LoveFilm - gone to the dogs?
Discussion
I know quite a few PH'ers use Lovefilm, I've been with them for 3-4 years I'd guess now and always liked the service, but recently it's got to pot, aside from the technical issues regarding discs taking days to get to me, days to get back, site crashes, and nothing getting sent out for a few days...
Is it just me, or has the selection gone to pot? I can't put my finger on what's missing in terms of actual titles, but for the last 6 months or so my OH and I have been catching up on a lot of TV series box sets so haven't had many films come to us, so I expected to find a lot of great films to choose from, but I go through the 'just released' or 'coming soon' lists and it's just pages and pages of old BBC / ITV TV series, straight to bargain basement sound-alike films, concerts and kids stuff.
I spent an hour on it last night trying to build a list, they've been badgering me to add more, managed to add two films I've already seen and 2 TV box sets.
Anyone else losing the will to carry on with them? I was going to cancel it, but the alternatives being their streaming service, or '3am ITV4 films' as I like to call it, or heaven forbid trying to find a Blockbuster store that's still trading.
Is it just me, or has the selection gone to pot? I can't put my finger on what's missing in terms of actual titles, but for the last 6 months or so my OH and I have been catching up on a lot of TV series box sets so haven't had many films come to us, so I expected to find a lot of great films to choose from, but I go through the 'just released' or 'coming soon' lists and it's just pages and pages of old BBC / ITV TV series, straight to bargain basement sound-alike films, concerts and kids stuff.
I spent an hour on it last night trying to build a list, they've been badgering me to add more, managed to add two films I've already seen and 2 TV box sets.
Anyone else losing the will to carry on with them? I was going to cancel it, but the alternatives being their streaming service, or '3am ITV4 films' as I like to call it, or heaven forbid trying to find a Blockbuster store that's still trading.
I'm definitly running out of things I want to watch on there. I've been suspending my membership for a few months, then watching a few, then suspending it again as I'm really struggling to add stuff to my list. Mind you we've not been going to the cinema much eather so it might just be that there's very few decent films comming out.
Tempted to drop my membership to streaming only (works well though the PS3) but the selection on there is even poorer
Tempted to drop my membership to streaming only (works well though the PS3) but the selection on there is even poorer
Been a member for a couple of years but just cancelled my membership recently. Aside from the fact I don't have the time these days to even watch the movies or there being a lack of decent movies being produced, there were also a number of other issues that constantly wound me up:
- The preference of high/medium/low on what you would prefer to arrive sooner rather than later makes absolutely zero difference to what actually gets sent
- Box sets would be nice if they actually sent them in order ie, 1,2,3,4 as oposed to something along the lines of 1,3,4,2 or any other combination that you could make up.
- more and more issues of discs being corrupt or scratched.
Even trying to cancel my membership was a mission in itself as you can't do it online and have to call up so I already sort of knew what to expect in regards to them trying to come up with options to keep you as a customer. However, the call then gets you through to an Indian call centre where they quite blatenlty reading a pre-defined script and honestly struggle to grasp what you are actually saying. There are only so many times you can say "I just want to cancell my subscription" before anger starts to set in
Shame really as in the early days I thought it was a pretty good idea/service.
- The preference of high/medium/low on what you would prefer to arrive sooner rather than later makes absolutely zero difference to what actually gets sent
- Box sets would be nice if they actually sent them in order ie, 1,2,3,4 as oposed to something along the lines of 1,3,4,2 or any other combination that you could make up.
- more and more issues of discs being corrupt or scratched.
Even trying to cancel my membership was a mission in itself as you can't do it online and have to call up so I already sort of knew what to expect in regards to them trying to come up with options to keep you as a customer. However, the call then gets you through to an Indian call centre where they quite blatenlty reading a pre-defined script and honestly struggle to grasp what you are actually saying. There are only so many times you can say "I just want to cancell my subscription" before anger starts to set in
Shame really as in the early days I thought it was a pretty good idea/service.
I used to have similar problems with the high / low priority thing, I threatened to cancel a few years ago because of it, I'd recommended a few friends to the service and noticed that they were getting their high priority titles (new releases for the most part) and I was struggling to get anything that was less than 6 months old out of them.
I accused them of giving new release and high-demand title priority to new customers and neglecting older ones, I have an response from an English speaking person, instead of their Indian based customer service team who denied they did so, but forever more after that my high priority titles came pretty quickly...
I accused them of giving new release and high-demand title priority to new customers and neglecting older ones, I have an response from an English speaking person, instead of their Indian based customer service team who denied they did so, but forever more after that my high priority titles came pretty quickly...
warp9 said:
Are there any alternatives other than Netflix?
Download vuze from - www.vuze.comThen go to
www.extratorrent.com or any other similar site
-crookedtail- said:
I find the selection on the streaming (PS3) site to be utter tripe, never anything goood to watch.
This. We paid for love film because of the streaming content on PS3. We found very few things we wanted to see (its like the bargain basket of an 80's blockbuster). If you do see something you like, it often drops off the listings for weeks so if you don't watch it there and then, it might not be there when you sit down to watch it.We gave up on it after a few months.
