It never rains but it pours.
Our buddy Jason Clark wrote a few weeks back about how Blockbuster was annoying their customers once again by raising prices a few bucks and in some cases, many, many bucks.
Well, that publicity wasn’t great, but today’s problems aren’t helping either.
As of 1:00 AM EST on January 8th, the Blockbuster Online site has been down for almost an entire day. They have a little notice up that says it will be back soon, and they’re sorry, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I saw this news from Mashable tonight, who also report that they could be having some big time problems over there, not just a site outage.
It’s hard to imagine huge websites like Blockbuster.com in this day and age being down for 24 hours or longer. It happened last year for a long period of time, but that was related to rolling blackouts in California.
No, this is another problem.
The hilarious part of this whole story is that their stock finished up 8 cents on the NYSE at the Monday closing bell.
Might need to start looking into some other online DVD rental services.
All of this begs the necessary, but lame question:
“It’s 1 AM…do YOU know where your Blockbuster Queue is?”
Well, it’s almost 7 A.M. Central time and their site is back up. I’m so relieved. I just mailed a movie in and I only have about a week before they receive it so I wanted to make sure I had time to edit my queue before the six day processing window that it takes them to decide to send me another movie by tricycle delivery (how else to explain the length of transit?). Thank God I can still exchange five movies in store! What? I’ve already used all five for January? But it’s only the 8th!?!?
Love the sarcasm Jason
They do take a long time to turn it around sometimes.
The in-store rentals are nice though.
I’ve been thinking about Hollywood Video a lot….they have cheaper prices and unlimited exchanges in the store, you can just only have out like 2-3 at a time.
Hollywood Video has DVD by mail?
No video by mail, but they have a store by my house…and they have a monthly plan like Blockbuster/Netflix…
I was just thinking what it would be like if I just went back to visiting the movie store like I used to, and still have the same plan as Blockbuster.
Bring a movie back, exchange it, watch it, bring it back, etc., all for one price.
well, you could always start your own…. check this out…
http://usatoday.franchisesolutions.com/franchise/DVD_Now_Kiosks.cfm
I gave up Blockbuster a few months ago when they raised prices. They told me my prices would stay the same because I was a “valued customer.” Of course, if I switched plans, I’d be subject to the new pricing (understandable.) Anyway, after about a week, my service degraded so much. I no longer had access to “e-coupons” which they said I would. I contacted customer service 3 times who apologized and said they would work on the problem. 3 months later after nothing was done I canceled. I’m not happy with Netflix either, mostly because the value just isn’t there (can’t take them back to the store, and I can’t watch their movies online since I run Mac OS). Anyway… I hope Hollywood Video or a direct competitor eventually does DVDs-by-mail with in-store returns. Until them I’m strictly on my DVR.
Adam’s last blog post..Lost Billboards
and btw, its pretty funny you have an article here complaining about blockbuster when the google ad that popped up for me as I read this article was promoting blockbuster online for only $4.99 a month with no later fees!!!
I don’t think our turnaround time with Blockbuster is bad. They usually receive the DVD in a day and the next day send me another. I have no desire to go back to doing everything through the store…. at least yet. Plus I feel like a Rockstar when I take one in and leave without paying. Give me the simple pleasures… I’ll take them everytime.
Capn, I know, I’ve been thinking of taking those down actually