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UPDATE (June 2): I ended up getting my $9 after all. Still irked about the runaround, though.
Peerflix is shuttering their DVD-trading service. In the process, they are shooting themselves in the foot from a public-relations perspective.*
Some time ago, they rejiggered their service so that users would be swapping DVDs on a cash-equivalent basis. If you sent a DVD to someone else, you'd get dollars added to your account. If someone else sent you a DVD, dollars would be deducted from your account. You could even deposit cash in your account if you couldn't build up enough of a balance by offering DVDs for trade.
Then last month, Peerflix announced that they were shuttering the swapping service, and that any users who still had a balance in their Peerflix accounts would need to request a cash-out by April 30, otherwise their balances would be forfeit.
The catch? All cash-out requests are subject to a $10 "processing fee," in spite of the fact that users are being forced into this if they want to see any of their money again.
Well, that's the visible catch. There's a bigger and more invisible catch, too, one that I have experienced first-hand. Every time I've logged into my Peerflix account and requested a cash-out, I've been silently redirected back to my account page. Hmmmmm.
True, I could contact their support department about this. In fact, I did. Twice. The first time, I never received a reply. As the deadline drew closer and I still couldn't get the website to acknowledge my cash-out request, I asked for help again. This time I did get a reply—but it was only to say that I'd e-mailed them from an e-mail address that wasn't associated with any of their users' accounts, and that I should e-mail them from that address for security/privacy reasons.
It's true, I was using a different e-mail address. This is because I keep a personal domain name and I generate a unique e-mail address for every company I do business with. But I do receive e-mail at those addresses, and I did spell out my unique-to-Peerflix address in my e-mail to them. Could it have been that hard to write back to me at that address to confirm it was really me? (Meanwhile, I wrote back to the CSR with a very acerbic reply. I've received a second reply as I've been writing this post, but I'm not in a good frame of mind for it at the moment.)
How much am I out if I don't get my money back? Only $19. Not as big a deal as others; I've heard that some unfortunate souls have sunk a lot more than that. But it's no longer about the money for me; it's the principle of the thing. Everything about my experience to this point suggests that they are handling this the way a U.S. medical insurer handles claims—that is, make a promise to your customer, then when they actually ask you to live up to that promise, find every means at your disposal to weasel out of it and make it look like the customer's fault.
Any other disgruntled Peerflix users out there? Anyone thinking about, or already in the process of, banding together and making a case to the Attorney General of California or setting a class-action suit in motion?
* For evidence of self-foot-shooting, see the string of comments to the article "Peerflix Procrastinating on Customer Refunds" (25 Mar. 2008) on TechCrunch.
P.S. (1:49 p.m.): The e-mail reply was just a robotic confirmation ("Thank you for contacting Peerflix Customer Support. Your inquiry is valuable to us and we will respond to it within 48 hours. Have a great day!"). Wonderful. But, paradoxically, easier on my blood pressure. Tags: bad business, caveat emptor, peerflix, trading
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Well, I've just shipped off three more movies to fellow Peerflix subscribers: The Tailor of Panama, Ocean's Twelve, and The Contender.
It's partly dumb luck that I ended up with that many to send (the most I've had all at once so far). Those first and last ones have been requested a number of times before, but somehow I was never able to respond quickly enough before someone else stepped in and sent them.
So you may be wondering what I'm getting in exchange for those. Well, I'll tell you: Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Life or Something Like It.
Why those, you ask? What were those doing so high up on my list of movies to get?
That's just it. They weren't. I have a list of around 50 movies, but despite the fact that those were buried way down near the bottom of the list, they got sent to me first.
Meanwhile, there's the movie that's at the top of my list, American Splendor. (I've seen it before, but I want to send it to M. so she can see it.) This is a movie that Peerflix itself tells me it has more than enough copies available to cover current demand. So why didn't I get that? Are all of the people with American Splendor really that slow?
Clearly, Peerflix's fulfillment algorithm could stand a little tweaking.
But as you can see, I'm still using it. Tags: peerflix
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In case you're wondering if there's news about Peerflix and I (well, you are wondering, aren't you?): Yes, I'm still using it. After my freebie trade, I committed to sending them five bucks for five more trades. My thank-you gift was a bonus Peerbuck (see my October 1 entry for the meaning of this) and an additional choice of a free DVD (no trading fee or Peerbux required). I requested Orange County.
So now where am I? I've sent away two discs so far and received two: The Contender and—what the hell, I'll fess up now—Battlefield Earth. I haven't watched either one yet since I am still working through library DVDs, and those have an actual return deadline. K-PAX is on its way to me from someone in Hollywood, Florida. Orange County? Nowhere to be seen yet, and supposedly it was sent eight days ago. Hmmm, a little concerned about that. I have one Peerbuck to spare right now, which is just enough to have Bob Roberts sent to me—but it's just been sitting there in my queue for a couple of days now with no one fulfilling that.
Peerflix just announced an exciting (for them) new development: the "PeerMailer." This is their way of copping out of handing out envelopes for people to use. The idea goes that whenever you commit to sending a disc to someone, a form on their Web site prints out a sheet of paper or two with a mailing address and instructions for folding the paper up into a self-mailer of some sort. I am a little skeptical, mainly because I haven't even been able to print one out yet. I had the opportunity to do so the last time I sent out a disc, but the PeerMailer option simply failed to work—no printout at all.
I have yet to receive a disc in a PeerMailer, but the early word from users on Peerflix's blog is not that encouraging, either. One user said they received a disc with 12 cents postage due, another said a disc they tried to send was returned with a request for 23 cents additional postage. Perhaps somebody should have done a little more testing before going live with this idea. Oh well, I will still be curious to try it for myself—if I can get the darn thing to print next time. Tags: peerflix
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Okay, I took a deep breath and printed the shipping label for my first Peerflix shipment. As I could have guessed, it was rendered in my browser from HTML with in-line GIF images for the USPS bar codes, so I was relieved to see that it printed out at an appropriate size. I had to fudge the fold line a bit to get the addresses to line up correctly with the windows in the envelope.
I found that this immediately made me eligible to receive one of the 10 or so DVDs I've already put on my request list. I was eligible to get any but two of them. There's a "Peerbux" trading value assessed for each disc, and newer, more popular discs get valued more highly than older, less popular ones. The disc I sent, Memento, was given a value of 2; a couple of discs on my list have a value of 3, so I couldn't get those yet.
I started to rearrange the discs on my list in order of preference, but after submitting my changes, I found that one of the discs was already being sent to me. To my mild chagrin, it was one that I wanted to put near the bottom of my list. Oh well, I asked for it. (To avoid personal embarrassment, I won't divulge the title just now, but I will say that it's one of those movies so widely regarded as terrible that I had to see it for myself.)
P.S. (3:20 p.m.) Turns out it's not merely "a couple of discs" but four movies on my list valued at 3 Peerbux each. Tags: peerflix
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