Did I get throttled by Netflix?

It all started last Wednesday when I got a piece of what should have been junk mail. It was a fun direct mail piece. There was a miniature Netflix envolope glued onto the front, you pull it off and on the back was a code for a 30-day free trial. I used Netflix years ago and didn't think the service was all that bad, so I thought, "Why not? It's a month of free movies...I'll just rent as many as I can and burn them."

I loaded up my queue with about 20 movies (Netflix advises to keep your queue full so your movies keep coming in the mail). Immediately, it said that my first DVDs would be sent out on Thursday, which was the next day. "Awesome," I thought, "I'll have movies for Friday." I logged onto Netflix to find the promise of a Thursday shipment had been pushed to Friday. Then on Friday, instead of actually sending out my DVDs, the shipment was again delayed until the following Monday because Netflix doesn't ship on weekends. Well, Monday turned into Tuesday, Tuesday turned into Wednesday, and now it says my first DVDs are expected to ship on Thursday...again. We've come full-circle and I'm still without DVDs. My month-long trial is now a 3-week trial at best.

I mentioned this to Audrey a few days into the waiting and she sent me a link about Netflix throttling. Supposedly, Netflix slows down the shipping process for those who return their movies too fast. I kind of doubt that I'm a victim of throttling since I'm a trial user and they should be on their hands and knees trying to impress me with their service. A concerned email was sent a couple days ago and I have not heard back from them.

Damn you, fancy junk mail!

Note: I believe Netflix uses Gotham as its corporate font...or is it Verlag? I can't tell, they all look the same.