Netflix Covers Ass

### Please read "I'm Being 'Throttled'" first. ###

This was taken from the Better Business Bureau Complaint Resolution Web Site.

I did accept this offer but I will be on the look-out for a company with different standards. You, the blog reader, please let me know if you find anything good as well.

I must give some credit to Netflix for the speed and accuracy of their response.

CLT.cf.rtf
02/15/2006 Receive Business Response February 15, 2006

To: Cathy Jasper
Complaint Conciliator
Re: [my name]

From: Catherine Jay
Netflix, Inc.

Customer: [Me]

Dear Cathy,

Thank you for the opportunity to address Mr. [my name] concerns. We appreciate the time taken by Mr. [my name] to provide his feedback and comments. Providing the best Unlimited Rental Service possible and addressing customer inquiries are our top priorities. We are continually striving to improve our subscription service and all feedback and suggestions we receive are carefully reviewed.

I am very sorry to hear about misunderstanding regarding the service. As per the Terms of Use, Netflix does not normally issue discounts or credits for the service. However, as a one-time courtesy for the confusion, I have issued a 50% discount towards Mr. [my name] next billing cycle.

To offer a fair and balanced service to all of our members, we do give priority to members who receive fewest DVDs through our service. This can cause customers who receive the most movies to occasionally experience next-day shipping, receive movies from a location other than their local distribution center resulting in longer delivery times or receive movies lower in their Rental Queue more often than our other subscribers. However, this is not to say that all movies will not ship the same day as their DVDs are returned or these customers will never receive new releases. In short, while this process is in place to help us prioritize the processing of our shipments, it does not affect every shipment a heavy user receives.

I do want to explain that Netflix does not guarantee the availability of our inventory. With No Due Dates or Late Fees, our inventory fluctuates constantly. Since our inventory is not guaranteed, Netflix does not usually offer any type of compensation for waits which may occur for certain titles. Instead, we invite customers who are waiting for specific titles to browse our selection of over 55,000 titles for additional films which they may be interested in viewing.

Please be assured it is critical to Netflix that we are able to provide our customers one of their top choices consistently and we are constantly evaluating our movie inventory and buying more movies to match demand as closely as we can. Unfortunately, for those new release titles which we do not carry too many copies of (in comparison to the demand) there can be waits until we are able to replenish our inventory.

As Mr. [my name] is aware, in order to help him manage his rentals, we provide inventory information for each item. Due to the fact inventory status is constantly fluctuating; stock statuses provided on the web site should only be used as approximations of availability. In addition, all expected "wait" designations are simply estimated according to overall demand and are not specific to each individual customer. In other words, a title that is flagged "short wait," may nevertheless ship to Mr. [my name] immediately upon receipt of a DVD rental. There are overall estimated "short wait", "long wait" and "very long wait" status designations, but these do not indicate the exact position for Mr. [my name] in regards to receiving the specific title.

Our system is designed to ship a DVD from customers Queue as quickly as possible. If the first is not available, it will ship the second. If the second is not available, our system will ship the third available choice. However, for multi-disc sets, if a disc of the set in higher priority is not available the rest of the discs in the series will be passed in order to ensure the discs are viewed in the proper order. If a series has multiple seasons, each season is considered a separate set. For example, if both Season 1 and 2 of a set are in a customer's Rental Queue, and Season 1 is unavailable, it is possible for discs from Season 2 to ship prior to Season 1.

Mr. [my name] Rental Queue currently lists 22 titles, 12 of which are not yet released on DVD. 7 of the remaining 10 titles are discs from a multi-disc set of a TV series (''Lost: Season 1''). The other 3 titles are all in the very long wait status. At the very top of Mr. [my name] Queue, he lists all 7 discs of the ''Lost'' TV series. Disc 1 is in the ''short wait'' status while the other 6 are in the ''available now'' status. Since we do not ship multi-disc sets out of order, our automated system will skip the remaining discs in the series, regardless of their ''available now'' status.

At this time, the availability of Mr. [my name] titles leaves us with no titles that we can ship to him. Thus in order to fully enjoy the Netflix service, we recommend he add more available titles to his Rental Queue. This will ensure that DVDs will continue to ship while he is waiting for the other titles at the top of his Rental Queue to become available.

Please note after several days with no shipments due to the availability of the titles in Mr. [my name] Rental Queue, a copy of ''The Constant Gardener'' has become available and we are in processing the shipment at this time. Mr. [my name] will receive an email notification once the order has been fulfilled. Again, we would suggest Mr. [my name] add more titles to his Rental Queue so that we can continue with his shipments.

If there are any further questions regarding how we process shipments, this information has been available in our Terms of Use. Mr. [my name] may reference this information by using the following link:

http://www.netflix.com/TermsOfUse?hnjr=8

In reviewing Mr. [my name] account, I do see he sent an email to Netflix Customer Service on February 15, 2006 regarding this issue. As a Netflix representative has not yet replied to this email, I have removed it from the active email Queue. He will not receive a reply for this email inquiry.

Again, I apologize for any misunderstanding and as a one-time courtesy, have issued a 50% discount towards Mr. [my name] next billing cycle. This discount will affect his monthly fee billing on February 17, 2006. To avoid further delays with his shipments, we would suggest Mr. [my name] add additional titles, which are available for shipment, to his Queue.

I hope that I have been able to satisfactorily address Mr. [my name] concerns. If either Mr. [my name] or you have any further questions or comments regarding this issue, please feel free to contact me directly. I can be reached at (408) 220-3120 and am available Monday through Friday from 6:00am to 2:30pm (Pacific Standard Time).

Sincerely,

Catherine Jay
Netflix, Inc