Lovefilm Reviews 

Agree with all the posts below. I was a long-term customer of Lovefilm and have always been very happy with the service, both postal and streaming. Since Amazon took over, it's been rubbish - so few DVDs to choose from, and an extra payment required to stream so many videos. I'll be cancelling the Lovefilm by Post service. I was also a happy user of Amazon Prime for the postal discounts but will be cancelling that too, now it's been bundled in with Instant Video with no option to opt-out.

What a shame - two good services ruined.

Prior to writing this I've read all the reviews below (from the last few months) - there is nothing left to add, I'm glad it's not just me! I've been a member of Lovefilm for years also and the cynic in me would agree that Amazon just don't seem to care about 'DVD by Post' and want to push everyone to streaming. Thanks to all for the advice about 'Cinema Paradiso DVD rentals', I will give them a go. But perhaps this is a sign of the times, in a few years there will probably be no more DVD rental companies….

I have been a member of Lovefilm (and Amazon) since the company started and I always found the service brilliant: new discs were posted out quickly and always in separate envelopes, the staff seemed to work out for themselves that maybe you would to finish off one series before starting the next whenever possible, I could freeze the account when I went on holiday and if a disc was broken you would often receive an extra disc without charge as a curtesy. If any prospective new members read this, beware: none of the above is true of the Amazon-powered version of Lovefilm. The customer service is appalling (I have been begging for spare envelopes for about two months, since they shove three discs in one, and so far I have received 3 grovelling apologies and promises that new envelopes will come within 48 hours and exactly 0 envelopes), many titles are missing or not available to rent in Blu-Ray, the streaming service has endless problems, the brilliant Lovefilm app is now defunct and the rental list very cumbersome to handle from a portable device (or any device), the title search function on Amazon doesn't seem to know what to look for, and rather than be a clearly visible integrated part of the website it's crammed in under "Your account" where it sits like the spotty wallflower at a disco. It's impossible to find a telephone number to speak to someone and the people in customer services are either liars, robots or so feckless they should be sacked pronto. AND you have to pay for titles that were previously free to stream. I thought that Amazon would do a good job on this but now I'm pretty sure their plan is to force customers into Prime or simply get rid of a competitor so they can sell more DVDs (has anyone else noticed that Amazon are not as cheap as the used to be?). I will shortly be jumping ship to Cinema Paradiso or Netflix, it saddens me to say. Shame on Amazon for ruining a perfectly good company and for treating old - presumably any/all - customers with such disdain.

LOVEFILM was a good company, I have been a subscriber for many years. I know Amazon has had a finger in the lovefilm pie for a number of years, but since they brought the company in house on the Amazon website, the service has become dreadful. First they separated off the streaming service from the disc by post service. This did not concern me too much as I had already given up on the lovefilm streaming service, which generally had older movies, which seemed to be edited down for family consumption.

The disc by post service was my main source of movies. I subscribed to the two disc at any one time service. First I noticed the discs were arriving in a poor state and generally had to clean the disc before I could watch it. Then I noticed the discs were often damaged and would not play. On one occasion the damage was so bad and obvious I did not even put it into my player. This was bad enough, but it takes time to have the fault confirmed and replacement discs issued - dead time I was paying for a service I was not receiving.

Now I have started noticing a delay in discs being dispatched after a title has been returned - resulting in more dead time for which I am paying. Some discs have not arrived at all. In this instance you have to wait 4 days to be able to report a disc as having not arrived and guess what - more dead time. This was the final straw for me and I cancelled my membership. I thought things could not get worse after cancelling, but they did. Two discs were marked as having been returned - problem is, they never even arrived at my house at all. Apparently, the address that has been used for over a year, is no longer recognised by Royal Mail.

As for the new prime streaming service, added to Amazon Prime, together with a £30 hike in price, have cancelled that too. No option as to whether I wanted this service added to my Amazon Prime. As I no longer subscribe to Amazon Prime, will probably shop elsewhere for my goods.

I joined Lovefim back in 2006 and was proud of my cost saving I made against video stores and the whole family benefited from the membership. Nowadays newer titles are taking longer and longer to become available. The Amazon website is excruciating to use, the streaming content has many titles that are charged for in addition to the streaming subscription charge, Amazon made seperate charges for the streaming service and billed another credit card for which they had the details for from purchases I had made from them in the past which is outrageous (I wasn't notified of this and only found out by chance). I have looked for an alternative service and Cinema Paradiso fits the bill (they even have up to date titles) however the service I want costs £10 per month and now I have Netflix which would take me over budget. So for now Netflix will be the beneficiary of Amazon and Lovefilm's loss. For eight years it was a great little service but now it seems that they no longer care, shame.

