Netflix delivery system gets torpedo up exhaust port
Netflix's DVD mail shipping system has crashed... and crashed hard. There's no real details in an email sent to all 8.4 million Netflix subscribers except a promise to issue credit if your next DVD is delayed, but scuttlebutt has it that almost no DVDs have been sent out since Tuesday. Worse, Netflix seems to have no idea what the problem is... the unfortunate prerequisite in knowing how to fix it. Worse, there's a lot of confusion on what's going on: some customers who have received emails saying that they're DVDs can't be delivered have come home to discover them waiting for them. Other supposedly delivered DVDs remain in limbo. A massive glitch.
The good news is online streaming is still go and Netflix is obviously taking their DVD shipment issue pretty seriously... out of dire necessity, of course, but spokesman Steve Swasey is making the right noises: "We work really hard to engender trust and loyalty and commitment from Netflix members. We take this extremely seriously. This hurts us that we're not serving our members as they expect us to."
Netflix Goes Dark And Finds It's No Place To Be [CNBC via, image Crunchgear]
the latest
latest episodes
Just put a pencil in the screw hole.
I mean. I'm sure they have every idea what's wrong. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to disclose that information
Does someone at the new USAF Cybercommand have a billing dispute?
Oh noes! My weekend plans of sitting alone in the dark watching the new Dr Who season 2 and the Venture Bros. are ruined!
Thanks the gods that I still have 60 gigs of Tom Baker era Who to watch.
Maybe the whole "problem" is bogus? Maybe their just trying to push more people into their download service and away from the snail-mail DVD service. I don't know the relative profitability of the two, but when I saw the headline my first thought was to be suspicious.
I got one of my two awaiting discs yesterday but my online queue states that they haven't shipped. Something is definitely still broken. Makes me wonder if perhaps this database botchup they claim caused the problem is the result of having to keep profiles. When they initially took away profiles, one of the reasons was that it was difficult to upgrade the system with them in place.
I got this email yesterday, a day after they should have shipped my movie (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance!!), but I returned home to find the movie in my inbox... er, my mailbox.
My queue still states that it is "shipping Wednesday"... um, two days ago.
Netflix has resumed shipping.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyOL-Q-I8CjWzxyZ8esBxfwkuRxQD92IS6H00
They've just updated their message:
----------------
Our Shipping Centers Are Mailing DVDs
Delayed DVD Shipments Are Being Sent Today (Friday)
We’re happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations (after 3 days of issues). If you should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it will ship today (Friday).
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we’ll be automatically applying a 15% credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we’ll automatically extend your free trial by a week.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding.
The Netflix Team
----
Of course, this still doesn't solve my problem--the Season Two Doctor Who dvd *I* was going to sit alone in the dark and watch this weekend was cracked, and since they still don't think it's shipped, I can't report it broken. It's like this is all part of a master plan to make me have to spend time with others.
Celia, may I recommend torrents? They're appropriately anti-social.
A better solution than a refund:
http://www.kyle-brady.com/2008/08/15/netflix-downtime/
--Kyle
"...saying that they're DVDs..." ?
#5: "Maybe their just trying..." ?
Illiteracy FTW!
http://i38.tinypic.com/10nb23p.jpg
I receive this message today informing me that my next DVD has apparently been sent on a mission back in time to arrive at my doorstep yesterday.
Apparently Netflix -has- resumed shipping, but has -not- fully fixed the glitches, it seems.
Kind of alarming, but in the few years I've been a customer I have never had one issue caused by Netflix and the couple issues caused by the postal service were promptly remedied for free by Netflix anyways without any hassle to me at all. One does get the impression that they try very hard not to disappoint.