Intelliflix.com Online DVD Rental --- AVOID AT ALL COSTS, Don’t get suckered in!
Written: Sep 13 '05 (Updated Sep 13 '05)
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Pros:
Decent online interface, competitive prices, 40,000 titles, flexibility
Cons:
No Telephone Support, Grueling Shipping Delays, You Never Get What You Want
I’ve been a user of netflix.com for over a year now and have been satisfied with the service I get, good selection, good website and fast shipping. However, I was missing something, something called flexibility which means I wanted to rent some video game titles and, in a perfect world, some adult titles as well, all of which netflix does not provide. So searching the web I found intelliflix.com and got lured into the pitch. intelliflix had as large a selection as netflix and offered at or below cost, and (drum roll) it offered flexibility which made me happy.
intelliflix has a website interface similar (yet not as good as) netflix’s interface. You have a choice to view and modify your account status and personal details with the “your account” link, set up and work with your title “queue” and “browse” for titles.
The browse link takes you to a selection window with movie icons and names, 6 titles per row, rows stacked and categorized into new releases, comedy movies, drama movies and games. On the left there is a column of advanced movie categories, about 2 dozen of them, including coming soon, AFI top 100 films and Mature-adult films. The same row on the bottom shows video game categories and platforms. Clicking any icon will take you to a movie synopsis page as well as user and editor reviews, plus the ability to put it in your queue. Clicking the category link will take you to an alphabetically sorted titles for that category, a brief description, an icon link, a star rating and the ability to rent. You can also jump to a movie or game you want with the search field on the top of every browse page.
There are several ways to build up your queue, either select each movie or game manually or browse for movies and add the ones you want to your queue. There is also a nifty queue wizard feature (similar to recommendations on netflix) where the site generate titles for you based on the genre, actors and directors you like. Once set, your queue is visible, it shows when you requested the title and the order can be modified to your liking and titles may be dropped at a later time. There is also an info box that shows which DVDs or games they have shipped and when they shipped them, as well as DVDs or games you already have out.
The Plans:
intelliflix offers the following plans:
Standard Subscription Plan: Movies
3 out at a time: $16.95 monthly X 12 months = $203.40 Annually
(paid monthly, can be cancelled anytime)
3 out at a time: $8.25 monthly X 12 months = $99.00 Annually (SUPERPASS)
(paid as a lump sum, can be cancelled ONLY after a year)
Premium Subscription Plan: Movies, Games, Mature
3 out at a time: $24.95 monthly X 12 months = $299.40 Annually
3 out at a time: $14.75 monthly X 12 months = $177.00 Annually (SUPERPASS)
(See standard plans for payment type)
There is also a pay per rental feature that allows you to rent titles for 5 days with no late fees and starting at $3.95 per title, this is good for those who want to rent as many movies or games with no limit.
intelliflix really tries to lure you to pay up front with tremendous savings, as I realized they do this for a reason, to tie you into a year long contract you cannot get out of like the monthly plans. I paid $177 for the Superpass premium subscription thinking it was a great deal, it turns out to be a dud. Their banner advertises the plan as being the last day you can get this by saying it is extended until today’s date, but for the past month they change the date to correspond with today’s date so you see it is a marketing scheme to lure you out of your money.
With netflix, whose closest distribution center is in northern california (I am in Socal) I can almost count on getting my titles in 1 or 2 days, the last time I monitored this I sent back 3 titles and 2 days later I got 2 new titles with a third the next day. intelliflix claims it has more distribution centers than all of its competitors, so tell me why do I get titles from the east coast (FL, MA) and the closest to me was TX. On average it takes them 4-6 business days to receive my titles and another 4-6 for me to have new ones in the mail, I sent back a movie last Tuesday and they still haven’t got it (it is the following Tuesday today). They claim they can have titles in 1-3 days, all is bogus in my experience. Titles come in prepaid envelopes you can later reseal and send back all expenses paid, like the other rental companies.
intelliflix has no telephone support, they say it cuts down on cost and all inquiries have to be made via an online ticket. I opened a claim for the shipping delays as well as duplicate titles and a damaged game, all they responded with is basically “sorry, we’ll try harder”, no help at all.
Then I read some reviews of other users and found out that the average rating of the service was 1 star, everyone is sharing my experiences and some have contacted the Better Business Bureau as well as other consumer organizations to report intelliflix.
In one month of subscription I received 6 titles, 1 duplicate and 1 non operating game, so in essence I got 4 unique working titles, computing to around $3.50 per title. With Netflix I get about 10-12 titles a month at $17.95 a month, less than $2.00 per title, so it’s almost twice as expensive for intelliflix because of their horrible shipping.
Shipping delays are not the only terrible part of this service, the availability of titles is absurd. They request each queue be at least 10 titles long to ensure better selection, however it is almost guaranteed that you won’t get you top choices, maybe ever because they are either never in stock or they never ship it to you. Yesterday I was notified they are shipping titles that were close to position 20 in my queue, ridiculous. My top 5 choices I put in my queue back in the middle of August (1 month ago) are still sitting there) and other people have the same gripe, people with 500 titles in their queue so maybe by chance they will get a decent title sometime in the near future. Netflix also has some availability delays but at least they list the status of the title, whether it’s available now or has a short/long wait on it, intelliflix does not.
In conclusion, find a better video game rental provider, maybe Blockbuster or Gamefly and rent your adult movies on your own time, stick with Netflix for your DVD titles. Don’t be lured by Intelliflix.com as you will most likely regret it later.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
romasuave
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Member: Roman
Location: The Valley....Dudes, CA, USA
Reviews written: 121
Trusted by: 71 members
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