Blockbuster Gives Subscribers the Finger with the Delayed Weekend Delivery Tactic

The latest in a seemingly unending string of brazen delay tactics employed by Blockbuster Online is the Delayed Weekend Delivery Tactic. In this sneaky little scheme, Blockbuster limits shipping to at least some subscribers during the first part of the week to DVDs which are likely to spend long times in transit and not arrive until Friday or later. Here is an example of how this tactic works.

Bob returns all three of his online DVD rentals to a Blockbuster store on Sunday. As soon as the Blockbuster store clerk scans in those three DVDs at the counter, Bob will have three open slots in his queue. If Blockbuster were honoring their obligations to Bob, they would ship three new DVDs to him on Monday. When Blockbuster Online uses the Delayed Weekend Delivery Tactic, however, Blockbuster ships to Bob only DVDs from shipping centers outside of Bob’s standard shipping area. Since these DVDs travel greater distances, they take longer to arrive at Bob’s house. The result is that Bob may not receive his new DVDs until Friday or later. Since Blockbuster’s last shipping day of the week is Friday, Bob will find it impossible to return his DVDs to a Blockbuster store in time to have more DVDs shipped that week. The situation forces Bob to wait until the following week for any more DVD shipments. Unfortunately, Blockbuster will, once again, delay Bob’s DVD shipments during that following week. Essentially, Blockbuster has made it virtually impossible for Bob to receive more than three DVDs from Blockbuster Online in any given week.

If your DVDs are consistently not arriving until Friday or later, Blockbuster Online is probably throttling the flow of DVDs to you using the Delayed Weekend Delivery Tactic. Even though, you are paying full price for a full subscription, Blockbuster has cut your benefits roughly in half.