i love netflix's no hassle customer service policy now.... it makes the overall experience great!

Or just add more movies to your queue?

Translation of CSR's replies: "We're covering for the IT support admins who lost your data without taking any backups."
This reeks of a database snafu. Sure, they can't "modify or manage titles" directly, but that won't prevent data loss by other means.

The author's initial communication was terse, unprofessional, and contained very little useful information. If you have a problem and want help, you need to clearly and fully explain the whole situation to the best of your ability. And if you really believe that you will never remember some of the movies in your queue, your life won't be any worse for not having seen them.

May I recommend Netflix? I've NEVER had a wrong movie sent to me. That most definitely is not just the "Nature of the Business". Their customer service has always been great, too.

Netflix customer service is great! I've changed my subscription, reported lost DVDs, and even canceled for a while...but their amazing service brought me right back. All online, simple clicks of the mouse, no battles over billing issues. Dump Blockbuster and go to Netflix!

For the problem, it sounds like they had some kind of database issue and the movies in your queue were erased. It happens! I doubt anyone at Blockbuster can do anything about it even if they wanted to. Best take their advice and add your movies back (though keeping 30-40 movies in the queue seems darn excessive).

Sounds like a classic version of the rep referring to the FAQs, and not fully understanding the issue. I bet there is a rep FAQ that states - "What if there are no movies in my queue?" and she is giving you that answer. And then the followup FAQ about what happens if someone suspects queue tampering. Regina (a fake name) probably doesn't care, nor does whoever trained her. Of course, take your money to Netflix, its a better customer experience anyway...and how often do you really return movies to the store?

I actually don't think blockbuster handled that too badly. I mean is the CS rep going to get into their DB logs and find the transaction taht deleted them all? It happened. And they didnt seem rude, they were just giving you precanned messages to you like everyone does. I used to have netflix and they were the exact same one.

I'll be the next one to share my love for Netflix. :)

That response sounds exactly like every Blockbuster.com response I've ever gotten. I actually believe now (after so many canned and useless responses that don't address the actual problem) that ALL BB.com email replies are actually written by a computer, with no human involvement at all. The oddest thing about BB.com is that one month they'll be great, and the next month it's as if they shut the company down. Rinse, repeat. Even if you have 40 movies in your queue, only about 5 of them will be 'available', and of those, BB will maybe actually bother to send you one or two. Netflix on the other hand... always stellar, always what I paid for and more.

Just leave man. I worked at Blockbuster for 9 months as a manager (trust me, I hated it, you don't need to ask), and the company is just run so horribly. You wouldn't believe how little employees are told about programs like Total Access, we had to make calls to the online customer service daily because customers had problems that we simply didn't have answers for. All our district manager ever did was give us unreasonable sales goals and tell us to push the online program no matter what: "Just get them to sign up for the free trial, tell them it's easy, and they can figure it out when they get home. Don't waste time once they put in their info, move them along Just keep getting them to that laptop" was his mantra.

Netflix is by far the superior online rental service. Unless you NEED to get movies at a moments notice (assuming that store actually has it in stock), the best thing to do is stick to Netflix.

On a related note, not all Blockbuster employees are idiots out to get you. I wasn't, and two of the people I worked with certainly weren't (the rest I'm afraid, were).

By corporate policy we were required to stock a full bay (64 spots) of empty boxes for movies like "Factory Girl" and "School for Scoundrels" (Weinstein exclusives, which if you check out Netflix, is a blatant lie, but a topic for another discussion), while smaller gems like "The Science of Sleep" had 2 cover boxes toward the bottom of the shelf.

I'm a Netflix'er I was tempted by the Blockbuster deals when they first went online, but I've had some really bad experiences with my local Block Busters. They had workers stealing DVD's that were dropped in the return basket and then charging its customers for the "lost" DVD's even after they said they were aware of the problem and looking into it.

Rumors have been getting kicked around about Netflix adding video games to their rental list. If they did that Netflix would have no equal.

Fast food, credit cards maxing out, accidentally deleting your Blockbuster Online queue and hoping the "playing dumb" angle works on customer service...

Is today's theme "Personal Responsibility Takes a Holiday?" :)

I didn't

see anything wrong with Blockbuster's first reply. Also, do you really think that getting $45+ worth of service is reasonable when all that happened was you lost a list of movies that is easily rebuilt? Get real. I'd expect "sorry, that was a computer error, there's not much we can do." Maybe they could upgrade you to get an extra disc for the next month or something, that would be much more reasonable.

