Netflix admits it's experiencing shipping delays

11:00 am EDT August 15, 2008 - In what many are calling Netflix's biggest service disruption yet, the movie rental-by-mail company's shipping system has still not returned to full functionality, with at least 2.5 million subscribers affected.

As of Thursday evening, Netflix still had not returned to fully functional distribution after almost four days of intermittent service. The company's representatives have disclosed neither the scope of the disruption nor the precise cause, saying only that it is of "significant" size and that technicians are working to have operations fully restored as soon as possible.

On the official Netflix blog yesterday evening, spokesman Steve Swasey wrote, "There's no guarantee at this point that our shipping operations will be fully restored by tomorrow."

The initial shipping delay was reported on Tuesday and reported in the company's blog to have been mostly resolved on Wednesday. Apparently, though, problems continued into this morning, when e-mails like the one pictured below were sent out.

Naturally, the blog is filled with disgruntled customers airing their complaints. One such commenter called the telephone support team which the user typically finds helpful, "offensively standoffish concerning this issue."

This is the second delivery delay in under five months. In March, a site malfunction caused shipments to be held up longer than usual.

The Netflix streaming service remains unaffected.