DVDRentalCentral (1 Viewer)

[SteveK]

I heard about "DVDRentalCentral" (an online DVD rental source), and I thought I'd give them a try. Their offer is much like the other online rental companies, except that you get 5 rentals out at a time for the monthly charge of $19.95. Obviously that's more generous than competing plans, so I thought it might be worth a try.

The first thing I noticed about their web page was that there was no way you could tell whether or not a given title was available. Even after the title was added to your queue, it did not indicate the availability status, so there was no way you could know how many of the titles in your queue were actually available. I sent them an e-mail to ask if they actually carried all of the titles they listed, but I never got an answer. Which I interpreted as "no".

The first disc I received was "Dark City". I returned it unwatched as the entire widescreen side of the disc was covered by a label! Why would anybody put any kind of a label on a two-sided disc? The second disc had a small indentation or dimple on both sides of the disc. They do a good job of protecting their discs (they are in a thin foam sleeve within a cardboard sleeve), so I suspect it was mailed that way (although it conceivably could have been damaged in the mail). The third disc had no noticeable defects, but it also had major playability problems.

So today I sent them an e-mail to tell them I was very dissatisfied with their service but was willing to see if their service improved. I requested either a refund of my current payment or a credit towards the next month of service. They wrote back to say that because the discs were apparently damaged in the mail and they obviously use the mail to send their DVDs, "our main office feels that the appropriate solution would be to close your account". Direct quote. There was absolutely no effort on their part to retain a paying customer. Yes, I had complained, but I had made it clear that I was willing to give them a second chance.

So I guess my search for a good online rental place continues. Might be time to give Netflix a try again; most comments I've read lately suggest that they have improved quite a bit.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I just received the e-mail and it surprised me, to say the least. Perhaps I just had some bad luck and got a few bad discs in a row. Hopefully your experience will be better than mine.

Steve K.

 

[ScottH]

Wow! I'll certainly cross them off my list! The low price probably would have actually scared me off anyway. I'm in the same boat as you are, just trying to find the right DVD rental service. Right now, I'm giving QwikFliks a try. They seem okay so far, but they also have that same problem where they don't indicate the status of a movie when it's in your queue. Very annoying. They also don't allow you to mark a title "delayed in the mail", and when I emailed them to ask them about it, they said thay had no plans to add that feature. I will say that so far (2 weeks and 6 rentals in), their new release availability has been better than any of the others I've tried (Netflix, RentMyDVD, DVDBarn, NumberSlate). But as you said, a few people on here have said that Netflix has gotten better, so if QwikFlix doesn't work out, I'll probably give them another try.