March 25th, 2007
Posted by
nick in
Uncategorized
For those of you who are still using CD’s, not MP3 players… using land lines instead of cell phones… real mail instead of email… please allow me to enlighten you.
You can now rent DVD’s directly through the mail and internet.
Thats right, you go online, make a few clicks, and bada-bing-bada-band, a couple days later the movies wind up at your door.
As far as I know there are only two fat cats on the block.
Blockbuster and Netflix.
I’m a dedicated blockbuster user, and I thought I’d take a minute to explain why.
Sometime ago, I originally went online and signed up for Netflix!
I filled out the online app, clicked OK to charge my credit card the $24.95, and hit send…
Suddenly I saw a giant error message, and my zipcode was colored red!
“Please fill in your correct zipcode” said a quaint little message, next to my zip. The problem was the zipcode I had entered was in fact correct.
“Hmmm” I said to myself, “must be gremlins in the works”… I double checked all my info again and hit send.
No luck, the same error messages came up again.
Ok I started getting upset - as if I didn’t know my own zipcode.
I hit it again, thinking the third time would be the charm.
Strike three.
At that point I grabbed a piece of mail lying nearby (an unopened ConEd bill from six months earlier), and double checked my zip… Wooo Hooo! It was correct.
OK, you limey bastards (it was the best I could think of short notice), I check the info one more time thinking I might have done something wrong, and their system was just blaming my zipcode. All info correct I hit send again, and you guessed it, I got the error page yet again.
Well you can only kick a dead horse so many times I thought… and closed the web page. Guess I’d stick to walking up the whole block to the video store… Case closed, or so I thought.
The next day I logged onto my credit card account, to see Netflix had charged my card 5 times!!! 5 charges, which ran up to more then $100!!!!
and this is what drove me over the edge… $100 in charges, and they STILL had not issued me a Netflix account… the money was in limbo somewhere.
It was impossible for me to get someone on the phone, and when I did, they said it would take a couple of weeks to clear out of the system, and release my money!
Well truth be told it took over 4 weeks folks… and I shyt you not…
A few weeks later I thought to myself, “Self, you have a Blockbuster store account, why not use them online”…
I did, and I have ever since.
Blockbuster is great, they basically are the same price as Netflix, and!! once you have a movie ready to return, instead of dropping it back in the mail, you can walk over to your nearest store, drop off the movie(s) there AND for each online rented movie you drop off - you can instantly check out another movie on their shelves free of charge.
This means if you have the 3 movie out and once online plan (or 8 movies out at once plan) you can rent a whole crapload of movies during a month… for not much money.
So when it comes to BB vs. Netflix, I’m Blockbuster all the way.
By the way Blockbuster feel free to contact me for endorsement compensation any time… my emails floating around somewhere…
Final note: Netflix has started beta testing their online viewing rentals - which means you can actually download a movie and watch it instantly on your computer. I’m not sure of the technicals to this - but no doubtedly this is where all movie entertaiment will eventually go.
You can now rent DVD’s directly through the mail and internet.
Thats right, you go online, make a few clicks, and bada-bing-bada-band, a couple days later the movies wind up at your door.
As far as I know there are only two fat cats on the block.
Blockbuster and Netflix.
I’m a dedicated blockbuster user, and I thought I’d take a minute to explain why.
Sometime ago, I originally went online and signed up for Netflix!
I filled out the online app, clicked OK to charge my credit card the $24.95, and hit send…
Suddenly I saw a giant error message, and my zipcode was colored red!
“Please fill in your correct zipcode” said a quaint little message, next to my zip. The problem was the zipcode I had entered was in fact correct.
“Hmmm” I said to myself, “must be gremlins in the works”… I double checked all my info again and hit send.
No luck, the same error messages came up again.
Ok I started getting upset - as if I didn’t know my own zipcode.
I hit it again, thinking the third time would be the charm.
Strike three.
At that point I grabbed a piece of mail lying nearby (an unopened ConEd bill from six months earlier), and double checked my zip… Wooo Hooo! It was correct.
OK, you limey bastards (it was the best I could think of short notice), I check the info one more time thinking I might have done something wrong, and their system was just blaming my zipcode. All info correct I hit send again, and you guessed it, I got the error page yet again.
Well you can only kick a dead horse so many times I thought… and closed the web page. Guess I’d stick to walking up the whole block to the video store… Case closed, or so I thought.
The next day I logged onto my credit card account, to see Netflix had charged my card 5 times!!! 5 charges, which ran up to more then $100!!!!
and this is what drove me over the edge… $100 in charges, and they STILL had not issued me a Netflix account… the money was in limbo somewhere.
It was impossible for me to get someone on the phone, and when I did, they said it would take a couple of weeks to clear out of the system, and release my money!
Well truth be told it took over 4 weeks folks… and I shyt you not…
A few weeks later I thought to myself, “Self, you have a Blockbuster store account, why not use them online”…
I did, and I have ever since.
Blockbuster is great, they basically are the same price as Netflix, and!! once you have a movie ready to return, instead of dropping it back in the mail, you can walk over to your nearest store, drop off the movie(s) there AND for each online rented movie you drop off - you can instantly check out another movie on their shelves free of charge.
This means if you have the 3 movie out and once online plan (or 8 movies out at once plan) you can rent a whole crapload of movies during a month… for not much money.
So when it comes to BB vs. Netflix, I’m Blockbuster all the way.
By the way Blockbuster feel free to contact me for endorsement compensation any time… my emails floating around somewhere…
Final note: Netflix has started beta testing their online viewing rentals - which means you can actually download a movie and watch it instantly on your computer. I’m not sure of the technicals to this - but no doubtedly this is where all movie entertaiment will eventually go.
