imrealgod’s blog

BIGFLIX OR BIGKICKS???

Hello everybody,

Today, while I was free, I just checked out the net for BIGFLIX (India's Largest Movie Rental Service!!!) reviews, but to my surprise, didn’t find many. So I thought that while I myself have been its customer for more than 3 months, let me share my experience with those who are still considering whether to join it or not.

Well, to begin with, they’ve quiet a wide range of movies, but there’re other stores in my city that has a wider range of movies than BIGFLIX. Though it’s contrary to what they claim, it’s a fact. Anyways, let's take a look at the advantages of being a BIGFLIX member based on my experience:

• First and foremost, you’ve the advantage of unlimited access to movies for the period of your subscription, as far as they’re available. Only the new movies need to be returned within 2 days, otherwise you can keep it as long as you wish until your membership period gets over. There’re no late fees charged.

• Another advantage of being a BIGFLIX member is that you can have a free pickup/delivery of a movie right to your home once a day.

• One great feature of BIGFLIX rental service is its Pause facility wherein a subscriber can pause his/her subscription, i.e. suspend delivery of disc(s) but continue subscription without being billed, for various reasons, such as being on a vacation, children's tests etc.
  

Now, let's have a look on its flipsides. Here are some great hitches I experienced in BIGFLIX services:

      Instead of twice a day, the customers now have only ONE title “DELIVERED TO HOME” per day.

      The call center, which until few days back had an operating schedule of 10 am to 10 pm, is now changed to 10 am to 7pm. Great, isn't it???

      The facility for queuing movies from the local stores online through another similar site, which was also available until few days earlier, is no longer available. [Note: The collection of movie titles at the site and the store is not the same. The movies that you’ve delivered to your home through delivery man come from the BIGFLIX warehouse located in your city. If you see a title available at store and not available on the website, you can’t have it delivered to your home.] The URL for the site (that made it possible for the members to queue movies online from a local store) which no longer exists is:

http://kiosknew.bigflicks.com/Store.aspx

      Many a times, you’ll get the wrong movie delivered to you. They ask you to check the CD/DVD right when they get delivered to you and then only sign their delivery confirmation note. If it’s improper, you need to return it to the delivery man and you’ll be provided another piece within 24 hours. However, you need to check it out fast as the delivery-man may or may not wait longer while you check up the CD/DVD. So if after just checking the CD/DVD for scratches, you discover that the movie is in some other language than the one you’d queued, you can either go to a store and change it or wait for another lucky day!!! There're some movie titles on the site which are listed as "Coming soon", but the soon will not come that soon. May be their interpretation of soon is different than ours. Like, for example, the movie "There Will Be Blood" has managed to retain itself in their "Coming soon" list for more than 3 months (and is yet in the same list while this is written)!!! And that's not a joke, it's a fact, in fact an unfortunate fact (at least for me!!!). God knows whether it will ever arrive or finally end up one day disappearing from the site all of a sudden like the movie "Kismat Konnection" which was also in the "Coming soon" list for nearly a month!!! [Note: The title "Kismat Konnection" is yet not found in BIGFLIX search results up to the time this is written.]

      The barcode sticker on the CD/DVD is sometimes so poorly stuck that there’re chances of your CD/DVD player getting ruined sooner or later.

      If you wish to make some suggestion or some request or complaint online, you can do so using the “Customer care” link on their site. They promise you to reply within 3 working days. However, as per my experience with this so-called “Customer care”, I’ve hardly got any meaningful response within 3 working days. Sometimes you get a reply after a week or even later. But then, you can’t blame them, as who knows what are the “working days” of their so-called Customer care department, if there’s any for real!!!

      Some of the responses you get to your request/complaint/etc. look as if they're automated. E.g.: If you request for some titles, you’ll almost receive the same reply each time. God knows whether anyone have actually looked at them or not!!! Now, whenever I receive a reply that includes this sentence: “We have forwarded your request to the appropriate team with the titles you would like to see in our library.”, I understand (or say interpret it as) that my request has been forwarded to the Recycle Bin (aka “the appropriate team”).

So, if you’re thinking of becoming a BIGFLIX member, just consider the pros and cons above. If you’re to ask me, I’ll never recommend it. However, on the other hand, you will (may) find others too who will recommend it highly. It all depends on one’s experience. IMO, just to lure the customers to subscribe, BIGFLIX at first plays BIGTRICKS, and once after you're into it for a short while, you soon start getting BIGKICKS. I may be right, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the one who is in disagreement with me (or my opinion) is wrong. As mentioned above, it's all based on one's experience. Anyways, I wrote this down as I didn’t find more than 2-3 reviews myself while searching for it online; and with the intention that my opinion may help someone looking for BIGFLIX reviews before becoming its member and also hoping for more opinions/reviews from other members of BIGFLIX [my review may be reviewed by them and if they find it rubbish, they may be encouraged to come up with their own BIGFLIX review].

That’s it – just a last tip from me in case you're really considering to subscribe to BIGFLIX - India's Largest (read "Worst") Movie Rental Service:

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP,

SO THAT LATER YOU NEED NOT WEEP;

B'COZ JUST LIKE ITS SUBSCRIPTION FEES,

ITS SERVICE IS ALSO CHEAP!!!