Am I the only one a little irritated by this? "Waaaaaah I want my list back!!!"

Seriously, you can't just pick new movies? I really don't see how this is worth MONTHS of service. I'm not really even seeing how this is a mild inconvienence. But I do kind of wish that my biggest problem was something like this, I'd be doing pretty well.

When we had Blockbuster, our returned movies weren't being credited to our account promptly. We'd inform them that we'd mailed back the movie, and they'd apply a "lost in mail" credit to our account. Eventually, they suggested we were keeping (stealing) the movies. Fed up, we canceled. Shortly thereafter, we started receiving "disc received" notifications for the movies we had returned weeks earlier.

I have nothing but good things to say about Netflix, and have heard nothing but good things from friends and family who are also members.

@AlisonAshleigh: I found him annoying too. The poor punctuation and lack of reasoning was irksome.

I once got a DVD screener in the mail from BB.com instead of the actual movie.

I called the MPAA on them like a good citizen.

@kiloman:
I agree that the initial query was lacking information that might have made Blockbuster's response more helpful. The follow-ups were little better.

Communication 101, people. Calmly detail the circumstances and then ask your question. Don't make the customer rep play guessing games.

Sometimes I think that this site should be renamed "blametheconsumerist.com" (it's available, I just checked) and then all of the Astroturfing comment posters here could open berate consumers for complaining that people they are doing business with are giving them poor customer service. While the poster may have gone a wee bit over the top, at the same time it is reasonable to expect a BB CSR rep to deal with the problem forthrightly and directly. A simply "unfortunately, there's nothing we can do" with a bit of sympathy would go a long way towards soothing feelings and getting moral high ground here.

Unfortunate glitch, unreasonable request for restitution, piss poor "tone of voice" to write in to Blockbuster with. Flies with honey, man. Sure you are upset, but bitching like that isn't going to make any friends even if they can do something about it...

The complainer sucks. She went into this guns loaded and finger on the trigger instead of politely asking for CS's help in figuring out what went wrong. If you shut down before you even give them a chance, how are they going to solve anything for you?

Try asking politely next time. Complainer is the reason Customer Suck stories exist.

@Ausoleil: Right. Because anyone pointing out that the customer might actually not be right is obviously an astroturfer.

I've been with netflix for almost 4 years and I've never had a wrong disc shipped to me...I've never had anything but good experiences with them all these years which is why the lower price at bb.com never enticed me to leave.

@Ausoleil:

Very few people are blaming him for anything. The thing I think is silly is the fact that this is even on the site in the first place as anything other than an example of how _not_ to deal with CSRs. In short, Blockbuster wasn't being ridiculous, the poster was.

Sucks that the list is gone, and he probably should get some sort of credit. But, if he cannot remember what movies he had in his queue, he sure must not have cared much about seeing them.

Tell me, any Netflix horror stories, or is it all 'blockbuster is evil'?

(Had Netflix send me a wrong movie when I was with them.)

Dude, just switch to Netflix. While my experience with them has not been entirely perfect (I've had them for about 8 months and have gotten a few scratched movies), they have always taken care of the problem immediately AND given me some sort of credit or free movies.

You are an idiot. You were the scathing one. I think they handled it just fine. I found no attitude in those responses. You are an extremely strung up person. Get a grip and a life. Crap happens. "Months" of putting 30 movies in your queue...LOL..PUUUULEASE....you expect anyone to believe you took months to put 30 movies in a queue then want credit for the months of work it took you to click 30 times LOLOL OMFG...thanks for the laugh...looooooooooser

@lostalaska: I'll second the part about Netflix having no equal if they add video games.

Greencine is another alternative, but they don't have warehouses all over the country like netflix.

The poster is at fault, in my opinion. They handled it just fine. The initial email to Blockbuster was rude, lacking information, and just plain wrong. The responses, to his emails, were justified and to the point.

He's just trying to find something to complain about.

One word, Netflix. In the 4+ years I have been using Netflix I have not had one problem! They simply are the best.

This isn't the biggest problem in the world, and at the same time, Blockbuster sure doesn't need to be rude about it! What to do?

Do you have a receipt for your queue? Show it!

Marty really got off on the wrong foot and set the tone for the entire communication. I actually think Regina did an okay job, at first, in handling a customer that was overtly accusatory and wanted a ton of free service for a simple database error. The fact of the matter is that Blockbuster did not lose anything of value. It was simply a list. A list that can be repopulated at no expense to the customer. Yes it's a pain, but it won't cost any money.

