Slashdot Mirror
Blockbuster Sued Over Late Fees Claim
DesiVideoGamer writes "CNN has a story about Blockbuster's violation of New Jersey's consumer fraud act in which they made false claims in their "No More Late Fees" campaign. New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey filed a lawsuit today in hopes that Blockbuster would stop misleading their customers into thinking they could keep their movie rentals as long as they want without penalty."
These services seem like good deals on the outside, but when you really look at the prices they charge, better deals can be found elsewhere. I'd like to see a decline in the high priced rental stores like Blockbuster, and a move to lower priced store with good selection. In my town, there are several small convenience stores that do very good business renting DVD's for cheap prices($2 Canadian after tax compared to the $6ish the Blockbuster charges). One store in particular always has many copies of all the new movies, plus tons of older ones. Plus, having the movies at a convenience store gives the added benefit of a large variety of snack foods to fill up on.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
An advertiser using borderline misleading statements in order to sell a product or service? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!
By the way, what, exactly, does this have to do with my rights online?
Even the Blockbuster wensite is a blatant copy of the netflix interface, and they are great about customer service.
I think this is great for the company
Apparently seven days after the due date, they charge you the full sale price of the rented item.
You then have 30 days to return the item for a full refund - minus restocking fees (and tax?).
Yuck!
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
You can't do good neither ;)
The MEDIA has been claiming that you could keep the rentals for as long as you'd like, but I have yet to actually see anything from Blockbuster that explicitly states that.
If anything, everything from BB has been closer to waiving late fees by giving you a grace period to return a rental.
I mean if people today are so dumb that they think Blockbuster's commercials meant they could just keep rental movies forever then we have reached a new level of stupidity not equaled in quite a while.
My local Blockbuster kept calling multiple times a day when I decided to press the new policy. By shear nagging alone I gladly returned the movie.
Fuck, I'm just glad they got rid of those commercials with the hamster and the rabbit. Fraud is nothing compared to how annoying those lil' fuckers were.
Here's one take on it:f m?ID= 5356
http://www.dsnretailingtoday.com/cee/index.c
Transistors and Beer!!
I'm thinking that if they priced it right, this could be one way to sell dvd's and games. You can rent all you want, if you like it, keep it.
Free electronics!
"Oh God! Won't somebody please think of the key grips?"
It's things like this which make it really hard for me to feel bad for Hollywood and its ilk when they complain about media piracy, because every single time they talk about dishonesty or theft or what-have-you, things like this echo in the back of my mind.
Let's see.
I can get a free cell phone almost anywhere. 3 years and $2000 later it's paid for.
I can buy a car at 0% interest....but if I pay cash it's $$$thousands$$$ less than if I do credit.
How come none of these advertisers are sued? Does the government really need to protect me against the cost of a DVD because I didn't read the fine print while ignoring far larger issues?
But for $29.99/month, you can rent 3 movies at a time, as many times as you want..WITH NO LATE FEES.
Yes, it IS a news-flash, you CANNOT keep movies you've rented, forever.
But since when have advertising campaigns been free of ambiguity and deceit?
" Aren't you worried that you won't have enough movies and games if everyone keeps their rentals longer?
We will be carefully monitoring the movie and game selection to make sure we maintain our current levels of product availability for you. However, it's in everyone's best interest to return their rentals by the due date, even with the end of late fees, to ensure that we have the movies and games you want to rent, available when you want to rent them."
This seems like a reasonable assumption. People doing right for one another. So my question is... what are they actually going to do about this?
When I was at Blockbuster recently, the customer in front of me asked about the "the end of late fees". This is exactly what the employee told the customer, word for word...
"This lets you keep the rental for a couple of days extra, just to allow you extra time."
That was pretty much about it, nothing about the restocking fee, which was just appeared on their price list one day. Nothing about after 30 days, we charge your credit card on file for the rental value of the rental.
The reason for the lawsuit is simple... they changed the way they do their rentals, because they suspect that you could accidentally forget aobut the rental and then keep it too long, but then since they will debit your credit card, by the time you find out, it's too late.
Now, here is the problem, you were NEVER told about the restocking fee or the 30 days late we charge you. That is down right wrong. They should tell you EXACTLY what will happen. Even in the commerical, there are no little words at the bottom of the screen or some crazy fast talking guy.
It's riding VERY close on false advertising, but it is the end of late fees... they just have restocking fees and purchase charges!
THANK [Fill in god of your choice] FOR NETFLIX!!!
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)... oops
F^(k blockbuster
I hate those bastards, $20 in late fees; I will never set foot in their stores ever again.
lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)
For years, they advertised, in large capital letters, UNLIMITED INTERNET ACCESS.
After they oversold an insane amount, realized they were going to lose their shirts, they started introducing bandwidth caps. All while still advertising UNLIMITED INTERNET ACCESS.
It's sad that we need lawsuits and regulations to deal with this sort of thing - but I'm sorry, don't advertise something in 100% plain english if you're not going to follow through.
Blockbuster just rolled this campaign out in Canada, and I've been waiting to hear the catch. Call me a hopeless optimist, but NO MORE LATE FEES means, in English, that if I return a movie LATE, there will be NO FEE as a result of my returning it late. Looks like NO MORE LATE FEES just means DEFERRED LATE FEES.
Morons. They deserve whatever they get. This is about as ethical as advertising $25 cars - with small print explaining that there is a $25,000 processing fee.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
this has nothing to do with yro?
Okay, it's late... I'm tired. When I went to Blockbuster's site, I saw they had their Netflix-clone deal which has no late fees. Anyway, you're correct... they also have regular rentals as well to which this "mostly no late fees" applies.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I used to work for blockbuster, and let me tell you, if there was not such a thing as late fees, we would never get a movie back, the only reason they are changing the policy is because it is a pain in the ass to constantly haggle the customer to get the movies back in or get them to pay a late fee, not to mention the policy is clearly listed in the brochures in store, and online, and you can always sign up for your membership without a credit or debit card.
There is no sig
FYI, I knew this was going to happen after seeing that awful commercial and thought about getting a late fee to do it myself. Just thought you might like to have this important information.
The no-late-fee policy only applies necessarily to corporately owned stores; the privately owned ones are not required by Blockbuster Inc. to honor the new system. Mind you, some are, but it is voluntary on the part of the respective owners.
Forgive me for being a little off-topic here, but I've gotta rant about something I discovered after a recent rental at BlockBuster: UNSKIPPABLE TRAILERS.
