. It's the worst video rental experience I have had in a decade.

The works just like the BMG music in the mail.No late fees,
look at it as long as you want to, return it. All you have to worry about is the postage.

My experience with Blockbuster Online is that it is the worst business I've used in the past decade. Delivery of CDs if VERY slow. Communication is terrible. They are helpless to fix problems. I have found that the majority of problems never see a human eye, but an attempt is made for a computer to answer the problem with a pre-programmed response which never fits the situation.

My daughter paid one full year in advance as a gift for me with Blockbuster Online. After about 5 1/2 months, Blockbuster 'accidentally' cancelled my membership and kept the money for the other 6 1/2 months. When I call, they have a different answer for what happened each time, but are always helpless to correct the problem they created.

Blockbuster has the worst customer service! They are the worst out of all of them. I was with Netfix and I had better service with them. At Least with Netfix I got my 3 movies that I paid for. With blockbuster all they did was give me the run around say I didnt have enough quene with 20 so they had a hard time sending anything out. They also would choose my 5th or 6th on my list it was never from the top. With Netfix it would be the first or second always. Blockbuster is a rip off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Good: Great selection. Good website design. Weekly coupon redeemable for a free in-store rental is a plus.

The Bad: Slow delivery and DVD return/shipment processing. Sometimes I would get an email that a returned DVD was received and it might take a day or so for the next one to go out, followed by a two day delivery time.

The Analysis: Residing in the same neighborhood, my girlfriend and I opted to subscribe to competing online DVD stores. I got Blockbuster and she got Netflix. Both presented essentially the same rental plans, same plan prices and DVD selection. But Netflix definitely shipped faster and processed their DVDs faster, close to 100% faster. Netflix presented a one day delivery compared to two day delivery time with Blockbuster, and generally seemed to turn around returns much much faster. By providing better service for the same price, I opted to cancel Blockbuster and join Netflix.

I used to have Netflix, but I tried Blockbuster.com to get points on my card. I like Netflix better than Blockbuster.com. It takes roughly 2-3 days to get my DVDs, whereas Netflix I get them in 1 day. With Netflix, if I'm on a 3 DVD plan, then on some weeks I can get 6-8 DVDs per week, but with Blockbuster.com I may get 1-3 per week since their slow. Blockbuster.com has gotten my order wrong twice and I've only been with them for a month and a half. Since they've gotten my order wrong, I've had to wait about 1.5 weeks in order to watch the rest of my TV series (that's the reason why I order DVDs - to watch TV shows). If you like to get your DVDs fast & correct go with Netflix, but if you don't mind waiting and getting a free in-store rental then go with Blockbuster.

Service for my area is slower than Netflix.  Longer waits for common movies.  The worst part is if there is a wait for a movie, your queue will not get filled until that movie is available.  This means you could spend days, weeks, with no movie coming.  Their customer service admitted that this a problem.

Blockbuster has proved to me of having an interest of beating netflix in this market. Now not only can you rent movies and keep them forever, you can return to the your local blockbuster and switch them out for new movies and STILL receive you queue selections in the mail! so thats like have 6 movies out at once for the price of having 3 out at once, only thing is the one you get from the local store you have return in the time requested. And not only that, you get a coupon to rent a free movie or game along with that!!! Doesn't get better than that!

Not satisfied with Block Buster online rentals. DVDS were always sent late. It is not as promised. Once it took 16 days between dvd deliveries. Average time to receive the next dvd is about 4 days. with Netflix it is always two days. Movie title availability is scarce with blockbuster. With netflix it is always available for any title at least that I have chosen. The only advantage with blockbuster is the in store exchanges. For me it doesn't cut it as the Block buster store is not closer. I need to spend gas, time and energy to go to the store to exchange.
Block buster online: 2 / 5 Stars.
Netflix online : 4 / 5 Stars.

I was a Netflix customer for three years. Netflix, allows a subscriber to rent DVD movies by mail, unlimited, for a monthly fee. I subscribed to the 21.99 per month, that allowed 3 movies to be checked out at a time. However, with their two dollar price hike (formerly 19.99) and the big boy of movie rental getting into the business, I had to give Blockbuster a try. The Blockbuster "Netflix" style movie rental service is almost like a scam it is so bad. Waits on any new release movie. My last month I paid $20.00 bucks a never received a movie because they were all labeled "long wait" or "short wait". There is no difference - you are not getting the movie. The $2.00 extra for Netflix is a bargain. Netflix sometimes had waits, but not to the point of "impossible to get". Also, Netflix has more regional distribution hubs, so mail time is short. The one advantage the Blockbuster provides is an emailed coupon for 2 free in-store rentals per month. If, I wanted to go to the store I would not have paid the monthly fee.