PerryD

Yeah, I sent my covers in the first week also and am still waiting. My order included HP, Matrix and Casablanca along with 20 other titles. I think it was already mentioned earlier in this thread, but wasn't Casablanca HD-DVD notorious for only selling 200 copies? Certainly not all of these were turned into Warner for exchange, so we are talking about needing to stock a few dozen copies at most for this program.

Supermallet

I'm also still waiting. I've got confirmation that my covers were received, and was told one item was on backorder, and that they ship all the discs together, so I have to wait till the backordered one is back in stock. At the time I thought they were referring to the Matrix collection, but now I think they might have been talking about Casablanca.

RobLutter

I'm also still waiting... squarely because of the Casablanca release.

Almost regret I put that one in my order.

obidawsn

It seems there are more than a few dozen people in these forums that are waiting for Casablanca . I never heard how many copies of the HD DVD sold, but if it was 200, was that sold to consumers or to retailers? I would assume consumers. But since you could get the HD DVD cheap online, I say there were a lot of people who bought the HD DVD then turned it in (including myself). WB probably did plan on only a few copies thinking the same thing that you did, not expecting so many people to buy the HD DVD in order to get the Blu-ray. After all $16 ($6 from inet for the HD DVD and $10 for the upgrade) is a lot better than $40+ even if you add the shipping charges for both. I don't think they anticipated such a huge response for it.

kefrank

Maybe on release week, but I guarantee it sold well more than 200 copies total. I know the response for it wasn't as good as was hoped, but it wasn't that abysmally low.

maxfisher

It's been seven weeks since I placed my order, so I just called to check on the status. Illyana (sp?) said that Casablanca and Planet Earth will continue to be backordered until the end of the month and that I should be receiving my shipment around then.

dan30oly

Yeah, but there's no excuse for my wait. I mailed my covers out on day 1 of this programs launch. I have still yet to receive anything. I just emailed them this morning to find out what's going on. This is a piss poor program.

kefrank

This isn't entirely unexpected from WHV. The Casablanca issue is reminiscent of the Batman: The Complete Animated Series debacle, in which a bunch of us pre-ordered the box set months in advance from WHV and received an e-mail on release week saying they couldn't fulfill the order.

bub

Here is some more bad news...

My initial order, which is today 6 weeks old from the time they received my HD DVD covers, included Casablanca, Planet Earth and Matrix (plus many more, 24 total).

As everybody knows, Planet Earth and Casablanca have been back-ordered seemingly the entire promotion.

After a 5 week wait, Warner offered to split my order so that the two back-ordered titles, Casablanca and Planet Earth, would stop holding up the entire order.

Well, today I get an email saying that my order was split so that all my titles, with the exception of Casablanca and Planet Earth, would remain with the original order number and that Casablanca and Planet Earth now had a new order number and that it was on back-order.

Now, for the bad news, my original order is now on back-order as well, because The Matrix is on back-order.

What this means, is that Warner is NOT filling orders with the exception of back-order titles, they are holding EVERY order that has at least one back-order item.

So for example, if you placed an order (as I did) that included Planet Earth, Casablanca and Matrix, with Casablanca and Planet Earth on back-order, Warner has not been holding a copy of Matrix for you. So, even though Matrix is in stock, if your order has Casablanca on back-order, you not only are not getting a copy of Casablanca held for you, you are not getting a copy of Matrix held for your order either. So, everybody that has been placing their order for Matrix AFTER you placed your order and until they've run out, have been getting their Matrix shipped, even though you might have placed your order for Matrix many weeks earlier.

In theory, Warner might never ship your order, especially large orders, as at any given moment, one or more of your titles are on back-order so Warner doesn't hold any titles for you. Today, Casablanca is on back-order so you get no titles actually pulled for your order. Next week, Casablanca comes back in stock, but Matrix is on back-order, so even though Matrix was available last week, you never got a copy pulled for your order so now your order can't be shipped because there is no Matrix. When Matrix comes back in stock, perhaps Casablanca is back on back-order.

What a freaking nightmare!