Marty, you've got to handle your CSR communications better if you hope to get free stuff for minor troubles. Those CSR's are people too, and they'd probably love it if some customer spoke to them in a nice and understanding tone. They might love it so much they'd be willing to actually help you out.

@smitty1123: Absolutely. It is easy as pie to keep a running count in your head of which 30-40 movies you want to see next. In fact, they should do away with the whole concept of a queue, it's so easy...

Fuck the naysayers, Marty, I feel your pain. The queue is undoubtedly online renting's killer app. We have over 100 movies in our Netflix queue, and if it got deleted, I'd be PISSED!

Several months of compensation for a lost list? While I'll agree that it's a pain in the rear to recompile a movie list that extensive, there's no way in hell the loss of said list deserves MONTHS of compensation. That just sounds like an entitled attitude.

@liquisoft: Word up.

Treating CSRs like humans, and not approaching them as if they intentionally and maliciously caused the problem goes a long way. Also: reasonable requests. Marty demanded the world for what, truth be told, is a minor inconvenience. Several months credit? For a lost queue? For delays in processing returns, sure; for a parade of scratched discs? Absolutely.

But this is just self-entitlement at its worst.

@catskyfire: I've had Netflix for a couple of years, and no real horror stories. I get a broken disc about once every 3 months, but they ship out a replacement very quickly after you report it. I get throttled on newer movies, but I average about 5 movies a week, so it isn't that big of a deal for me. Also, sometimes there are shipping delays on obscure movies, but that isn't unexpected.

Honestly, I'm super happy with them. I would only want two changes. Renting games, and their vod player to work natively in Firefox (without having to use IE tabs).

Shouldn't these types of errors be investigated in case there is a larger problem that affects multiple customers? Yeah I know they don't. I still think they should.

BB is awful about using scripted replies. I had all three movies at my house at one time and I received emails stating that all three had been returned and new ones were on their way. I thought this was weird until I had six movies at my house even though I was on the three-at-a-time plan. I just got some canned reply stating if I have not received the movies by a certain date to report it. Absolutely useless response.

@AlisonAshleigh:

Agreed. I have over 480 movies in my Netflix queue, and if it got deleted I'd be cheesed, but wouldn't expect several months worth of renumeration from Netflix. I'd just spend an hour plugging them all back in again, as best I could, from memory.

40 movies lost? Cry me a freakin' river.

I think Marty has gone hype over this incident. Some memory or cached data was lost, and a queue of movies he would have like to of seen is gone. BOO HOO. That is like me losing my grocery list before going to the store. It's annoying, but 80% of the stuff on the list can be re-queue'd in five minutes, and I might even find a few other items I really enjoy in the process~

I have had netflix for 2 years and love them. They have never sent me a wrong movie. Only one movie as been lost in the mail and they were quick to fix it, I wasn't charged. The only time I have gotten broken or unplayable DVDs (they have been children's movies and only a couple of times) they sent replacements the very next day.

@alk509: If I lost my queue, I'd be aggravated, but I could reconstruct the top 25-30 slots pretty easily. The 100+ after that would be a different story, but I'd have plenty of time to repopulate it. Granted, it's just my queue, so it would be much harder if it was a family queue.

I still think the guy should get either a temporary upgrade in service or some sort of account credit.

Dude - you need to relax. Your queue was lost, for whatever reason. These things happen. Your whiny tone and demand for service credit of months makes you the kind of customer any company would be happy to lose, even Blockbuster.

Also, can you really claim putting together a queue takes months??? Really?? Suck it up, pick some new moves out from blockbuster or netflix, and take your blood pressure medication.

Reading Blockbusters response they seem to be replying professionally and in this case it appears the consumer has the attitude. I am sure there is some sorta hickup in the system that caused her list to get wiped out but this is a list of movies YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE!! and they mail them to you as they can. To ask for free credit is a little bit ridiculous!

IMO Blockbuster handled this professionally.

I agree with a lot of other people here. He is crying over something that doesn't really matter. I once lost part of my queue from Netflix's when they first opened. It happens.

In other news, Blockbuster really recommends you have 30-40 movies in your queue? That seems excessive.

I too love netflix, but have recently switched to using redbox. I get free rentals every week from them for signing up for their newsletter. An there are tons of locations all over town so I can pick up a movie easy.