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.

Blockbuster Stoops to New Low with Friday Sleeper Shipping Delay Tactic

Just when we think Blockbuster Online cannot get any worse, they surprise us with another delay tactic, which ultimately results in a reduction of subscriber benefits. The latest stunt in a long line of repugnant and sleazy corporate behavior is Blockbuster’s new Friday shipping delay. We will call this the Friday Sleeper shipping delay tactic. In this scheme, Blockbuster Online leaves one shipping slot in a subscriber’s queue open almost all week and then ships out a DVD to fill that open slot on Friday afternoon.

Here is an example of how this Friday Sleeper shipping delay tactic appears to work. Blockbuster Online subscriber, Bob returns Online DVDs A1, B1, and C1 to a Blockbuster store on Friday, January 9. The store clerk scans in the DVDs, immediately opening all three shipping slots in Bob’s queue. Now if Blockbuster were living up to their end of the subscriber agreement, they would ship out three DVDs (A2, B2, and C2) on Monday, January 12. In this scheme, however, Blockbuster Online will wait until Wednesday, January 14 to fill only two of the three open queue slots by sending out DVDs A2 and B2. Blockbuster Online will then leave the one remaining queue slot open until the end of the shipping week and then finally ship out DVD C2 on Friday, January 16.

In this scenario, Bob gets hit with the standard Wednesday shipping delay plus the new Friday Sleeper shipping delay tactic. Bob will have to wait nearly a week to receive the first two DVDs (A2 and B2), and he will have to wait more than a week to receive the third DVD (C2). He should have received all three DVDs in just a few days, so Blockbuster has successfully and dramatically reduced the number of DVDs Bob can receive during each month.

At this point, it is not clear if Blockbuster is using this Friday Sleeper delay tactic to throttle all of its customers or just its heavy users. Regardless, this is a blatant abuse of the Blockbuster shipping system and a likely breach of contract. Make sure to keep careful records of your DVD rentals and your interactions with Blockbuster. Blockbuster appears to be willing to do just about anything to systematically minimize the benefits of some subscribers. There is bound to be a class action lawsuit at some point. If so, having good records could be to your benefit. If you do take any sort of action against Blockbuster in the future, documentation will be your friend.

Blockbuster’s New DVD Shipping System Will Blow Your Mind

More details have surfaced about Blockbuster’s new DVD shipping system. The full truth is complicated and unbelievable.

The shipping system works on an expanding hierarchy search method. Presumably, every Monday, the shipping software searches the queues of subscribers with open queue slots. The catch is the software looks only at the first three positions (for a three-out plan) on Mondays. If you, the subscriber, have some immediately available titles in the first three positions of your queue, Blockbuster may ship DVDs to you on Monday. If you do not have any immediately available titles in your first three queue positions, Blockbuster may not ship a DVD to you on Monday. (Do not have great expectations for Monday shipping. Monday is not a full and legitimate shipping day at Blockbuster anyway.)

On Tuesdays, the software repeats the same process. The only difference is the software searches the first six positions of your queue for immediately available titles. If you do not have any immediately available titles in the first six positions, no DVDs are likely to ship on Tuesday.

On Wednesdays, the process continues by searching only the first nine positions of your queue. On Thursdays, the software considers the first twelve queue positions. Not until Friday will the software search your entire queue for immediately available titles.

This shipping system is confusing, so here is the breakdown.

Mondays – Only immediately available DVDs from the top three queue positions may ship.

Tuesdays – Only immediately available DVDs from the top six queue positions may ship.

Wednesdays – Only immediately available DVDs from the top nine queue positions may ship.

Thursdays – Only immediately available DVDs from the top twelve queue positions may ship.

Fridays – Any immediately available DVDs in your queue may ship.

This new shipping system is harsh enough, but here is where things get incredibly frustrating. You might think you can beat the system by keeping the first twelve positions of your queue free from titles with statuses of “Short Wait,” “Long Wait,” “Very Long Wait,” etc. Sadly, it is not that easy. Just because Blockbuster designates a title’s status as “Available,” it does not always mean the title is immediately available in your area.

In Blockbuster language, “Available” means the title is in reasonable supply nationwide; however, the status does not indicate availability in your region. For example, you live in Seattle and have Donnie Darko at the top of your Blockbuster Online queue. Donnie Darko may be abundantly available throughout most of the distribution centers in the eastern United States, but there may be no copies of Donnie Darko at distribution centers in your region. In this case, Donnie Darko could still have a status of “Available,” but since Blockbuster does not usually ship DVDs long distances, the DVD will most likely not be shipped to you.

Making matters much worse, if you had Donnie Darko and two other “Available” titles, which are not actually available regionally in the first three positions in your queue, these three titles could prevent shipments from your queue all day Monday, every Monday. If you had six such titles in your first six queue positions, Blockbuster might not ship to you on Mondays or Tuesdays. If you had nine such titles in your first nine queue positions, Blockbuster might not ship to you on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays. If you had twelve such titles in your queue, Blockbuster might not ship a DVD to you until a Friday. Even on Fridays, you have no guarantees.

If you are thinking all of this is ridiculous and makes no sense, you are correct. This shipping system is absolutely ridiculous, and it is not supposed to make sense. The only logical explanation is that Blockbuster has found a way to systematically reduce the number of DVDs it sends to subscribers each week. This incomprehensible shipping system drastically reduces your ability to manage your account and receive your full subscriber benefits. Now that you know more about the system, maybe you can use the information to your advantage or, at least, gain some understanding about why you are not receiving DVDs from Blockbuster as quickly and frequently as you should.