How to Return a Defective Netflix DVD

Netflix customers...if you get a defective DVD, don't send the bad disc back to them until they've sent you a replacement disc.  I write this from personal experience.

About a year ago, I had a Star Trek:  The Next Generation DVD that stopped playing in the middle of one episode.  It was one of the episodes in which Ashley Judd guest starred, as I recall.  I tried it in two DVD players with no luck.  So I dropped the DVD in the mail and went to the Netflix website, where I clicked the "report a problem" link.

Three days later, the replacement Star Trek DVD arrived.  Looking at it, I realized this DVD had the exact same blemish on the surface as the DVD I had just sent back.  Putting the DVD in the player confirmed it:  Netflix had sent me the same DVD I had just sent them.

I imagine the whole process took almost no time at all.  The defective DVD arrives at the Netflix processing center, is pulled from its envelope, whisked down a conveyor belt, stuck in a new envelope with my address on it, and rolled out to a waiting mail truck, all in about five minutes.  Did anyone consider that the arriving DVD had been reported as faulty?  Apparently not.

So, the return process for a bad DVD, in order:

1. Go to the Netflix website and click "report a problem."
2. Receive the replacement DVD in the mail.
3. Send the defective DVD back to Netflix.

I'm writing this today because the Tom Hanks comedy, Larry Crowne, is defective.  Well, some critics have said it's defective, but from my point of view the movie itself is okay.  But last night, the Netflix DVD of Larry Crowne stopped working about halfway through, at the point where Julia Roberts was about to tell her husband to take a hike.  To be continued, if you will.