We don't have a lot of time for tv or movies, so it's probably been a year or so since we last rented a new release. Well, my wife came home the other day with Shrek II and some other relatively new release, so I popped Shrek in the DVD player. Up came the trailers, one after another, including like a 15 minute Ben Stiller advertisment for some animated movie he had a voice in. The whole time I'm sitting there trying to skip this nonsense, thinking I just don't know how to work this remote. Finally it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't just dense, but that I was being FORCED to watch the trailers.
A few minutes on the Internet and my suspicions were confirmed -- the trailers were UNSKIPPABLE. In the meantime my wife had pulled the DVD out of the player to see if it was on the wrong side. Well guess what... YOU HAVE TO SIT THROUGH 20 MINUTES OF FUCKING TRAILERS AGAIN.
I was pretty pissed off at this point, so I gave up on Shrek and popped the other disc in. SAME FUCKING BULLSHIT. Now I was furious, so took both of those fucking discs and drove them right back to Blockbuster. I returned them and ranted at the drone in the store (not like it accomplished anything, but I was pissed), considered calling my credit card company for a chargeback when they wouldn't refund my money, and in the end just gave up and picked out four OLD RELEASES from before they started doing this UNSKIPPABLE TRAILER BULLSHIT.
Anyway, these are the last four movies I am ever fucking renting. FUCK the studios. I pay $5 for a fucking rental, I do NOT expect to have to sit through your fucking ads. And goddammit, if the power goes out or I have to turn off the player in the middle of the movie, I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO WATCH THE SAME FUCKING TRAILERS OVER AND OVER.
From now on I boycott this bullshit. I am not a fucking puppet, and I am not going to be spammed after paying these bastards money. I can find my entertainment elsewhere. Blockbuster and the DVD makers have gotten their LAST FUCKING DOLLAR EVER out of me. Hope they enjoyed it...
I just got a notice that I owe $6.75 for returning Anchor Man two days late. What an awful movie it was.
I just got nailed with the "restocking fee" and I was mad as hell. I asked the cashier, "Isn't 'restocking fee' just a different name for LATE FEE? I only have to pay it because I'm LATE, right?"
Seems their own employees know its a load of crap as well, as all he could reply to me with was, "Uh, no its a restocking fee...."
Restocking for what? I can walk 10 feet to the shelf to put the movie back myself, and it won't cost $1.98 either. (Which is what I ended up paying.)
If it weren't for my free rental certificates that I occasionally receive in the mail from MCI for being such a good customer, I most definetly would
not patronize these lying, scheming con-artists. My blood got boiling just from thinking about it while typing this message.
"WTF? For what??"
"Criminal Copyright Infringement!!"
"Huh?"
"You posted millions of copies of Star Wars III on the intarnat!"
"Yeah... so?"
"That's copyright infringment! You'ze goin down!!"
"Ah, no. I own it."
"???"
"I own Star Wars III. I can do with it what I want."
"Er, no. You may own the DVD, but not the movie. You're coming with us."
"No, I own the movie. I followed the TV ad: 'Own it on DVD today!' By 'it', they mean the movie. So, I own the DVD, and what's on it, the movie."
"Tell it to th' judge!"
later...
"Your honour, I own the movie. Look at the TV ad that caused me to buy it."
"You have a copy of that ad?"
"Sure, watch!"
"GUILTY!"
"WTF, er, I mean, why, your honour? I own the movie, no?"
"The movie, yes. You're guilty of copyright infringement for showing me the ad that says you own the movie. You don't own the ad. Take him away!!"
You could've hired me.
I work for Blockbuster as a manager. I think it's about damned time someone started complaining. They've been engaging in deceptive business practices for years now. I'll outline this new policy for you guys:
You have 7 days after the due date to get your movie back. This means, if it's due monday, get it back the following monday by NOON.
If you fail to do this, you will get charged the retail price (unless it's been out for awhile) of the dvd, game, or vhs.
Bring it back before 30 days (this is where they get really shady, because even I dont know if it's 30 days late or 30 dates after the 7 day thing), and you will get a full refund minus a $1.50 "restocking fee"
This fee is supposedly charged to cover the cost of sending you a bajillion phone calls and postcards reminding you that your stuff is due. Mind you, there's a glitch in the system at the moment that will still call you even if your stuff has been returned. (I might also add that you should call us if you get that call and know you brought your stuff back. It may be on the shelf NOT checked in)
If you don't bring it back before the 30 days, you are STUCK with the movie. Come in and get your cover art, you're entitled to it. There is no way you can get your money back after this point.
So, ending this long reply. No matter what, unless you get your movie back within two weeks (most of the time), you're still getting charged.
Hope this helped you out... I hate this company.
see sig. see sig run. run sig run.
I rented a movie there 2 years ago.
Ended up with a subscription to Sports Illustrated... tracked it back to the Blockbuster transaction. It was a "promo".
If you do business with Blockbuster -you deserve what you got coming. That corp. is EVIL.
"Question: I have a BLOCKBUSTER Movie Pass - why should I keep it now that there are no more late fees for any rental? Answer: The BLOCKBUSTER Movie Pass still lets you rent unlimited movies with the added benefit of no due dates. That means you can rent as many movies as you want (up to the maximum allowed by your plan) and return them whenever you want, for one low monthly fee." I dont believe this actually answers the question completely. "Whats the point of this card now?" "there is none!, but we wont tell you that, we'll just slap some advertisement for it here:"
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
That's the whole point. It shouldn't be cheaper. But since it is (presumably, since I have no personal experience with this), that means that the 0% financing isn't really 0% percent financing. They're just adding what they would get in interest to the base price. That's where the misleading advertising comes into play.
.9 or 1.9 or 5.9 over x years, since it's a flat rate the annual percentage rate is still 0%. That's how flat rates work.
If you offer to buy a car at the sticker price, they will sell you the car at the sticker price. A dealer would be stupid not to. This is why I hate buying cars from dealers. All the sticker prices, new or used, are pretty meaningless... it's the first thing the salesman tells you when you say, "I can't afford that." They want you to try it out, like it, and after you just gotta-have-it they lower the price just a little. Dealers, for the most part... suck.
