Intelliflix Sucks - the Conclusion
By floor9 on Jun 14, 2007 in Rant, Technology
UPDATE: As of early 2008, Intelliflix appears to be out of business. Their website is still up, but the ability to sign up as a new customer has been removed. Thanks to the efforts of the Florida Attorney General, a settlement was reached and restitution — albeit very minor — was made to some consumers. If you feel that you have been harmed by Intelliflix in any way, you should IMMEDIATELY contact your state’s Attorney General and request assistance in resolving your issue. It appears that Intelliflix may be (or may soon be) completely out of money; thus, any claim you make should be done as soon as possible. Thanks to everyone who commented and kept the rest of us updated on this matter! The original post follows:
In a previous post, I talked about how terrible Intelliflix is. To quickly recap, DVDs take forever to arrive (six days from Virginia to Harrisburg is not normal). The terms of service (which I printed out weeks ago, as I’m sure the Intelliflix people who watch this blog are now quickly repairing them) are self-conflicting to say the least. And although they advertise using phrases like “CANCEL ANYTIME” in gigantic bold print, you can’t actually cancel anytime; you have to wait until your billing period is over. Enter the Attorney General.
About a week ago, after several weeks of repeated attempts to resolve these issues with Intelliflix, I gave up. I contacted the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Office of the Attorney General. I explained my concerns (specifically the whole “CANCEL ANYTIME … PSYCHE!” thing) and asked for a pro-rated refund. Being the nice guy that I am, I asked for a pro-rated refund. I would have been justified in asking for a full refund, as the actual service provided differed substantially from the service advertised on multiple counts. But because I had already received several movies, I thought it only fair to allow Intelliflix to charge me for two months of service — even though they’ve only managed to get ten movies to me in a period of nearly two months.
So fast forward to today. I wake up to find two pending comments in the WordPress queue.ÂBoth are from Intelliflix employees (at least I assume they are, as they both provided a valid email address ending in “@intelliflix.com” and are fairly obviously pro-Intelliflix). Both are fairly unprofessional. One was deleted for being completely inappropriate, and the other can be found here. I also have an email from Intelliflix offering a refund in the amount of $64.63 “in the interest of customer service”.
That’s $64.63 against an original purchase price of $106.92. In other words, I’ve paid slightly more than $21.15 per month for what has amounted to one of the worst customer experiences I’ve ever had (this is only topped by the time Enterprise in Vegas quintuple-charged me for my convertible before realizing they didn’t have any on the lot, and wound up substituting an Aztec … I’m still recovering).
So much for “the interest of customer service”. The only reason they’re willing to work now is because they received a letter from the PA Office of the Attorney General. And they know perfectly well that the Bureau of Consumer Protection can lay down a lot more hurt on them than an individual consumer such as my self ever could. Once the prospect of real accountability enters the picture, Intelliflix was suddenly a lot more willing to act.
A quick search for Intelliflix reviews turns up site after site after site after site chock full of complaints about the same issues. Obviously I’m not the only one who feels ripped off by Intelliflix. Do me a favor: Tell your friends, tell your family, tell everyone you meet to avoid Intelliflix. Go with Netflix or Blockbuster instead. In fact, Blockbuster just lowered some of their rates, and Netflix allows you to stream movies on your PC (hello, EVDO!).
Time will tell if I actually get the refund. Given my experience to date with Intelliflix, I’m not too confident.
You did not address any of my questions?
Again, can you name one company that gives full refunds for annual memberships.
Again, they were investigated by the Florida Attorney General and found innocent of all charges.
Call the Florida Attorney General - Toll Free: 1-866-966-7226.
You get a prorated refund and still complain.
Send your email to eileen@inc.intelliflix.com to get your refund.
Again I think people are profiting from posting for netflix. Maybe not you but a lot are.
I posted 2 time and both post are showing on your site so I don’t know who sent the inappropriate post unless your making it up. Only people who get paid to post are professionals.
You got 2.5 movies a week, that’s what I get with netflix and you cancelled because you didn’t get 4 movies a week? What are you doing burning them?
Ok, enough waste of time. Just hope you can analyze yourself and learn from this.
Logic | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
I’ve already posted not one, but three companies that give prorated refunds on annual memberships. I can understand that you’re too busy chasing down websites that complain about your company — as there certainly are a lot of them — to read replies to your own comments. In fact, Intelliflix has a far greater volume of complaints than either Netflix or Blockbuster.
“Eileen” is a joke. As I mentioned in my complaint to the Attorney General (which, being an Intelliflix employee, you’ve surely read), “Eileen” did nothing but extend my contract by a week. Way to go, Intelliflix.
I blocked your other comments because you’re not going to spam my site with the same crap — word for word — that you’ve copy / pasted on countless other Intelliflix review sites. That, and I’m not sure what “Pittsbureg” or any of the other crap you’ve submitted has to do with any of this.
But I think you’ve summed up my complaints better than anyone else on the planet could — Intelliflix service is so bad, even their employees use Netflix.
I’m half way down Google’s second page when someone searches for “Intelliflix”. Not bad for a C-list personal blog. If you want to keep being a jackass, I’ll happily do a little SEO & submission work on these posts.
floor9 | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
DVDs take forever to arrive (six days was the fastest I got them in L.A. There was not one DVD, in 3 month membership, that did not have scratches that caused pauses & skiping. There web site is hard to access & most time I get: “could not find” messege. I am cancaling and gooing back to netflix!!!