Years ago my Grandmother used her credit card to purchase an item from Amazon & because they could not access my bank account when trying to take money for the love film by post service, they decided to WITHOUT ANY PERMISSION, use my Grandmothers credit card details to take money from her account for MY SUBSCRIPTION. I will be reporting them to the police.
As for the service since the swap, you pay a monthly fee for discs to be sent out to you and they don't bother to send any out!
Absolutely appalling service I am DISGUSTED with them.

Lovefilm had just got to a point for me where I was happy with the website and service. The DVD s by post were a good service and it was nice to be able to total up diff lists when you had the time in order to leave things and trust you would have new film s delivered quickly.
Since amazon have taken over I have cancelled my sub. I still get the free prime as I already opted in for prime over Christmas but when the annual goes double next year it will be cancelled too and I shall be using Netflix.
Not only is the Amazon site horrid to use and has lost many functions that Lovefilm old site had, it has also destroyed the use of Lovefilm for Kindle Fire. Considering the link that Amazon has with kindle you would expect this platform to be able to stream well like Lovefilm once did and Netfilx does. Instead the streaming stops about every minute making it impossible to watch anything via this method. It is not the wifi as Netflix is seamless!!

Poor Lovefilm what a waste ... I know at least 3 people that have cancelled since the switch

I used to love lovefilm. DVDs by post is what I want. Now it's Amazon the experience is terrible. Website is much worse, quite complicated. Amazon are shoving rentals in my face on their website and app (they don't seem to understand lovefilm was so we DONT need to rent individual movies). I cancelled and switched to Cinema Paradiso, which is a DVD by post service only.

I've subscribed to Lovefilm for several years and always enjoyed seeing which DVD would come through the post. Amazon seem to have no interest in the DVD rental element and have made it really difficult to even find my rental list, I can't add titles using the app any more. What a shame to have to cancel my subscription.

I was a happy love film customer for years and received great service from them. However then amazon came along and destroyed a great company. Upon amazon buying out love film I was forced to change my account details to my amazon account. No problem I thought... however my rental list disappeared and never came back. So I made the concious decision to cancel. I cancelled through the amazon system and for two months never got charged nor did I receive a service/ receive a dvd. So as you may think everything has gone to plan. NO ! Amazon clearly are not happy with this and have decided to take the monthly subscription out of my wifes amazon account despite her not been registered with love film. She has merely bought the odd dress from amazon years ago and her card numbers are still registered to the same email address. I have rung customer services at amazon who have re credited her account but could give no explanation why they have took this money when we have received no service.
I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH DO NOT USE THIS COMAPANY THEY ARE STRUGGLING AND CLEARLY USELESS. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT EXTRACTING THE CASH FROM YOUR ACCOUNT AND NOT PROVIDING A SERVICE!!!!.

I signed up for the 30 day free trial through Amazon Prime. I never normally sign up for these types of services but I had heard good things about Love Film. I decided not to continue with the trial before the 30 days were up and attempted to cancel my membership. This proved to be VERY difficult. There was no clear way of cancelling the subscription and in the end I had to google how to do it, whilst doing so I found an abundance of disgruntled customers having the same issues and whole forums devoted to the topic. I eventually found a way of doing it and pressed the appropriate button which said 'cancel instant prime post by membership'. I didn't get an email confirmation so I logged back into the account to check and sure enough it said I no longer had a subscription.

2 months later I was checking my bank statements and there was 2 charges for £5.99 for prime instant video for the last 2 months. I called the customer service call centre which again i had to google to find the number as yet again it is not made clear anywhere on the website. I was told by the advisor that although yes I had cancelled my postal service I had to cancelled my instant love film streaming subscription, something which i never signed up for and and something which was not made clear I even had on my account. I was absolutely furious that this company are clearly deceiving customers in this way. I will never use this company again and hope that anyone reading this does not fall into the same trap.