The Warner CSR's may be polite, but based on the structure for this promotion, they don't seem to be able to help much. Those of us with multiple titles in short supply, Casablanca, Matrix, Planet Earth (and others) might get the dreaded email down the road, 'sorry, but due to unanticipated demand, some of your titles can not be shipped. We will not charge your credit card for unshipped titles. Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, blah blah blah...'

I just got off the phone and it has been confirmed that Warner does not hold any titles so if you have even one title on back-order, absolutely no titles will be held for you. In theory, those with large orders might not ever get their order shipped as at any given time, if one title is on back-order, no titles are held for you.

Warner's reasoning for doing it this way (their response), 'Can you imagine how many unfulfilled orders we would have sitting around here if we filled orders with all titles in-stock but wait to ship until any/all back-order titles were back in stock to complete the order?'

kefrank

Wow. My response would be, "You're the retail division of the manufacturer of these discs. There's no reason that any title should be on back-order for any significant length of time, so if you were operating like you should be, you would never have many unfulfilled orders sitting around."

slop101

Going to retail stores lately (CostCo, Best Buy, etc.), I now notice these back-ordered blu-rays more than ever, just sitting there at each store, gathering dust - it's like salt in a wound.

None of these stores are in any short supply of these, at all, and yet the manufacturer can't seem to get them. Weird.

Mr. Salty

I'll repeat myself:

I think the problem is that these expensive sets aren't made in large quantities. Most of what has been made has been sent to retailers, without a lot of backstock sitting around in Warner's warehouses. Then this program is announced and what stock they had disappeared rather quickly.

Isny

So I've checked with reps, and if you have items on backorder you can request to have the in stock items shipped to you, and the ones that aren't in stock shipped to you when available.

Just called in and modified the order I'm waiting on to be shipped to my Amerifriend.

Seems the Matrix Digibook is what was OOS and holding my order up.

Hopefully this helps everyone =)

maxfisher

I'm pretty sure that won't happen. This situation is different than purchasing something from a website. Normally, if a retailer can't fulfill an online order, they can issue a refund and void the transaction. In that situation, they can make the customer whole by not charging him/her or refunding the money if it had already been charged. In this promotion, we've already provided the covers to them. The only way they could possibly weasel out of it would be if they refunded money and also shipped back the original covers. I'm guessing they've been verifying covers when shipments are received and then trashing them, which would make it about impossible for them to back out of the contract.

Even if they've kept the covers, they may not be able to back out, as a court might say that a reasonable person would be comfortable throwing away or giving away a disc after entering a contract where they agreed to send in the insert for a replacement. If worst comes to worst, I imagine Warner would ship what they could and send coupons for us to pick up the rest of the titles at retail. As long as none of the titles go out of print, though, I'm guessing they'll fulfill all of the orders themselves and some of us will just be waiting a very long time.

mike01

pretty good turnaround sent Sun 5/24/2009 order shipped Tue 6/9/2009

slop101

That's assuming that what is on store shelves is old stock, and I know that's not the case.

dan30oly

Bad news for me now.

I received an email from the csr's claiming they never received my covers.

bullshit. Here's my tracking # 4204 8843 9182 8052 1390 7085 8731 94 usps.com

Detailed Results:

Delivered, April 29, 2009, 11:00 am, HOWELL, MI 48844
Arrival at Unit, April 28, 2009, 8:10 am, HOWELL, MI 48843
Processed through Sort Facility, April 25, 2009, 5:06 am, LANSING, MI 48924
Processed through Sort Facility, April 24, 2009, 8:46 am, DETROIT, MI 48233
Processed through Sort Facility, April 23, 2009, 12:57 am, SEATTLE, WA 98168
Processed through Sort Facility, April 22, 2009, 10:21 pm, TACOMA, WA 98413

tlwizard

Oof, that sucks. I'm sorry. Hope you get it figured out.

