LoveFilm & ScreenSelect DVD Rental

S

Samuari

New member
Following their recent merger, ScreenSelect and LoveFilm have started to integrate the two services into one. They very recently reduced the number of free DVRAB they allow on their free trials from a 30-day unlimited trial to 21 days with a maximum 6 discs, and they also now send their discs from the same address.

They have also announced that they are going to fully merge the two branRAB sometime in October, with ScreenSelect being completely absorbed into the LoveFilm brand. What do you think of ScreenSelect and LoveFilm as they currently are, and do you think this merger is going to be a good thing for consumers?

In theory it should be a very good thing, as you would expect the new service to take on the best qualities from each of the two branRAB. For example, ScreenSelect
 
Lovefilm is annoying me again. I used to be able to rent about eight DVRAB a week. Now they cut it down to four.

I post them off on Wednesday,they get them on Thursday then don't mail them off til Friday.

With the poor postal service this now means I may not have anything to watch over the weekend.

Lovefilm is best avoided if you watch a lot of films.
 
The screenselect brand is far more appealing than Lovefilm.

Lovefilm have gone down as the very worst company out there when it comes to online rentals.

I'm afraid I will only be using blockbuster and Moviestream in the future.
 
One thing I've just noticed - I'm with Lovefilm after they offered me two free months through email. Now my two months is up, so obviously I want to cancel..... but you can't cancel online any more, you have to call them.

I think that's a bit of a cheek because they're just going to try and do something silly to keep you, or threaten you with death or something.

Looks like I'm going to live in Outer Mongolia for the next 7 months, so unless they post there, oh dear what a shame, I won't be able to continue with their service.
 
Typical.
I started out with Choices' online rental service which was taken over by Lovefilm. After a while I got fed up with them and joined Tesco's service which is part of the ScreenSelect group. Now that's going the Lovefilm way. There is no escape...!
 
I'm baffled by the success of Lovefilm. They are utterly useless and have nothing but contempt for their customers yet theyve just absorbed a great brand like Screenselect and made it shite. What do I mean? I couldnt stand any more of LF's pathetic service, all I could get out of them in the end was Ken Loach films and black and white Latvian movies with subtitles so I moved to Screenselect and found that they actually had top titles to send out. Out of 90 titles in my queue I got nothing higher from LF than no 60 for 5 weeks. When I complained they just said they send out films they have and not ones they dont. wtf?

Now Screen Select are absorbed into LF the service is just as rubbish as ever, you can forget about getting top titles unless your top titles are films no one else happens to want to watch, or everyone in the entire world has already seen. I absolutely hate them and will be cancelling straight to Blockbuster if the next dvd they send out is not a) in my priority list and b) younger than I am.
 
I've noticed a few companies have gone down the route of making you call them to cancel, rather than letting you do it online; ScreenSelect for example have been employing this strategy for a while (pre-integration into LoveFilm).

However, in practice it's not too bad; all they do is ask why you're cancelling, so as long as you have a plan of what to say when they ask it should be fairly painless. "Not enough new films coming out" is a good one, difficult for them to argue anything back with that one, as for example "too expensive" makes it easy for them to lead into the "try one of our cheaper plans" response.

Andy
www.freetrialsreview.co.uk
 
we used Blockbuster on-line last year and we eventualy had to cancel our membership,they were fine at first but after a while we stopped recieving any dvd's as they said that there wasnt any from our list avaliable even the older titles,we're now with ScreenSelect and have had no major problems,hopefully the merger wont affect the service too much.
 
I rang yesterday (said I wasn't going to be in the country for a few months), posted my last DVRAB a couple of days before - but they haven't said they've received them..... wonder if that's a coincidence...

It was a free trial that runs out on the 2nd of October, so if they haven't marked them as returned by then, I guess I say they were lost in the post? Well, maybe a couple of days before so I don't end up getting charged for a month...
 
Yes I would definitely contact them at least a few days before the end of your trial to say they are lost, just so they've got a record of it before the billing date. If you didn't report it until after the end of the trial they might assume you just forgot to return it in time, which I suspect many people probably do.

The good thing is that you've got loaRAB of time before the end of the trial, I'm sure they'll have received it by then, but if not as long as you tell them it's lost I'm sure you'll be fine. These companies build in a certain allowance for lost discs into their costs, so they'll just write off the loss. I didn't have any discs lost when I trialled LoveFilm, but I doubt they'll kick up much of a fuss about it.

Andy
www.freetrialsreview.co.uk
 
did anybody have any films sent by either company on the 13th of Sep that didn`t arrive?

we have accounts with both for "free trial" offers only, and we overlaped our subs with both at the start of the month, but on the 13th they sent a dvd from each company and NONE arrived at our house, spoke to some people we know, and they also had films missing that was sent on the 13th.

could a mail sack have gone missing in there move?
 
I had 2 DVRAB sent, one on the 12th, one on the 13th, I posted them both back on the 15th, but it's taken them till today to say they've received them.... so I wonder if things are going a bit silly at their end...
 
I actually had an e-mail from LoveFilm yesterday, admitting that they are having some "teething problems" as a result of the ScreenSelect merger. Of course that's not much consolation to those people being disadvantaged by slow turnaround etc., but it does mean at least that they're unlikely to put up much of a fight if some discs go missing when you post them back to them.

Andy
www.freetrialsreview.co.uk
 
Hi Inkblot, yes I would say that is the case with Amazon, I have heard very few negative comments about them at all. Their DVD rental service is very well integrated into their overall service, which of course is famous for being top notch, in terms of turnaround especially.

The only reason they're not more popular than they are is that they only offer limited-disc packages, which are perfect for some people, but not so suitable for the hardcore renter.

More companies have started offering limited-disc rental since Amazon's success, but they are still the number 1 in that niche; if that's what you're after I don't think you can go wrong with them.

Andy
www.freetrialsreview.co.uk
 
Also what I like about Amazon is that I have ALWAYS been sent the #1 movie on my list which is fantastic. Last year I was with blockbuster and it was usually about #8 which was sent out.
 
I am with Tesco and they have been very good so far - I got 60 days free rental and then paid three months in advance and got another free month so I don't have to pay again until February 07! They post out very quickly and have sent everything on the priorty list so far.
 
i think the lovefilm service is sh**e at the moment ive got in my queue 25 movies and 5 music dvd and they are only shipping the music dvd's to me so i can't get any movies off them so the morale of my case is if i want music dvd's im fine but if want a film im knackered i will shortly be looking for a new rental service
 
I used to be with Tesco online rental, as it was the same service as Screen Select just cheaper and with Tesco points.

It was great to start off with, used to get 6+ DVRAB a week, then at around 8 months it was hit and miss whether they would send the discs out on time, then at around 11 months discs started to not turn up or they would turn up 6 - 7 days later already opened, would appear because the packaging says DVD rental that the postman was watching them and either keeping the ones he liked or sending me them after he had watched them, I cancelled it after 13 months and the matter with the postman is still being investigated.

Have been with Blockbuster now for a few months and everything seems fine with them, other than a couple of discs sent that were snapped in half.
 
What I don't get is this thing Lovefilm supposedly do where they send out 2 discs in one envelope. Surely that means once you have watched one film, you can't sent it back until you have watched the other film since you only have one envelope. Can a lovefilmer explain please?
 
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