Over complicated system, increased monthly charge, charging for services that were previously included, poor customer service call centre. Judging by the quantity of the poor reviews Amazon have got some serious work to do if they want to turn this around!

absolutely disgraceful after changing from love film to amazon prime instant video a lot of the good shows that were on there, like the big bang theory and terminator sarah connor chronicles are now no longer included with the subscription, you have to pay to view each episode on top of the 79.99 you pay for your prime subscription, sticking to netflix and now tv bye bye amazon

Whilst there was the occasional problem with the Lovefilm postal service, it was generally reasonable and prompt. Things went completely to pot after switching the account over to Amazon. I started getting wrong disks, and in one case exactly the same disks sent back to me that I had just returned. The final straw was when my rental list completely disappeared from the Amazon website, and trying to access it just resulted in my being told that I was not a Lovefilm by post subscriber even though the subscription was clearly listed in my account details. I basically got nowhere trying to solve the issue via customer service (ingratiatingly polite, but completely useless), so in the end I had little option other than just cancel the subscription, as I was essentially paying for the pleasure of having absolutely nothing.

It does seem that Amazon has little interest in maintaining the postal side of the business and just wants to offer the streaming service. All well and good I suppose, except my internet connection isn't fast enough to support it, and from what I've seen of the streaming service, the choice of titles that are included in the subscription is extremely limited so you'll likely end up paying on a pay-per-view basis anyway.

I've been renting DVD's via the post for over 10 years. It's been so long I can't even remember the name of the first company. I think it was called PowerIsland DVD, who not long after I suscbribed to them sold out to Tesco in 2004. There was a few problems with the website, but there was no major concern.

Then LoveFilm took over running the service on behalf of Tesco. After that problems started to creep in more and more, such as, the lack of Universal film titles due to a disagreement with costs, not being able to review films, changes in subscription costs with no communication. I stayed though because I mainly got sent the films I wanted and always received them promptly. PLUS, I was able to take an 'account holiday' for times when I was on holiday. The problem with LoveFilm was that they could never be bothered to communicate with customers via the website and they seemed to give up on the brand.

So, when Amazon took over I thought things could only get better, the complete oppposite happened. I could no longer change my subscription and the website for the rental DVD section was impossible to navigate.

All the indications are in my opinion is that Amazon do not care about the postal service and want us to sign up to the streaming service so that we sign up to Prime. Well I don't want to Amazon and the way you have treated a 10 year customer in the space of a few months means that I never will.

I have been a member of love film for a number of years however I am now considering cancelling my membership since the amazon take over....the 'new' website is messy and difficult to navigate feels like a step back and is clear designed to try and confuse you into purchasing DVD's from amazon rather than renting them using the service you actually pay for! ...... added to this the number of blockbuster films that are not available.... it appears again Amazon are being greedy and are holding back release of new films so that they can sell a DVD/Blu ray instead of you renting it throught the service you pay for..... there appears to be a conflict of interests .....Amazon wants to sell DVD's/ Blurays and providing a rental service reduces the number they sell.

i have used Lovefilm for years and am shocked and appalled by what has happened to this once great company since Amazon has taken over.
I have just cancelled my membership and am giving Cinema Paradiso a go, hopefully they will more akin to the LoveFilm of old.
Amazon, wake up and smell the coffee, why change something that wasn't broken? I think you will be losing an awful lot of customers from your postal service.

I have been a Lovefilm customer for about 5 years now and it pains me to say it but I will probably be cancelling my subscription.

The once easy to navigate website is now very confusing, and the on demand selection also feels poor compared with those available from Netflix and Sky. I also don't like the way that they mix in the premium (paid for) content with the prime (Free) content.

Looks like Amazon are running down the DVD rental service. After splitting the Post?streaming service and now appear to be throttling back on my DVD's. I Have the 3 disc service which used to send out a new disc the same day as received. Now it's 2+ days. Same happened with Blockbusters before they went bust. I assume Amazon will drop the postal service, but that's no good to me as even with TalkTalk fibre I still get streaming problems.Quality is never as good when streaming either., plus you have to pay extra for all the decent films. Time to look for a new DVD rental service.

Such a shame I have been a LoveFilm member for a number of years and really loved the service, the site was easy to navigate and user friendly.
Since the Amazon switch over it has been dreadful and they have basically destroyed what was once a fantastic service. Films I returned being sent straight back to me and probably the world's most confusing web site that I can no longer be bothered to navigate. Surely when you buy out a company you are buying an existing client base, so why would you think changing everything would be a good idea. Looking at the comments on here it seems they will be losing all the customers they once had.