Gabrielle's Life and Writings

Gabrielle Lawson, writer of Fanfiction. I will use this space to keep a journal about my writing, the progress I'm making, stories I'm working on, writer's blocks I'm having, our adoption process and progress and just life in general.

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Location: Missouri, United States

I'm multifaceted and highly educated. I have a BA in History and an MA in Museum Studies. But I couldn't make a living in a museum, so my hobby--computers--became my living. I'm now a charter member Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician. I aspire to be a professional writer and/or poet. I am a Christian and have been living by His grace for the last four years or so, despite the MegaStress and now the GigaStress. He keeps me going, and displays His glory still, in my life.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Netflix has wronged me!

This is what happened. We rented Out of the Ashes, a very good movie. I took it to watch on my netbook. In my netbook's DVD drive was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 5: Disk 4 as I'd been doing a rewatch and just finished watching "Doctor Bashir, I Presume." To protect my DS9 DVD, I put it in the sleeve for Out of the Ashes. I forgot, however to switch it back. Friday evening, I sealed the envelope and my husband dropped it in the mail on Saturday.

Today, I knelt down next to my collection and pulled out the box for Season 5, so I could put Disk 4 away and get out Season 5. That's when I noticed I still had Out of the Ashes. I called Netflix on my way to work. I was told that this happens a lot and I shouldn't give up hope. They don't rent the DS9 series so it should be easier to get my disk back. The rep filled out a property return report.

When I got to the office, I checked my email and saw that I had an email from Netflix at 7:44am saying they'd received Out of the Ashes. I called back. It's in the hub! I told them what time it was scanned. I was told not to worry, the contents are hand-checked twice. They'll find it and send it back to me.

I waited. At 1:41pm, I got an email saying our next DVD was on it's way and should arrive Tuesday. At 6:42, I got an email from Netflix saying this: We contacted our warehouse to attempt to find the personal property you returned to us in place of our movie. Regrettably, we were unable to locate or identify your disc. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Inconvenience? One disk from a boxed set of DS9? I don't think that's an inconvenience. It's a travesty. I called back. They said they get millions of DVDs and it's easy to miss one. Mine. I asked why it couldn't be tracked as we know it was at the hub at 7:44am. They don't have any reports to track who scanned it and where. It was probably on its way to the next subscriber who wanted Out of the Ashes. They don't track to be able to say when it went out or to whom. The subscriber will probably report it as a wrong disk and maybe it will be found then as my report is on file. At this point, I have no faith in that. I was offered a $9.99 credit! That's not even the charge for a month! (We have Blu-Ray so ours is $11.84 a month.) They wouldn't budge.

I asked to speak to a manager. He said the same thing. I find it hard to believe that in this day and age they can't even track their UPC scanning! They do carry the Deep Space Nine series so the first guy either lied or was incompetent when he looked it up. They did not double-check the contents of our envelope and sleeve or they might have caught that this disk with spaceships on it was not the Holocaust story, Out of the Ashes and and, and oh, this subscriber has a property return report. Did they even check it? So either that rep lied about the double-checking or there was incompetence at the hub when they checked it in 7:44 in the morning.

I asked if they'd give me one of their DS9, Season 5, Disk 4 disks, scratched up as they probably are since they'll be keeping, and renting out, my not-so-scratched-up disk. He said no. He wouldn't budge from $9.99 even though if I lost one of their DVDs, we'd have to pay $20.

I am livid, to say the least, by the incompetence and uncaring nature of a company that will just assume from this point on that my property is theirs. I am hurt to have lost my disk with some of my favorite episodes on it and now have an incomplete set.

If you are a Trekkie or Trekker or fan of Star Trek, my fanfiction, or even of another fandom who can empathize with me, will you join with me in writing them? Their CEO is Reed Hastings and this is the address:

Netflix Corporate Office

Attn: Reed Hastings

100 Winchester Circle

Los Gatos, CA 95032

Please reference our account under my husband's name: Robert Person and my married name: Gabrielle Person. And please, pass this on to as many boards, lists, blogs, and newsgroups to get others on board. The more pressure is put on them, the better chance they'll a) make serious restitution to me by either finding my DVD, replacing it, or giving me proper compensation to replace it myself, and b) realize they had better start tracking this stuff better so that other people aren't ripped off simply because they made a mistake.

    Status of Stories
  • Alien Us, on hold. RL has sapped my creativity and Netflix isn't helping!
  • Purgatory, revived with Valerie Shearer, but also on hold for the same reasons
  • The Honored, alas, still on that back burner, but hey, I did post a short story called Welcome Home.