What is typicaly advertised is "0% APR" where APR means Annual Percentage Rate. So long as you conform to the terms of the contract and pay your balance within the set time, even though the finance charges are a flat rate calculated into the sales price, your annual percentage rate = 0%. Even if the flat rate would equal the same as
Now how many months 0% is valid depends on the contract, could be 12, 24, or 48months before they kick in an interest rate, and it might be retro active. But it's still possible to get flat rate financing.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
For those that say "to think you'd never have to return it", its not stupidity. Blockbuster specifically advertises on tv in prime time commercial slots NO LATE FEES, with no extra wording such as "Other details apply" or the ever lasting Read the Fine Print.
Now with that in mind, if I actually used Blockbuster I would go in, and rent a new release movie for whatever X amount they charge. Now within common sense Blockbusters "NO LATE FEES" policy they have advertised, they CAN institute a policy that say within 30 days you must return the video, but within those 30 days you WILL NOT be charged late fees. And they could throw in some clause such as if the video is not returned, your account is forfiet. No late fees doesn't mean "keep forever" but it means that if you forget or just don't give a fuck like most common people when they rent a movie, you won't be penalized for it.
Is that ok? No, of course not. People shouldn't automatically assume you can keep it forever after "Renting" it for $5. HOWEVER, Blockbuster is in the wrong here. They blatantly advertised NO LATE FEES. In their ads, they never mention you must sign up for some special monthy deal or pay a monthly fee, they just say NO LATE FEES. A nickel and dime lawyer could win this case of Faulty Advertisment in court quicker than OJ was aquited.
Aw Frell this
I wasn't aware that Blockbuster employed any grips...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Consumer Control Rocks!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I just make sure to upload to at least 100% and I never have anyone ask me about returning my copy...
What you just said is written in PROMINENT, BIG LETTERS on my local store, on the very same poster that says in even bigger letters NO MORE LATE FEES, plain as day right next to the entry door.
There is nothing confusing or hidden about this policy.
Yes, they COULD and SHOULD put a little disclaimer on their advertisements saying after 7 days movies may be converted to a sale, but the lack of such a notice isn't rational grounds for a lawsuit, not with the prominent signs in the store entrance.
If I were on the jury, I'd award the plaintiffs $1.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You never pay a late fee. You simply own the movie.
When they advertise free coffee, do you expect to get to keep the cup? How about a free donut?
They say no late fees. They mean no late fees. It doesn't say anything about other fees.
...but I'm actually glad to hear this.
:)
I recently rented Burnout 3 for the XBOX, and kept it right up until the afternoon of the 7th day, and barely was able to return it (the Blockbuster I use is a long way away).
I normally don't rent anything, but the whole "End of Late Fees" thing enticed me to go pick the game up. On the 7th day, I received a blockbuster flyer in the mail, referring to the new policy, and noticed the fine print mentioning the 7 day-full price policy catch...
In a nutshell, I damn near had a stroke. Was I on the verge of being charged $69.99 for a used game?
When I managed to take the game back that day (phew!), I saw a huge poster for the "End of Late Fees" in the window of the store, and noticed the fine print at the bottom, VERY fine print, mentioning the 7 day policy again. I'd like to note that THEY DO NOT MENTION THE 30-DAY REFUND (minus restocking fee) POLICY ANYWHERE. Had I of known about it, I would not have shit myself at the possibility of being charged 70 bucks.
In conclusion, I would like to launch a class-action lawsuit against Blockbuster, for the money its going to take to clean my underwear.
In serious conclusion, although I think the new policy is pretty decent, I also think Blockbuster should be legally forced to mention plainly, ALL OF THE TERMS of this new deal. It is very misleading for consumers, and could potentially be disastrous for them from a PR standpoint.
- Scott
- Scott
- Claiming "no more late fees", especially in a big splashy ad campaign, and then charging you a fee 7 days later, is false advertising. Plain and simple. I'm with the state A.G. on that one. They deserve this lawsuit.
- BlockBuster makes serious revenue on late fees (or whatever name you wish to call them). Someone on another claimed that 40% of their revenue is late fees, though I did not check this. Anyway, BlockBuster is not going to just give up that huge stream of revenue.
Claiming "no more late fees" was just a bone-headed idea. Hopefully B.B. will see that before too many Attorneys General look their way.I haven't rented from bb in years. I rent from a nice mom and mom video store.
but you can FAST FORWARD through the commercials, if fact if you keep the FFWD pinned, so to speak, it only takes a moment to get to the main menu. I agree that it is utterly frustrating that you cannot "skip" the commercials, but not as bad as you make out. I have yet to see a DVD that does not permit fast forwarding through commercials, if that's even possible in the DVD standard.
Note I have only viewed the Canadian version of Shrek 2, which contains both English and French audio tracks, so the American version might be different.
Sure enough, they have a huge banner ad saying "The end of late fees". There are no asterisks, fine print, or other disclaimers.
However, if you click on the "Terms" button at the bottom of every page, you get a few pages of legal text such as their privacy policy, copyrights, terms regarding their Online Rentals, and .... terms on their In-Store Rentals. Lo and beyold:
-David
Exactly. I'm sick of all these deceptive advertising practices:
Mail that looks like a check, but is really something else. Really fools some of my immigrant relatives.
Credit card applications with little fake credit cards in them. Err, why?
The mentioned "restocking fee" and other hidden fees stores like to push on people. Oh right, its in the middle of some posted legalese thingy somewhere, thus its the customers fault.
The various "we will beat the competitors price" nonsense that gets you kicked out of stores if you start going back and forth, not to mention writing down prices or asking the manager to sign a given quote.
The extended warranty/insurance scam. Seems harmless until these kids who work in retail are taught to say stuff like "Apple has a serious defect with these batteries, you should buy our warranty." or "The manufacturer won't cover that." I've heard both. Both were lies.
Its time retail and mass-mailers/marketers got a kick in the pants.
Blockbuster has been in the shady practices game for a long time. Especially with their "its due tuesday!" at the stroke of midnight that is.
Seriously...they aren't charging late fees. I think it's all pretty simple...if you keep the movie of longer than seven days past the due date, Blockbuster makes a reasonable assumption that you want to buy it, at which point they charge you the purchase price.
If someone can't rent. view, and return a movie within 1-2 weeks, they can't handle the resonsibiilty, so they shouldn't be renting in the first place.
...but it sure isn't me. They've been sued repeatedly over their late fees and my experience with them suggests that they haven't lost enough times yet.
On the surface it looks like the new practice is a legal and accounting dodge to charge arbitrary penalties and record them as sales.
What it does is turn over "lots and lots of copies", many at full retail. The number of copies needed in each store drops off quickly following the release and I'm sure getting rid of the copies when no longer needed is an issue. Some are sold as used but I suspect even that can be a hard sell when the competion's retail price is also coming down fast.
