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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
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.
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.
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!
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?
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?
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
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...
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They suck now because they're just been completely overwhelmed by demand. The people at the top are too busy raking in the profits to worry about hiring enough people to give decent customer service, or expanding their distribution system. I quit because they were just getting slower and slower at checking it my returns and shipping new discs.
Too bad, too. They had a hell of a company going at one time.
...not that I'm a pirate.. Hell I've never even fired a cannon. - oldwolf13
...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.
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.
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.
They say no late fees. They mean no late fees. It doesn't say anything about other fees.
Get the point?
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
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."
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.
Yes, please stop questioning our Benevolent Corporate Overlords. Don't you realize that Welfare Mothers are driving Cadillacs?
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
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
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.