Blockbuster Settles No Late Fee Suit

fistfullast33l writes "In a followup to a previous Slashdot story, Blockbuster has settled a lawsuit with 47 states and the District of Columbia over its No Late Fees advertising campaign. The New York State Attorney General's Office released the following: 'The Attorneys General alleged that the advertising campaign launched in late December 2004 was misleading because it failed to clearly disclose that, seven days after a movie or game's return due date, the consumer would be charged its selling price if the item were not yet returned. The Attorneys General also alleged there was insufficient disclosure that not all Blockbuster franchise stores were participating, leaving customers of those stores wrongly believing that they, too, would not have to pay late fees.' Blockbuster will be refunding customers as part of the deal." Additional commenary available on MSNBC.

Comments

When you use...

[bryanthompson]

an ellipses (...) in the subject, you don't have to repeat your subject in the body of your message. See how much better my message flows than yours? ;-)

Re:But of course

[Reality Master 101]

No, it's not a "delayed mandatory financial assessment". It's "the customer decided to keep the video, so we're selling it to them, instead of renting it to them."

You do realize that it's possible to buy videos, right?

Re:You must be the only one

[Reality Master 101]

Yes but what about the people who don't keep it, but merely return it a few weeks late? They are charged a fee. What should we call this fee?

Well, the concession I'll make on this is that seven days is way too soon to assume the customer is never bringing it back. In that respect, I think Blockbuster's policy wasn't quite fair.