By allowing the renter to keep the video an extra week or so, they greatly increase the chances of the person forgetting to return the movie or returning it even later. When this happens, they get to sell a used copy at full retail price (and you can bet they'll charge more than Zellers). Once they are selling used copies, the used price becomes the no return price. By itself, this is fine for Blockbuster--they've gotten rid of an old copy at exactly the price they want. Alternatively, they could decline to sell their overstock and instead continue to collect full retail on delinquent copies.
I expect to see a combination of the two. Almost-new releases may feature "Keep me for just $30 [more]" promotions while absent-minded Hitchcock fans might find themselves paying $80 for "North-By-Northwest".
Not only do they sell stale inventory, they get to do so at the highest possible price. By giving up a few $8 charges, they set themselves up for an $80 homerun.
They just made you pay money if you didn't bring it back it time!
are exactly why we need tort reform. God Bless America, the troops, and George W. Bush.
If there is ever a cause for a state to go after fraud, its after Credit Cards. All that fine print usually invalidates anything you can do.. Miss a bill on your car payment even tho its not on your credit card bill? They raise the rates to 25%.
Did you actually believe that no late fees meant you could just keep the movie forever free of charge? A femtogram of common sense would have saved you this embarassment.
Of course nobody thought that, but at the same time, they shouldn't say something in their ads that is clearly not true. Just changing the timeframe and renaming it to "restocking fee" doesn't change that it is, in fact, a late fee.
Bring it back more than 7 days late and they charge you a late fee, no matter WTF they call it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
i hope the mpaa isn't watching, but I still think blockbuster costs too much. Even with subscripstion-based movie rental plans, i find it much cheaper to download illeagle copyies of movies of the net. it is commendable that they're trying to reduce prices, or at least compete with internet rental joints. but my petty brain has no problem ratinonalizing an illeagle divx of a movie when they make 100 million+ from raping theater owners.
Worse case scenario, me and my other friend with a cable modem put the entire movie industry out of business, and i read slightly more books.
I believe that it has something to do with licensing the movie. I don't think you can go rent out a copy of a dvd you buy at Wal-mart. But I may be wrong. That's just what I was thinking.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
I really think the video rental market is just going downhill. The NetFlix-type service that Blockbuster recently started (at http://www.blockbuster.com) was a step in the right direction, but can't really save them. I got sick of going to the store, only to find they didn't have the DVD I wanted in stock. I got sick of getting DVDs in the mail, watching half a movie, only to have it stop in the middle because of a scratch. It's so much easier to set my DVR to record the movie when it comes on one of my 20+ movie channels some time within the next week. Sure, a few movies aren't there, but I can live without them. No late fees? Getting pretty desperate, wouldn't you say? And guess what... I think people realize it, and are starting to look elsewhere. The false-advertising part probably isn't a good idea, either, but I'm sure the fine-print mentions that you have to bring them back EVENTUALLY. Or, at least, common sense would lead to that assumption...
I had a CS teacher who used to have a similar policy. You could turn in the assignment up to a week late with no penalty. After that, you got no credit. It sounded nice, but we soon realized that it really meant that the due date was a week after she said it was and we could turn the assignment in early if we wanted, but after the real due date, you got no credit.
Same idea here. Blockbuster hasn't ended late fees. The new policy is that you can keep a movie game for 13 days and after that, you're charged an ~$8 late fee. Prices for "week long" rentals have gone up to compensate.
While I do think they're new policy doesn't is kinder to the consumer, there's no free lunch.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
This sort of thing will not happen in Old Europe FB!!!
There is no longer a "Late" fee ...
There is however a "Jackass you stoll my dvd" fee
and a "WTF is this shit i gave you this movie two months ago your tellin me i have to take this back from you" fee
--- CatsCradle
With netflix you can keep three movies for a month and they will only charge you $17.95. Blockbuster would have charged you the rental price for those videos (probably $5.99 each), plus the full retail price for them (probably $29.99 each) at the end of the month. That's $17.95 versus $107.94.
They call it "The End of Late Fees", but Netflix is a much better deal.
(I happen to be a Netflix subscriber. I also happen to have kept DVD's from Netflix without watching them for a month. Is it wasteful? Yes. But some months I watch 15-20 movies from Netflix, so overall it's still far cheaper and more convenient.)
My other first post is car post.
By the way, what, exactly, does this have to do with my rights online?
You have the right to use Netflix, which doesn't suck.
My other first post is car post.
Quote from TFA:
The company said it was "surprised" that Harvey did not contact company officials to allow them to explain the new policy.
The average customer doesn't get any special explaining... If they're judging an ad campaign, how can they judge it, save by looking only at the campaign?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
I think you meant to say "worked"
Signed,
Your Area Manager
;)
If ignorance is bliss, knock the smile off my face.
Every DVD I've ever rented or bought you can either skip chapters through to the menu or just press root menu.
:-)
Same deal here. There are usually SOME things that can't be skipped, usually the 'scene' which contains the FBI warnings and a few other bits, but those are rarely more than 30 seconds, or a minute long at most.
Almost every DVD I've bought or rented recently does include trailers at the start, but I've never seen one with unskippable trailers.
Now, you want to talk about bad DVD design... '2001: A Space Odyssey' begins with a black screen with a classical orchestra warm-up that continues for AGES..... skipping to the next scene skips straight through to the 'Dawn of Man' first actual scene, completely skipping the classic Moon-Earth-Sun alignment and the start of Thus Spake Zarahustra which is the signature introduction to the movie. You've got to skip ahead to Dawn of Man and then rewind (not skip) backwards until you get to black and begin playing forward from there. To this day I don't know exactly how long the black with orchestra warmup lasts, I've never had the patience to sit through the entire thing.
To make matters worse, there's an intermission on the DVD that's exactly the same - intermission begins with black and at some point in the middle of that 'scene' (in the DVD sense) begins the next actual scene of the movie. Horrible, horrible design. Neat movie though
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Jesus hates me, yes I know,
because the AC tells me so
Slashdot using borderline misleading category headings in order to post articles promoting the editor's Agenda of the Day? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!
paintball
The worse part about the whole thing is if you read the fine print, the local blockbuster stores can still charge late fees. Most of them in my area did not partake in the no late fee promotion. Alot of customers found out the hard way that the no late fee promotion is only in particpating video stores.
I also would return the movie if someone was coming after me with scissors.