DVD Polizei

I don't understand why WB and other studios don't simply offer a certificate you can use at any retail store who carries the same exact release, when you have fulfilled the studio's requirements. It would make things a lot easier. No shipping to the customer necessary at all. Just mail a goddamn letter with a certificate good for the Ultimate Matrix on Blu which states is good at any retailer such as Best Buy, Fry's, etc.

obidawsn

Initially, that would seem like a good idea, but after I thought about it, might not be the best idea for business. For one, WB sells the stock to the retailers for a profit. Then the retailers are buying the stock in hopes to make a profit. Since WB, themselves, are providing the stock for this promotion, they are only out the cost to produce the Blu-ray (and possibly a little for shipping for huge orders). That $5 a movie (or more for boxsets) probably pays for the cost of production plus maybe a slight profit. It may even be the price they charge retailers per movie (give or take). So, in other words, this was supposed to be a win-win. We get a cheap upgrade (instead of having to repurchase the movie at full price) and WB sells some product. However, if they were to offer certificates for us to pick the product up from the store, then that store would probably expect to get reimbursed the full price of the product (and maybe even a little more for processing as is the case with most coupons) unless they worked out a deal. For example, Best Buy doesn't want to lose a huge chunk of money (because we know they probably have a huge mark-up, especially for big items like Matrix and Planet Earth) just to fulfill a WB promotion that they had nothing to do with. They may work out a deal to help WB fulfill the promotion in order to get rid of overstock, but they would, at least, expect what they paid WB for it (which will probably be even or more than the $5 we paid). And even if they did that, it would take a lot for WB to make a deal with every retailer, so they would have to limit the retailers to, at most, a handful of chains. You would then have to hope that one of those retailers are near you and that they have it in stock at your store.

So, in other words, it would be a lot easier and better (at least on a business end) for WB to do the best that they can to provide the stock themselves. There may be a point where, for some reason, they can't get any more stock and have to resort to certificates. But they will wait as long as they can before giving in, then it would take a while for them to work out the logistics, if they can work out anything at all. I doubt they will ever get to the point of not being able to get stock at all. And if they did, they might just take their chances and just send out an apology, hoping that not many people will go out of their way to fight them over it. After all, is it worth the legal hassle just to get a Blu-ray movie, or because you lost an HD DVD cover? Granted, a judge probably would rule that the HD DVD cover does count as part of the payment and must somehow be reimbursed. But legal battles can be long and tedious, even if you weren't out any money for it, especially when WB has the money and clout to keep fighting it. Though there are people who will do it just for the principle of it. But only when WB is afraid of fighting a long legal battle will they probably give in to a settlement with certificates.

highclassrob

Slightly off topic , but has anyone heard of any other studios starting up there own Red2Blu style exchange program?

Supermallet

I agree with your reasoning for why WB won't issue certificates. But I don't think that they will just email everyone who ordered Casablanca or Matrix and say "Sorry, better luck next time." More likely would be "We apologize, but these items are no longer available. As we cannot provide you with these specific items, please choose X amount of Blu-ray titles from the following list," with X being the number of titles they couldn't deliver to you.

WMAangel

As has already been mentioned in this thread, Paramount could do one fairly easily if they wanted to, as they have pretty much released everything onto Blu that they did in red....however, Universal still has not even released 50% of the titles they put out in red onto Blu so they obviously cannot support a similar exchange program yet....
Let's not even mention The Weinstein Company....they obviously have A LOT bigger problems to worry about than a HD DVD trade-in program...

crackerbox

I had sent in 25 covers at the very beginning of the promotion. After several weeks I called to check on the status of the order. I was told the order would be shipping shortly. 2 weeks later I got the "your covers have been received" email. A week later I called again to check on the status of the order. I was told that all but The Matrix was in stock and they offered to split The Matrix off to a separate order (with no extra charges for shipping) and they shipped the other 24 blu rays. I just received them today. So I am just waiting for The Matrix to arrive.

h0mi

I'm hoping they'll put Casablanca up so I can place an order. I'm in no hurry but I really, really hope they offer it again.

Would be nice if Charlie & the Chocolate Factory were released too, and if I could find a deal on Xmas story to add that title.