Personally I cancelled our subscription a while ago. We have two small children and just weren't watching the films tbh! However I found, like others, that there was no rhyme nor reason to disks being sent out (utterly out of numerical order, etc etc). We now have an apple tv, and I use that to rent films on as and when we have the time to watch them. It works out much cheaper for us that way. I also record films off the tv onto my dvd recorder, and convert them to play on the apple tv using the old handbreak and dvd43 routine. Probably got more films on there that way than I'll ever manage to watch tbh!
Watched about 4 films that I sort of wanted to see, then couldn't find anything else worth a watch, cancelled my subscription.P-Jay said:
I used to have similar problems with the high / low priority thing, I threatened to cancel a few years ago because of it, I'd recommended a few friends to the service and noticed that they were getting their high priority titles (new releases for the most part) and I was struggling to get anything that was less than 6 months old out of them.
I accused them of giving new release and high-demand title priority to new customers and neglecting older ones, I have an response from an English speaking person, instead of their Indian based customer service team who denied they did so, but forever more after that my high priority titles came pretty quickly...
They used to do this before it was rebranded. It was why I left.I accused them of giving new release and high-demand title priority to new customers and neglecting older ones, I have an response from an English speaking person, instead of their Indian based customer service team who denied they did so, but forever more after that my high priority titles came pretty quickly...
Used them on and off for about 6 years as we have a dedicated cinema room. Used to rent 3 disks in our possession at any one time which was then the biggest multi-disk rental they did. All Bluerays recently, and we found quite a few disks which wouldn't play. By the time you had flagged them up and returned them you ended up with about 6 disks coming back at once which made watching them all nearly impossible.
Then we waited in anticipation for the Star Wars Saga.. and we waited and we waited. Hundreds of people posted remarks asking how long it would be before they rented it. No answers. I emailed to ask the question.. still nothing. Then someone on the comments list mentioned that they didn't have the rights to rent Star Wars and I wondered why we were bothering with a company which cannot supply the most significant Sci-Fi compilation ever released (or not in the case of Love Film). I mean the whole purpose of renting films is so you don't have to buy them! There was a lot of seriously unhappy customers on this thread here but most of the comments have since been removed and they're added a disclaimer which states that they cannot afford the licence to rent them
Just to add more insult to injury, recently we got asked for two DVD's from someone with a different name at this address! When I opened the mail, it had our address on but a name we'd never heard of. When I rang LF to verify that no other accounts existed at this address, the woman was rude stating that she could only discuss this account with the account holder. I was bloody mad: it's my house, my address, I pay the bills and we've got a rogue account which they were threatening to take legal action over, yet under the Data Protection Act, she cannot discuss this with me as it is not my account - since when has the DPA protected thieves?
It took weeks to resolve and we ended up with a debt chasing firm getting involved which was eventually corrected by a senior manager in LoveFilm, pending a nasty letter from a local solicitor. They used to be good, we always looked forward to finding that paper sleeve when we got in. Not anymore. I don't trust them and at that level that is the end of that.
Tried Netflix but not much in the way of choice and NO Dolby Digital means it was a non-starter.
Then we waited in anticipation for the Star Wars Saga.. and we waited and we waited. Hundreds of people posted remarks asking how long it would be before they rented it. No answers. I emailed to ask the question.. still nothing. Then someone on the comments list mentioned that they didn't have the rights to rent Star Wars and I wondered why we were bothering with a company which cannot supply the most significant Sci-Fi compilation ever released (or not in the case of Love Film). I mean the whole purpose of renting films is so you don't have to buy them! There was a lot of seriously unhappy customers on this thread here but most of the comments have since been removed and they're added a disclaimer which states that they cannot afford the licence to rent them
Just to add more insult to injury, recently we got asked for two DVD's from someone with a different name at this address! When I opened the mail, it had our address on but a name we'd never heard of. When I rang LF to verify that no other accounts existed at this address, the woman was rude stating that she could only discuss this account with the account holder. I was bloody mad: it's my house, my address, I pay the bills and we've got a rogue account which they were threatening to take legal action over, yet under the Data Protection Act, she cannot discuss this with me as it is not my account - since when has the DPA protected thieves?
It took weeks to resolve and we ended up with a debt chasing firm getting involved which was eventually corrected by a senior manager in LoveFilm, pending a nasty letter from a local solicitor. They used to be good, we always looked forward to finding that paper sleeve when we got in. Not anymore. I don't trust them and at that level that is the end of that.
Tried Netflix but not much in the way of choice and NO Dolby Digital means it was a non-starter.
I've just cancelled my membership as I was getting Sky.
I was relatively happy with them, any movies I put as high urgency I got in the next batch of films, and I did manage to cancel my membership online rather than having to call someone up.
I'd agree that the online selection with LoveFilm is dire though, only ever watched one film through it on my PS3
I was relatively happy with them, any movies I put as high urgency I got in the next batch of films, and I did manage to cancel my membership online rather than having to call someone up.
I'd agree that the online selection with LoveFilm is dire though, only ever watched one film through it on my PS3
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