Case in point...
I take issue with the fraud idea. They aren't charging late fees anymore.
How, exactly, are you defining "late fees"? Maybe I'm not being postmodern enough, but I always thought they were fees you get charged when you're late returning a movie. Under the current plan, if you're late returning a movie, you get charged money. You do get that back if you subsequently return the movie-- minus a "restocking fee." The fact that you don't use the phrase "late fee" to refer to it doesn't change the fact that you're still charged a fee if you're late returning the movie.
If your landlord told you he wasn't charging you rent anymore, and then the next month he demands a "monthly habitation fee" that's twice your former rent, would you think he was being honest?
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
When a new release movie hits the shelves, it can cost as much as $100 to the store. These movies can't be had for the same prices that you as a consumer pay when they hit DVD on the retail shelves.
The peak demand for the movie occurs in the first week, but then it rapidly drops off. This is because everyone who comes into the store always wants to rent the very latest thing.
As a result, in order to recoup their investment in any given movie, they have to rent it out at least 17 times at $6 a pop, and that's not even taking into consideration their other running costs. Ideally they want to rent it out to a different customer every night of the first week after release, and then hopefully as often as possible after that. Even so, it can be up to a year before all copies of a given title end up paying for themselves.
Consider a really big title of which they might have 100 copies. That's $10,000 tied up in a single movie. They need to do a lot of rentals before they make up their outlay. Some titles never make a profit, but the store has to carry the losing titles as well as the winners so that people will feel like there's a good selection available.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the "No late fees" campaign does not mean that you can rent a new release on the day it comes out and keep it for as long as you want. And just say you kept it for a few weeks and decided that you liked it, how will you feel when you see that the true cost of the movie to Blockbuster ($100) has been billed to your credit card?
It's just painfully obvious that this is the way things work. I admit, sounds like they should be clearer about the "restocking fee", but I can't fault them for doing things like making telephone reminders. It is a business after all, and its purpose is to make a profit.
I mean, seriously! By this point in time, aren't we USED to distrusting anything that anyone says via advertisments? Isn't it just a plain, accepted, and in fact EXPECTED fact? If anyone, anywhere, at anytime, advertises anything even remotely "good", you know that they're just lying? You KNOW that if you fall for it, all you'll get is a financial assreaming?
NOTHING that is advertised is true. It's all just carefully crafted bullshit to either:
a) Distract attention from the soreful deficincies of a product
b) Misdirect you from a financial-rip off or
c) Overstate through omission or admission the usefulness of a product.
Your first response to ANY commercial should be "That's BULLSHIT". Anyone, anytime, anywhere. Did you really think a can of cola would make your car run faster? Bullshit. Did you really think that a deodorant will make you more appealing to the opposite gender? Bullshit. Did you really think that the company that's lowering their interest rates isn't also raising the price of their product to compensate?
Having to automatically assume that everything any ad says is bullshit is sad. But someone who's willing to believe the bullshit is even sadder.
Is it too good to be true? Then it is. Suck it up, ignore the bullshit. Return the movie on time. Or don't rent from them. Either choice is fine. But don't, for one instant, think that a corporation is going to give up a multi-million dollar revenue stream because it'll make things easier for you.
Did you really think they were going to do something without somehow, somewhere, profitting from it?
Bullshit.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
"Someone on another claimed that 40% of their revenue is late fees, though I did not check this."
You didn't what, but you're posting it anyway? AFTER you neglected to check it the first time? Way to fucking go on the journalistic integrity, my little egomaniacal friend. Do the work to get the respect.
The majority of their rentals are 5 days. You get a week in addition to that. If you can't stop by the video store on your way home to drop your movies off in 12 days, they should charge you.
Or better yet, go back to the old policy and autodraft late fees from the customers. See which policy causes people to bitch more.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
I still have a move at home from the first time i saw that commercial....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, people. You may not have read your Heinlein, but you should still understand the concept.
If you're trying to protect people from misleading advertising, then good lord, get in line, Blockbuster is hardly the first to engage in THAT. Their competitor Netflix is saying the same thing - "Keep them as long as you want! No late fees!" Except I'm paying $17.99 a month and can't get any new movies until I return the old ones, so ergo the late fee is $17.99/month. Duh.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Maybe they didn't do a great job of explaining the program for customers but blame is a 2 way street here. All their signs refer to the phamplets available at each cash (and throughout the store) which explains the program in detail.
The way it is now, you have around 37 days extra to keep a movie and return it for the same cost as 1 day late fee before the program. I swear to god some people here can complain about anything.
One person above was paying their monthly fee to netflix and kept one of the movies for 3 months. You could have bought the damn movie but you'll complain about blockbuster?
Yikes...
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
It's a gimmick, you EITHER get 0% at the sales price OR a rebate + a normal interest loan.
In my case I saved 100 bucks goin with the 5k rebate and 7% loan. The dealers will not give you the rebate AND 0%.
It all comes out to the same price in the end. Pay cash!
Maybe it's me, but WTF is so hard about returning a rented movie on time? Granted, I haven't rented anything since laserdics were popular, but I *never* had a problem returning a movie within three days. As for DVD's, I just buy the ones I want. Between the DVD club, buying used DVD's, and just finding good deals, I'm averaging right around $10 a DVD, and I get to watch it as many damn times as I want. And yes, I have watched most of my DVD's more than once.
Are people really so stupid to think that by saying "No more Late Fees", that they can keep rentals forever without penalty?
If you can't be responsible enough to return a rental product on time, maybe you shouldn't be renting them in the first place...
The dry fish swims alone.
Is the 'retail price' they charge really the retail price, and, if so, is this the price Blockbuster is charging in their store, or the price that the most expensive video store in town is charging? Or is it the price that Blockbuster pays for the video, which is probably upwards of $100? I figure Blockbuster can take advantage of the fact that they are a retailer to set their 'retail price' at whatever they want.
I'm just remembering when I was a kid and had rented a video game from Blockbuster, and my dog tore up the crappy photocopy of the manual. They charged my parents $100 for that photocopy.
Now instead of watching the same cheap movies over and over we have a great selection that includes foreign films, documentaries, TV (including British TV series), special interest and, somewhat ironically, the series from the recently disposed premium subscription channels.
I couldn't imagine going back to anything as primitive as a video store, especially Blockbuster. *urp*
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
that's got to be only like $700 US, right? what a deal!
Wrong animal.