Zeev | Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
They are terrible, and it’s not the postal service’s fault. I’d get an email saying that a DVD was shipped on the 5th; two weeks later it would arrive with a postmark of the 14th.
floor9 | Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
I have a VERY unusual and TRUE Intelliflix story.
I too made the SEEMING mistake of signing up for the 1 year plan for $144 in July 2006. For the first 9 months, I averaged 11 titles per month received, with my queue of over 500 titles.
Almost all very popular TV series are NEVER available, and new releases are NEVER new. But I had a broad enough taste to actually find some stuff they did HAVE. Now here is the CRAZY part. Starting in late April of 2007, they modified the main queue page so you could immedaitely mark titles as RECEIVED and RETURN DELAY, and they would then send the next title.
I averaged over 100 titles per MONTH the last three months. But alas that sweet nectar came to an end about 2 weeks ago, when my full queue of over 800 titles was UNAVAILABLE. Unbelievable.
But I cannot complain - I was a member for 13 months for a total cost of $160 and got about 500 titles, of which 400 were viewable - about 20% were broken completely or too flawed to fully play. Still works out to 40 cents per usable rental. As of TODAY, 8/23/2007, BLOCKBUSTER is the best deal by far, so long as you live near a store and can take advantage of the free in store exchanges. They are effectively raising their price by about 25% as of 9/1, but still a much better deal than NETFLIX in terms of shipping times and especially given that you DOUBLE your number of titles with the free instore exchange.
I live in LAS VEGAS NV - your experience may differ depending how close you are to either BB or NETFLIX, but I CONCUR - avoid INTELLIFLIX at all costs. My lucky experience is VERY unlikely to be duplicated by anyone else.
ken price | Aug 24, 2007 | Reply
thats awesome that you got to take them for a ride good job man lol
Intelliflix sucks | Aug 24, 2007 | Reply
I tried to be as honest as possible when comparing intelliflix with netflix, so I listed the pro’s & con’s of each service. With netflix I have the rent three at a time with a monthly deduction from my bank account. With intelliflix I have the three at a time movies, xxx, & games paid by the year at a discounted rate. I read the consumer reports review that rated intelliflix higher than netflix, I already had netflix and I was not satisfied when the new releases were put on waiting lists. I cancelled the netflix account and then I bought the intelliflix plan. At the beginning I was happy with intelliflix, I was getting all the movies I requested. A month later there service was absolutely unacceptable and after numerous e-mail complaints I re-ordered netflix and tried to cancel intelliflix. I e-mailed intelliflix stating I would like to cancel the membership and they wrote back that they would not refund any portion of the payment, but they would cancel the service at the end of the agreement in 10 months. I figured I would make the best of it and use the two services. I will now list the pro’s and con’s of each service. Intelliflix: Pro’s: quick response from customer service e-mails, innovative feature that lets you click that you sent back the movie and they start shipping the next title in your querie; (limited to 1 time per 3 movies), they have game rentals for consoles and xxx movie’s, and if you pay by the year they give you a discount. Con’s: Slow turnaround, slow shipping (5-10 days), slow returns, unplayable or broken cd’s, dirty cd’s (I clean them and then they will play), lost cd’s when I return them, pre-written responses to customer service requests, new releases seldom available, I have to contact customer service every time I want movies sent from my querie, new releases are seldom available. Netflix Pro’s: Fast turnaround, fast shipping, fast returns, bigger selection of movies, better search engine when looking for movies, better website design, can put future releases in your querie and it will list the release date and then send you the movie when it is released, innovative feature that allows you to watch a movie instantly over the computer and it does not matter if you have 3 movies out and there is a friends list that allows you to add friends on netflix and share your reviews of movies you watched.
Con’s: New releases sometimes have a waiting list, computer generated responses from customer service, online viewing has few new release titles and limited selection; but they are constantly increasing the library. I would rate Intelliflix 1 star and Netflix 7 stars, but in comparing the services: Intelliflix would get 1 star and Netflix I would rate at 10 stars. I have not had any movies from my querie sent from intellitflix in a month, because I have not written customer service complaining, which is the only time they send movies. I have 30 titles in my querie and 10 state they are available, none are being sent or out at this time. It takes 3 days total from Netflix: the day I send it, the day they receive it, the day I get it. If you are going to try intelliflix, take it from me, pay by the month so you can cancel the service, because it is absolutely unacceptable.
Mike | Sep 11, 2007 | Reply
I signed up for a year with Intelliflix, well in the last 90 days with over a hundred movies in my QUE, I have only recieved ONE MOVIE, their customer service is a joke, and all thier responses are lies. The President published his email in the monthly newsletter, and said “what other company would do that”, Well the next month the first item in their newsletter was how THE President was not customer service, and his email address is no longer published.
I am tired of fighting with Intelliflix, it’s a hard lesson at the price, but hopefully by reading this post someone else waon’t make the same mistake.
I’ve opened 12 tickets, and always get “canned” respones. What a joke.
Chris | Oct 3, 2007 | Reply