joe_b

I've purchased hundreds of titles from them over the years (a huge chunk of my collection) and trust me, they have no qualms about sending garbage to customers. I'd say 1 in 7 DVDs I bought from them were so damaged they were unplayable. I also received about four bootlegs, so Echo is not alone in that department. I continued shopping with them because the prices were so cheap and they were often my only option to acquire obscure titles at affordable prices.

Yes, CS can be helpful to a point -- but after you report a certain amount of defective titles they require a return for everything, even an $0.80 CD. That was perfectly fine until they started screwing up my refund totals (like omitting sales tax) or not even refunding the items after I sent them back. That happened no fewer than three times, which is why I can't in good consciousness shop with them. I'm glad others have more positive experiences. It seems the blu-rays they send out are in much better condition than their used CDs and DVDs.

laidbacklarkin

sorry to hear that. as you order more, so does the probability of receiving bad discs. DVD's and CD's are susceptible to the slightest scratches and its not difficult to scratch them away. BD discs have a protective coating that can take a lot more of these cosmetic scratch abuse and so smudges and superficial scratches can literally be wiped away. The few defective ones I had were all DVD's. With the large volume of media they procure as used, it may be hard to inspect each and every disc before putting them out for sale. You could also blame it on unscrupulous sellers that have passed a bootleg or burned copy in a legit looking cover. Am not trying to absolve Hastings of this QC issue but it does happen when dealing with thousands of media items. And even if you need to return them, its on their dime and not yours, isn't it ?

philly1981

I love go hastings, great prices, I havent had a problem with them yet.

So far i have odered from them

the original punisher movie used dvd and i works great.
His name was jason the friday the 13th
Halloween 20 years of terror documentary.
superman doomsday
batman and superman the movie animated

just recently with the 30 percent off sale i ordered

A nightmare on elm street 4 film favorites 1-4 used 1.79
A nightmare on elm street 4 film favorites 5-8 used 1.44
halloween 2 and 3 double feature used 1.41
fear and loathing in las vegas criterion dvd 1.99

not so bad, they have really good prices.

laidbacklarkin

I ordered 'Stir of Echoes' used BD and received a brand new and sealed copy today

PhantomStranger

That has basically been my experience with GoHastings. I will say the number of extremely damaged items for me has been a little lower than 1 out of 7 items. Occasionally I do get an item that is basically new, though that seems to be getting rarer and rarer as they've become a more popular Internet retailer.

I still use them, but mostly for items where I am not going to care too much about the condition.

joe_b

I'm well aware of that, but the cases and artwork on their BDs seem to be in better shape on average based on people's feedback. I had literally dozens of DVDs sent to me with ratty, water damaged artwork. Not to mention at least half the cases were covered in some kind of funky, sticky residue.

Yes, but that doesn't make much of difference when 8 weeks go by and they still haven't processed your refund. I called to follow-up on a return once and the cs rep told me to keep waiting because the package "might have fallen under a pallet somewhere".

Lastdaysofrain

I ordered a bunch of discs in their last sale. The version I got of Rare Exports was actually a region b german release with no English subs, and the version I got of Heavenly Creatures was the Canadian disc. I emailed them and they refunded me right away and didn't ask for me to return the discs. I cannot get the Canadian Heavenly Creatures to play on either of my players (it hangs up at the pre-menu screen) and I'd love to watch Rare Exports, I just have to learn dutch or german first.

ProfessorEcho

The other problem with getting the wrong disc is if they did have the right one and made a mistake you have missed the deal completely. With some titles they never come back in stock which means someone else got your deal because of Hastings' mishandling.

Numes

Agreed. I've bought about 20-25 items over the past couple of years and they always were in their original cases and the OOP stuff I've bought has been 100% legit. I bought a used version of the Jaws DVD with the uncut documentary and it came fully sealed. It was brand new.

conscience

Exactly. They have been pretty hit or miss for me lately.

I ordered a used copy of In the Realm of the Senses Criterion and they sent me someone elses order (including their packing slip): a previously viewed copy of The King's Speech. Yay!

They have also sent me previously viewed titles when I have ordered used (even with one PV trying to pass it off as used). Not cool.

Dr. Phibes

I just got a bad order from them myself. I ordered Mondo Macabro's DVD of The Warrior, which is a hilarious Indonesian action movie that cost me about $8 after 30% off. They sent me The Warrior with Woo-Sung Jung, which is like $2, and which I already own. The Warrior that I wanted is still listed on the site, but I think I'm just going to get a refund. There are several movies called The Warrior, I'd hate to keep receiving different wrong movies that have the same title.