Harvey is copying Elliot Spitzer's style, right out of the playbook. He didn't even bother to ask Blockbuster "what gives?" He just sued in a completely unprovoked manner.
It's like Elliot Spitzer, but without the maturity or professionalism.
Seriously, if the retards at Blockbuster marketing had just said "we've added an extra week to all rentals" - which is really what they've done, then there wouldn't be any of this hassle for them. They deserve everything they are about to get for a stupid marketing gimmick that just obfuscates their real policy.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I have a question: am I alone here in thinking that I actually like Blockbusters(BB) new policy? Now, let's make things clear, I am from the club that thinks that BB is evil. I don't like how they use their corporate clout to force censorship, they are over priced, and they are abusive to their underpaid staff.
Whrn I saw their new ad campaign that said you could keep your movie for an extra "day or two", immediately I thought the worst. I figured that on day three they would charge you for all three days missed and continue to abuse you. When I read the deal (look it up,I am not gonna explain it here) I thought it was extremely fair.
Lets be clear, you are still renting something, and you are expected to return it. If you do not, they do have to restock it. They may have to buy a new copy. It will require paperwork. These things take an employees time, who is being paid money.
I use Zip, so I am still not about to switch, but if I really want to see something, or I need to rent a movie for whatever reason, I would consider using BB. I would like know that if I like the movie, I can just keep it, and I can return it at my leisure without having to worry about things. A week is a long time people. A month is even longer, and an extra $1.75 for those 3 weeks isn't that mutch.
pk
Engineers arn't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.
Well, you're right. People don't like to do things for one another, specially since we're all self-centered (don't lie, everyone is. Even Mother Theresa was only trying to get into heaven,) so why don't they just setup some kind of policy to mediate the amount of time a person keeps a movie in their possession? Hm, people don't like losing money, right? That's bad. So, er, I know! How about, they setup some kind of system where if you keep a movie for longer than the due date, you pay some kind of fee for having it more time? It makes sense. They only borrowed it for that time, right, and if they keep it longer, they have to pay for that extra time! I'm a genius!
Uh... they did that already? Well, they're stupid for changing it.
In all fairness (this one without sarcasm),
1. Set a deposit payment for how many movies you want to be allowed to rent at a time. ($20 each?)
2. Let the person only rent that amount of movies, and if they don't return it... say, three months after the due date, keep that $20 and lower their max rentals by 1. So if they originally had 3 max, they now have 2 (Until they add another $20 to their balance).
3. Set the rental price for old flix to $2 and new flix to $3.
4. Wait three months...
5. Profit!
If the person even cancels their account with the service, you refund their cash deposit ($60, or whatever).
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
If you have a leak in your sink, the first thing to do is to fix the plubming. After that's taken care of you can clean up the wet mess all over the floor.
Blockbuster has recently started using completely fraudulent advertising, and I'm glad NJ is knocking them down. As you can tell by reading random comments right here, a lot of people dont know that blockbuster was lying. Everyone knows by now that cell phones are a scam, and that you can never trust a car dealer.
Fixing old incorrect practices are not as helpful as going to the frontier and shutting down new nonsense. Few people will be hurt by old dishonest practices (hopefully cell phone companies will) but we cant expect the consumers to keep up with an ever growing pile of fraud.
P.S. Just because a fine print document says the opposite of an advertisement doesn't mean the advertisement wasn't fraudulent. In fact, it just makes proving dishonestly trivial.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
They should get sued for that, it's clearly misleading.
28:06:42:12 - That is when the world will end...
What does it have to do with Nerds ? It's not even Blockbuster Online that we're talking about.
Our public library has higher late fees than any rental outfit. Sure, we get to keep the movie for a whole week, but what are the odds that we'll remember where we put it after a week?
I beg my wife not to take movies out from the public library; it's costing us a fortune.
With bittorrent and some good trackers, I can "rent" how much I want, as many times as I want - for an infinite amount of time - for free!
If you use DVD Shrink to backup a dvd, not only will it allow you to just press "menu" and get to the title screen, but if you want you can remove the ads altogether. The downside is, it takes longer to backup a dvd than it does to make dinner while the ads are running their course.
itadakimasu
I signed up for a Blockbuster account, just so I could rent some videos to test out my new HD television. I recently moved to this area, and Blockbuster was the only video store around.
I signed up because of their "no late fees". After I filled out my application, I was handed a small piece of paper with likewise small text, stating that the videos had to be purchased at market price if beyond a 6 days late. Then I looked up and saw the price of $4.29 per rental. I was fumed.
So I voted with my dollars and never rented a video there. I now drive back to Philadelphia to rent from TLA, which has supperior selection, prices, and deals.
the only benefit i can find out of this "no late fee" is playing rented games a week longer. heck if they only charge me a restocking fee (after they deduct a temporary amount of ~$50 for the game) i can essentially play it for months end and then return it, which would mean i purchased and return a game for $1.25.
You need to shop around. Hell, get your free phone and pay the $150 cancellation fee if your money management skills are so bad its somehow going to cost you $2000.
If you buy a car telling the sales guy "I want a payment of $x a month" or "I want the zero percent financing" you've already broadcast "sucker who can't manage his money" to the sales guy in blazing lights. Last car I bought I took the 0% financing, knowing exactly what the alternate discount was if I didn't take it. And the dealer made $400 on the vehicle, after their holdback (it was $600 under dealer *cost*, after all the incentives, almost $7000 off MSRP.
Its easy to get all those deals and not get screwed if you take some time and do your research. I went in knowing the exact (to the dollar) cost the truck I bought cost the dealer, exactly what the suggest prices for all the hundred different options on it cost, and precisely what incentives to the dealer and the buyer were available at the time, as well as checking what a five-star dealer's holdback was.
All that fine print usually invalidates anything you can do.. Miss a bill on your car payment even tho its not on your credit card bill? They raise the rates to 25%.
What credit card company is this? There is no relation between my credit card (run by a bank) and the finance company (ford's subsidiary) that finances my car purchase.
