Love Film DVD Rental - Don't use this company!

The first month was great – too good, in fact – and there I was parading the virtues of online DVD rental and how perfect my supplier Love Film was. Oh dear, how wrong was I. Don’t let the ‘2 weeks free trial’ con you into thinking you’re getting a good deal!

I was with them for four months (using their £12.99 a month package which allows you to receive an unlimited amount of DVDs with two at home at any given time), and for the final three months, I never once received a film I actually wanted.

At one point I received DVDs in the post, checked to see what they were, and sent them back immediately because I simply didn’t care to watch them. Part of the problem with renting films is that you have to watch them within a given time frame. Sometimes this can work out for the better, but the way online rental works - with your next DVDs sent out once you’ve returned your last ones - you only get your moneys worth if you power through around 4 films a week. Two things: 1) Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the week to get through 4 films, but more importantly with Love Film, it’s even harder when the films aren’t ones you actually want; and 2) you are relying on Love Film to post out your DVDs promptly to beat Sunday’s lack of post.

Love Film pander to the needs of new customers leaving monthly subscribers out in the cold. For the first few weeks I received all the DVDs I wanted, promptly and in good condition. After my first month’s payment had been taken, I stopped receiving the films I wanted and only got films they force you to add to a wish list. Basically, if you don’t have twenty films on a list, they won’t send you a single film – or at least, I didn’t receive one when I struggled to list twenty. My problem with the list is that I only wanted brand new releases, perhaps two per week. I have a huge collection of DVDs at home, I wasn’t interested in catalogue titles. After a month, I’d run out of catalogue titles I wanted. When my list dwindled to less than the ‘recommended’ (actually read: necessary) twenty titles, nothing was sent out until I replenished the list, essentially, with films I didn’t want. I was left paying for a service I wasn’t getting.

Essentially, Love Film wants to be bigger than it can manage, at least at the present time, and I wouldn’t recommend using them as your online rental company. Their customer service is very poor (although they have tried to improve it), their inability to deliver on the customer’s need is even more damning, and they have a poor policy for customers who want to leave. I had to pay for another month of zero service because after ringing their customer service team (you have to phone them to cancel membership, you cannot do it online) I was told (a complete lie) that near the time of my next payment I could officially cancel my membership online. This was not the case. I called up on the day of my payment for the following month and because I had DVDs at home (they’d sent more out even though I’d notified them that I wanted to cancel my membership), I had to pay for another month. Terrible.

I won’t be ignoring the huge amount of unhappy user reviews on ciao.co.uk ever again.