A conversation with a previous Lovefilm customer and my thoughts on a few things

Yesterday, I went to a restaurant with some friends (including Martin who introduced me to the service). I mentioned to Martin my first problem (see previous post) and Mark, across the table, went "oooooh how long have you been with them?" From his response, I had a feeling he hadn't had much fun with them. I asked him what his experiences were with them, and here's the summary of them:

1) Delivery times are really slow and sometimes don't turn up, so you have to report as missing.
2) Scratched discs is a very common occurrence.
3) They left lovefilm and went with Amazon.co.uk rentals and loved them......until Lovefilm bought them.

Personally, I haven't had much issue with them except for one scratched disc which they instantly dealt with and gave me compensation for it (an extra rental ^_^). But then again, it's only been ten days since I signed up, so I can't really draw comparisons.

On looking back at their response to the scratched disc, they have the same policy as Blockbuster stores. I got myself a Blockbuster account quite a while back as renting a whole series boxset of Charmed for £5 a week seemed like a good deal. But, quite often, there would be at least one disc which was scratched a lot and would skip quite a bit on playing. For the first two times, they just thanked me for telling them and put the offending discs in their scratch removing machine. But after that, their policy must have changed as, when I came in after that to let them know, I always got a free rental out of it.

Looking back on it now, I feel kinda bad for always going in with scratched discs and getting free rentals, but I still borrowed films from them and they were usually alright, so they still got lots of my money XD

One thing I liked about Blockbuster over Lovefilm is that you got the original box for the rental. With Lovefilm, all you get is a plastic sleeve (sometimes with a label on with a picture of the box and a little about the title). I don't know about other people, but having the actual box feels more satisfying. Also, it feels like you're less likely to lose the disc if it's in a box. I'm sure I'll lose one of those sleeves one day >_<

Then again, one thing with Lovefilm is that you can select the specific disc from boxsets you want to rent. This is especially good if you buy the one disc version of a film, and then find that there's a two disc version, you can borrow the special features disc on its own. THAT is a really good idea I think.