From Blockbuster's site:
Movie and game rentals are due back at the date and time stated on the transaction receipt. There is no additional charge if a member keeps a rental item beyond the pre-paid rental period. However, if a member chooses to keep a rental item more than a week after the end of the rental period, Blockbuster will automatically convert the rental to a sale on the eight (8th) day after the end of the rental period. Blockbuster will charge the membership account the selling price for the item in effect at the time of the rental. The selling price will be discounted by the amount of the initial rental fee paid by the member at the time of rental. If the member returns the item within 30 days of the sale date, Blockbuster will credit back to the membership account the amount previously charged to the member's account or the member's credit card, as applicable, for the selling price of the item, but the member will be charged a minimal restocking fee. All rental items must be returned to the proper BLOCKBUSTER® store. These rental terms are subject to change without notice at any time. Participating stores only. Additional membership rules apply for rentals. See participating BLOCKBUSTER store for details.
no, there's not. but read the fine print of your credit card agreement, and you'll find that they reserve the right to increase your interest if you default on ANY payment to ANYONE that you owe money to. PBS's Frontline program had an episode a week or two ago on what a racket the credit card industry is, and this practice was covered.
Perhaps now that Bush has signed the class action reformation bill, corporations will not have to put up with such activism in the face of their honest attempts to make profits.
Blockbuster's position is that they will not punish you for accidentally keeping the movie out past the due date. You're still supposed to make a good-faith effort to retutn it on time. It's not supposed to be a net-flix style "keep the movie as long as you want" deal.
is that Blockbuster extended the due date by a week and changed the late fee to $1.25.
It's obvious that this is a shakedown. We had a late video, but my wife believed the ad campaign. "They don't charge late fees anymore," she'd tell me. Then I received a bill from Blockbuster for the two videos I rented. One had been returned because I didn't believe Blockbuster. One was still in it's 7 day grace period. I called the store and spoke with a manager. He assured me it was just a reminder. I had to inform him that the "reminder" claimed I had decided to keep the videos and that I would be charged for them. I could get a refund if I returned them within 30 days but be charged a $1.25 restocking fee. The odd thing was that my account hadn't been charged yet, and he could clearly see that one of the DVDs was not due yet. If I was a pushover consumer, I would have assumed that I had already been charged, blamed myself for being stupid, and left it at that, not called to check on my account.
This is criminal. They obviously plan on people forgetting about the rentals, then scare them into believing they've already blown it so they get charged fullprice for the discs. I'm glad somebody's suing them. Not only was this the most stupidly worded commercial campaign but it was the most deceptive one I have seen in a long time.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
They tell you in the commercial "No more late fees". That entitles you to believe that merely returning the video late will cost you no more money.
In fact, if you return the video late, you are paying at least $1.25 because of the fact that you were late.
The folks at Blockbuster probably believe that they are being honest because they are playing language games.
You sir are a complete and total jackass. You knew damned well that the minimum or near-minimum wage employee has NO POWER AT ALL to do anything about the trailers and yet you still ranted at them.
Have some respect for those people who work in retail and have to put up with jackasses like yourself. Take your complaints to the manager or to the corporate office as they have the ability to 1) compensate you and 2) give feedback to the people who make these decisions in the first place.
In short, I hope you're happy that you decided to vent your spleen at a complete stranger over something like this.
Hello! Wake up! Whether you like it or not doesn't change the legality of telling the customer one thing, and doing another. You can like that bank robbers rob from the rich and give to the poor, but the fact is, it's a crime.
For claiming to be smart (which they ain't), slashdotters are so dense. This is typical of most writing on here. I get the impression that 50% of the slashdot traffic are unpaid students who go to Toronto universities. (nothing wrong with it, but it's not a good sample)
Better yet, is to use Credit Cards AGAINST bad businesses like Blockbuster.
;)
Talking in a stern manner, whilst using strong terms as : Unauthorized, Theft, Illegal, and other power words and start some serious proceddings against BB.
When this shit starts hurting BB's mail line, awwwwww
I see you rented a copy of 1984 and fahrenheit 9/11. We would like to have a few words with you, can we come in?
Thank you patriot act! I'm going to Cuba!
As far as I can gather, here's the full breakdown of the plan Standard fee for renting the item If after 8th day account charged full however if you return it before 30 days from renting, you are charged only 1.25 restocking So basically for an extra $1.25 you can rent something for a whole month, but if you aren't careful, you'll get slapped for full price. Bad wording, but the plan does make sense
im glad im not the only one that noticed the trickerrations that blockbuster tried to pull with the fine print.
lose != loose
In addition, they are getting much more strict with late fees. I had one credit card due on the 13th of every month. I get paid on the 14th. So I would send my payment to get there on the 14th. They never cared before. Now, they charge $39 every month if even a day late. I've been forced to go to automatic payments from my bank, with payments sent well in advance, to stop being affected.
Maybe a class action lawsuit would help you folks there in the US...oh wait, too late nevermind. Thanks to your Prez George W. ;)
I used to rent about a movie a week, and I did so for a few years, I was never late returning.
One time I returned a movie Friday afternoon, then went out of town for my own Stag and Doe.
Next time I rented a movie, they charged me a late fee because I didn't return the movie until Saturday morning. Even explaining the situation to the manager didn't get them to waive it.
So I didn't rent the handful of movies I did have and told them to cancel the account. At this point I was sternly told they'd cancel it this one time, but I shouldn't expect any more freebies.
This is ridiculous. There still are no late fees. There is a 8 day grace period with no fees. Then for a month after that, it's $1.25-$1.50 "restocking fee". And then after that, they automatically charge you for the cost of the item minus the rental charge.
If there are people believed they would be able to keep DVD's indefinitly for just the charge of the rental, they are supremely stupid. That would mean that anyone could just go to a Blockbuster, and "buy" a DVD for less than $8.
In Australia, our govt swore black and blue that they were not involved in any prisoner interrogation w.r.t. hunting terrorist groups. Then an ex-agent spoke up and said that actually he had been involved in such an interrogation and that he had also reported it so the govt must have known about it. The response:
Oh that... that was an interview, not an interrogation.
In another example, telephone companies are not allowed to charge interest on unpaid bills because the law clearly states that only banks and financial institutions are entitled to charge interest on loans (and they have to report to the Reserve Bank). So the phone companies charge an "debt administration fee" on the unpaid bill which is much higher than normal interest rates.
First off, every news story I read or heard about the "no late fees" policy explained the caveat that it didn't mean you got to keep the movie forever, no strings attached. I guess I'm naturally distrustful too, so I even read the FAQ's about it on their website. They all said you got 1 week past your due date gratis. After that you automatically "bought" the movie, and it would be charged to the credit card on your account. If you returned the movie after that, the full charge would be refunded minus a restocking fee. This doesn't seem underhanded or tricky at all. In fact, it beats the hell out of Best Buy's "restocking fee" bullshit. I know I'm renting from Blockbuster, and keeping the movie forever is breaking that contract. Your movie is still due on the due date. Just because you don't have to pay a late fee for returning it late doesn't mean the movie doesn't have a due date any more.
