Friday, January 28, 2005

Netflix Customer Support Says One Movie Per Mailer

From Hacking NetFlix This is what Netflix customer service reps told a subscriber: "we strongly recommend only placing one DVD in a return mailer at a time, unless it is an extreme situation and you must place two in a mailer. Our mailers are designed to hold only one DVD and having multiple DVDs inside the envelope may cause the envelope to become damaged and possibly result in a lost disc."

9 comments:

  1. That means I have to stop doing what I have been doing.

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  2. Thought you'd find this interesting:

    First off, I added all 4 discs of Shoah to my queue right after the three top movies, which have been on 'very long wait' since I added them (Les Vampires, for 4 months). I have 2 Shoah discs out, and even though the other 2 were available, they sent me Sorcerer instead, breaking up the Shoah series discs.

    But that's not the interesting part. When I checked my Netflix queue this morning, I noticed that Les Vampires and The Battle of Algiers say they are available 'now.' This has happened once before, and they immediately went back to 'very long wait' when I checked an hour later. Here's what my queue looked like as of the time of this post: screen capture. What's strange is that they didn't go from 'very long wait' to 'long wait' to 'short wait' - they just jumped straight from 'very long wait' to 'now.' What do you want to bet they'll jump straight back to 'very long wait,' before I return the first two Shoah discs?

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  3. Very strange. Blockbuster did a similar thing to me. They skipped over two "available now" discs in order to ship two "short wait" discs. Inexplicable. I guess it's the humans behind the system that are messing things up.

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  4. No, it's not a contradiction. The situation you describe, Mike, is what Netflix calls "extreme".

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  5. truth be told I mail most of my dvd's back two inan envelope all the time. Never lost a disk that way. What I have noticed is netflix envelopes lately very often coming through as unusable. It isn;t the post office, it looks like the sealing tabs are not folded right at netflix. I think it is more likly that a disk would be lost using the more and more common bad envelopes than placing two in one. I also seem to get faster credit with two in one.

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  6. I have often returned two DVDs in one mailer. I thought I might be doing Netflix a favor by saving on postal costs. Do they pay the USPS for the mailers that are actually used, or all the mailers that they ever send out?

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  7. Apparently, Netflix doesn't care about saving on postage. They're concerned about avoiding lost or damaged discs, which result when you put two discs in one flimsy mailer. However, if you have lost a mailer, then you're allowed to double up. Just don't make a habit of it.

    Netflix pre-pays for all the postage-paid mailers, so you might as well use them

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  8. "Netflix pre-pays for all the postage-paid mailers, so you might as well use them."

    Ok it has been a decade sicne i worked my way up fromt eh mailroom but soem things haven't changed and I can tell you yuo are wrong.

    the mailing from netflix is Pre-paid" the interior envelope in which you mail back the dvd is NOT prepaid. It does not cost Netflix one cent in postage if you don't use it.

    Just look at the envel opes next time. the one you get your film in says "US postage paid." the one you retunr the film in says "first class mail Permit No. .... postage will be paid by addressee."

    The permit is tagged to the HQ city where netflix would have to keep an account with the post office.

    so it does no postal cost harm to netflix whatsoever to return two in an envolope, they don't lose a cent on postage wich is NOT prepaid on return envelopes.

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  9. I didn't know the difference between prepaid and "postage paid by addressee". Thanks for clearing that up.

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