The other stuff I got from the today was correct though, so I'm happy otherwise. Although I swear every CD I get from them seems to have a cracked or missing hinge, that can be pretty annoying.

ProfessorEcho

You may as well consult a Ouija board when it comes to Hastings matching movies with the same titles. Three times I ordered a spaghetti western called THE MAN FROM OKLAHOMA and three times I received a public domain Roy Rogers movie with the same name.

DVD Polizei

This is one of the potential issue with ordering from GoHastings and why I only stick to particular titles. I think I've ordered around 31 titles so far with only 1 which was a PV and I'm pretty sure I ordered it as "used".

BobO'Link

I generally have good experiences from Hastings but *have* received at least 3 disks where i ordered "used" only to get a PV. The packing slip *shows* I ordered used and the disk will have the Hastings rental ring on it. But for each one of those I've purchased a "used" copy of a title only to receive the disk still in shrinkwrap with the security seal. There have been 3 occasions where I received an incorrect title. 2 of them I got a different version than what was ordered (regular received, ordered SE) and one was a completely different title with the same name. In all 3 of those cases the UPC on the packing list did *not* match what was sent. It really makes you wonder about the people doing the picking/shipping since there *is* a UPC that should match. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with Hastings but wish they would implement some sort of "return to local store" policy to save hassle with defective/incorrectly shipped titles.

So... last week I ordered a *new* copy of the recent remastered Blu-ray/DVD combo pack of The Terror for $6 + $.96 shipping + tax. It came today. Still had the original store sticker of $11.99 with a "Markdown" sticker put over that with a $6 price. Very happy with that purchase.

Dr. Phibes

So I got an email from them yesterday that they would refund the money for The Warrior. Today, I get another copy of The Warrior with Woo-Sung Jung in the mail. Counting my Region 3 CJ Entertainment disc, I now have 3 copies of this movie.

Weird company, I'll have to keep checking my bank account and make sure they actually refund me.

junglalien

gryffinmaster

Ended up getting:

Live Free or Die Hard ($4.04)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang ($4.75)
The Omega Man ($2.96)
Traffic Blu-ray + DVD ($2.85)
8 Mile ($4.31)
Predator ($4.31, original release)

... for $30.75 shipped. That'll do nicely.

ProfessorEcho

Put three used standard DVDs in my cart and only one was eligible for the discount. They seem to be getting more and more limited with these sales yet there is still no rhyme or reason as to why something is included and something else isn't. Typical GoHastings maze.

laidbacklarkin

I have seen this happen too on the last round. It may be a bug in the way they enter the item into the system. Does show used but discount didnt apply

darkhawk

With 30% off, bought:

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 $8.28
Drive $5.12
Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D $10.70
The Artist $11.90
The Rum Diary $5.12

izatright

It could be a false positive, but I seem to have noticed a correlation between an item's recent entry into the database and its overall popularity to its exclusion in such sales. I could be wrong, as I remember buying LOTR extended blu-ray in their 3 for $21 sale back when LOTR just came out. However, I happen to think that whole sale was a huge programming mistake to begin with (because I also picked up the complete Shrek, Star Trek season 1, the entire Star Trek movie series, and more for the same price. It just doesn't make sense from a sellers POV to ever make such hot commodities that cheap, considering they probably purchased them for more).

ktg

I ended up getting:

Used/PV Blu-rays

Adoration $2.20
The Disappearance of Alice Creed $3.33
I've Loved You so Long $2.48
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark $3.41
The Strangers $2.70
Final Destination 5 $2.98
The Dead $3.50


Used/PV DVDs:

Eagleheart Season One $6.72
Of Dolls and Murder $5.72
Altitude $1.57
Burke & Hare $2.27
Cold Fish $4.65
Seconds Apart $1.40
Terribly Happy $3.11

Prices shown above did not include the .96 shipping each.

ProfessorEcho

Anyone else having trouble with the site? I am consistently getting error notices and " sorry, try again" pages and site crashes. Makes me think it truly was a glitch in not discounting all of my items yesterday. The whole site seems to be very buggy since the sale started.

joltman

I was getting sporadic 'sorry, try again' messages yesterday when I was putting and order together. Each time I would get an error, I'd go back to the main page and try again, and I eventually got all the way through check out.

onebyone

Error messages galore here too, and what's worse, I get one when I try to access my wishlist. An up to date wishlist is key to shopping at gohastings.