Secondly, I know Blockbuster is a franchise system, so not every store is owned by the company. And every time I see an ad for them (or any other franchise system like McDonalds or Subway or something), they always feature the disclaimer "at participating locations." So I didn't assume that every store was going to follow through -- and sure enough, I heard news reports that some stores (to the dismay of the corporate parent) said they weren't going to participate. The stores near me all had big "The End of Late Fees" signs in the window, so that's how I knew they were participating.
Finally, I've been bitten by the late fees thing before. I know when I check out that the clerk always tells me when it's due ("Monday by noon" or whatever), and when I have the movie at home, I keep the receipt in the case as a reminder of when it's due -- so when I forget to return it, I know it's my fault for forgetting. Now I don't have to worry about forgetting occasionally. Recently, I rented a new release (2 day rental) and I only watched half the movie on the first night -- when the due date came and I forgot to return it, I could still watched the second half and return it the next day without paying a fee. To me, that's fantastic.
If Blockbuster hadn't posted a full terms and conditions or if they said something like "no strings attached", then, yes, I would say they were being deceptive. But they didn't do that. They listed their full T&C -- they even posted easy to read FAQ's on the details, and every PR interview or press release they put out disclosed the "automatic purchase" and "restocking fee" disclaimers.
IMHO, it's bullshit lawsuits like this that lead to crap laws like the one Congress just passed. There are people out there suffering real physical harm because corporations want to save $0.03 on a pool drain cover or hide the results of clinical tests that show their drugs are unsafe. There's factories out there that belch carcinogens into the air or drain PCBE's into the ground and some people get their panties in a knot over a $1.75 because they kept "Dodgeball" out for a month? If some little girl has her intestines ripped out by a pool drain, I want the motherfuckers to pay. But I could care less if some 30 year old guy thought he could keep his rentals forever because he was too lazy to read the fine print.
They're in trouble whether people use Netflix or not. In 15 years at most, everyone will almost certainly be ordering movies using digital cable or satellite or such. A few people already do, and that number just has to increase in the next few years.
As for games, Sony was already talking about making it so you could only get PS3 games over their network. I think they backed down on that claim, but it's like to happen in the next 15 years.
The only question is what will happen to all that real estate that's being taken up by Blockbusters?
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
I stopped using Blockbuster when they started harrasing me for over $30 in late fees for a movie that I had returned on time. in fact I returned it less than 4 hours after renting it...
But then I'm local the Scarecrow Video, who stock damn near every movie ever committed to tape.
This reminds me of renting an apartment in Pittsburgh. Some "enlightened" tenant-activist liberals had passed a city statute that made late payment penalties for apartment rents illegal. Hence, when you signed a lease for an apartment, the contract rental rate was actually $50 higher than the advertised rate. However, if you paid "on time" you got a $50 discount on your rent. No late fee, right? Hmm...and this had been standard practice for years and years. 'Just goes to prove that laws, particularly idiotically stupid "feel good liberal" laws, never get repealed.
Stealing has many 'tests' IANAL.
... capped to the price of the DVD.
Intention to permanently or substantially deprive owner is one of em.
Keep forever is not 'late' if a trailertrash brain said 'lets start a collection here'.
Here we have a bunch of smart arses trying to take advantage of a situation. Even a nah, I will hang on to it so the crew can watch it next week, could be seen as fradulent.
People know how these shops operate, and community standards are well known, plus unclaimed and lost goods laws set 'reasonable times'.
Video stores should try on the 1 penny late fee deal*. 1 cent first day, 2 the second, 4, 8, 16, 32
or "A smile at the attendant, and any fair and reasonable excuse (written on a piece of paper if over a day)will get you off' deal.
One store had an innovate late fee chocolate wheel, where customer would end up paying anyway.
I live in a city where people actually remember that words like guinea and goomba are racial slurs, and use them to full effect. Too bad they can't remember that they're against Italians and not Mexicans.
Isn't it fairly obvious that Blockbuster is not concerned with getting their movies and games back?
They are dumping off their physical copies of their DVDs and games onto their customers at sale price value. It may be a bit of semantic shenanigans, but at it's heart, it's a no-bullshit system.
As the stores clear out of older physical copies of things, they will not be replacing them. Why?
Because Blockbuster Online (and TiVo and fiber-optics and what have you) will mark the end of the location-specific video store. And thus, physical copies will become practically worthless when in less than 10 minutes I can download and start watching a new release from BB Online for $3.99.
Personally I think it's a brilliant scheme, and whatever accountant or executive came up with the idea should be given a fat raise.
They need to tell you the policy up front, *not* wait for you to look it up by yourself. Besides, what about the people saw the ad on TV and don't have internet, and only find out what the policy really is when they get to the store? That's called a bait-and-switch, and as far as I know it's illegal in every state.
When you do this "implied purchase" and they charge you, do you still have to give the movie back?
If not, then it's really not a late fee. It's purchase price. If you lose, damage, or otherwise render useless something that belongs to someone else, it's only right to replace it.
Maybe the drooling masses were thinking it was like a netflix deal instead?
I can see this coming back to bite them in the ass tho, if they do the same thing with video games. Imagine the next "Super Mario Bros. 3" or similar hard to find "Game of the season."
Sears.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
return movies on time? novel, i know.
Under the old system, I remember late fees costing more than the rental charges!
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
There are no more LATE FEES. After 7 days from the due date, YOU OWN THE DVD/VHS/Game.
Now, obviously, they aren't giving it to you for free. They will charge your account for it. Apparantly, if you provided a credit card # they will just bill that (which could run them into trouble with charge disputes, though.)
So, basically, you rent it... if you don't return it within a week of the due date, you now buy it and own it.
If you don't want to own it, you can return it, and they refund you, less a $1.25 restocking fee.
Other retailers charge such fees... look at the back of a Best Buy one and you'll see some items have a 15% restocking fee.
funny, netflix doesnt assume that i want to keep and own a movie, even if i keep it out a month, or two
blockbuster has always been in the screw the customer over camp, and i avoid using them like i avoid eating at mcdonalds, and shopping at walmart.
for instance - blockbusters rentals are 3 days/2 nights, but because of the way they define nights, days and rental periods, they are effectively one-day rentals.
blockbuster is scum, and it would be an absolute shame if they managed to buy hollywood, or put netfdlix out of business.
... hi bingo