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Blockbuster Total Access Unannounced Policy Change
NuclearCodeMonkey writes "Blockbuster Total Access has changed the terms of its user agreement without notice to users. Previously, users could return online (mailed) rentals in-store for free rentals. The next set of online rentals was immediately mailed out. Now, without notice, they have changed their policy so that the in-store free exchanges count against you, and no more online rentals are mailed out until the in-store rentals are returned. No wonder they are closing stores and losing to Netflix! Needless to say I am canceling my account in protest."
Update - 3/15 at 11:55 by SS: NuclearCodeMonkey has sent new information about an email from Blockbuster which clarifies the situation. Read on for his follow-up.
NuclearCodeMonkey writes
"A second email from Blockbuster Support admitted that a change in policy had taken place (the first didn't acknowledge it). And they stated I should have received a notice: 'We have updated your "Terms and Conditions" with regards to in-store exchanges. A week before March 2, 2009, notifications for this new policy was added as banners on the top of your queue page, announcements were also posted at your local Blockbuster store, and we have sent out emails to inform customers about the new change.' I did not see any of the aforementioned notices and I have double-checked and did not receive any email. At least one commenter did indicate he had received an email. So, maybe an announced change after all and I just got missed? I wouldn't want to mislead anyone."
"A second email from Blockbuster Support admitted that a change in policy had taken place (the first didn't acknowledge it). And they stated I should have received a notice: 'We have updated your "Terms and Conditions" with regards to in-store exchanges. A week before March 2, 2009, notifications for this new policy was added as banners on the top of your queue page, announcements were also posted at your local Blockbuster store, and we have sent out emails to inform customers about the new change.' I did not see any of the aforementioned notices and I have double-checked and did not receive any email. At least one commenter did indicate he had received an email. So, maybe an announced change after all and I just got missed? I wouldn't want to mislead anyone."
I agree. Sounds like they're just closing a loophole to me.
A bit off-topic for our american friends, but any Canadian care to comment about the quality and speed of the service from ZIP.ca?
I made a tiny fortune shorting the parent of BB when they eliminated late fees. I could look back at my rentals and see that late fees made up a sizable portion of my total payments to BB and I doubted that I was different from the vast majority of people. I suspected that they would not clearly internally account for the massive profits of late fees due to the risk that this number could become public. So once they eliminated late fees they basically eliminated profits. After that when they started to reintroduce late fees they just ticked people off. So if one wants to point to a specific day that BB began to die from the wounds that Netflix were inflicting you could point to the day they eliminated late fees. Now the last hope they might have had was games, but things like Steam will just be Netflix version 2. AKA the other barrel of the shotgun.
My account isn't even active anymore and I got like 3 emails about this change. You really received no notice? I'm not disputing the policy change (which sucks), just the notice..
Amazing isn't it? When I first moved here about 10 years ago you could rent games from Blockbuster for like $4, the same as movies. They've hiked the prices at least 2 or 3 times since then, and game rentals are now quite expensive. Combine that with their moronic selection (we'll buy 2 copies of some great game, and 300 of The Matrix game, even after we haven't been able to rent the last 300 out) and they're terrible.
They have made it convenient to just buy games I want to play and sell them back to GameStop later. It may be a little more expensive but it's so much more convenient (since I get unlimited time).
They used to be my game quality solution. Rent the game, see if it was good, buy if it was. I didn't buy many games because they were so expensive. Now trying to rent games to see if they are good costs a ton too. So I buy fewer games.
Luckily demos are becoming more and more common and easy to get thanks to digital distribution.
Just like failing to adapt with movies, BB shot themselves in the foot with games. "Games are popular" means "raise the price on games" means "more money".
Of course in real life it was "games are popular" means "raise the price" means "drive away customers" means "much less money".
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It was kind of like double dipping...it was great for a while. I subscribed back before they offered in store exchanges. It was basically equivalent to NetFlix. Then they started offering free in store exchanges. It was a great way to get a lot of movies a month. They were clearly losing money on me based on the number of movies I got per month...my monthly fee barely covered the mailing charges. Then the in store exchanges were icing on the cake. Of course that couldn't last very long. After maybe six months they changed their terms and you could only in store exchange 5 movies per month. They came out with a new, more expensive plan that offered unlimited in store exchange. It just wasn't worth it for me and I was getting tired of renting so many movies, so I wound up canceling. Recently I decided to join a rental service again, but after reviewing my options I went with NetFlix. Really glad I did now.
Or perhaps they had to field too many questions from baffled customers who didn't have the mental capacity to understand such a relatively complicated policy. That gets expensive, and customers are happier with clarity, sometimes even if it's not in their favor.
I've had Netflix for almost two years and Roku for about a year and there is no contest. I'm not a big fan of movies but with two kids and a wife we rent probably three videos a month.
My Wife would leave me and take the kids if I ever took away the Roku. Almost every show the kids watch on Disney is available for free plus almost ten thousand other movies. Amazon now rents movies on the Roku and I'm sure all of the other movies will be available very soon. PLUS! (No. I don't work for Roku or Netflix) We can take the Roku anywhere in the world with internet access and a TV and I can view anything in my queue.
Enough Said.
They just hired legal advice for bankruptcy filings. Not exactly the hallmark of a healthy business, despite any transitory profit growth recently.
Blockbuster Said to Hire Firm for Bankruptcy Advice
That's not a sign of a healthy business, it just means they are in the right place at the right time. Look at the last few years, they've been diving.
Being in the right place at the right time can mean the difference between enormous, lucrative success, and trillions in profits, VERSUS bankruptcy, complete and utter failure, or years of languishing, before even breaking even.
Imagine, if you will, Linux and Gnome in its current form had hit the marketplace, and become widely available, before MS Windows 3.1 had emerged.
The opportunity for success, before the Windows hegemony had been firmly in place, would have been much wider.
In our system, "growth in profits" does not have to mean that their business model is working. It could also mean that they're laying off a lot of employees, that they're closing stores, that their input costs have declined, or even that they are just giving your customers less for their money, which seems to be the case in this story. Hell, it could even mean they've changed some exotic accounting practice which lets them claim that they have more profits. It's a way lots of companies boost their stock prices, which by the way doesn't mean they are raising capital. In our system, a rising stock price could just mean that the management did some of the above shenanigans so that their stock option deals could be a little fatter, or to make everybody happier at their next shareholder meeting.
See, that's why we can never, ever have the pristine, glorious "free market" that we always hear about: because the entire system is designed to defeat any possibility of transparency. So, to summarize: stock price means nothing. Profit reports mean nothing. Hell, just a couple of years ago, General Motors had a year of "record profits" and suddenly, they're in the toilet.
It's all a game of bait and switch, from their in-store rebate gimmicks to accounting practices, to corporate governance and market capitalization.
It's a system designed to fuck everybody but the "house" and by design, none of us are the house.
That's why this system we have, call it "capitalism" if you're a fool or call it "corporatism" if you're not, is designed, ultimately, to fuck us.
So hop on board, if you want, and talk shit about organized labor, or consumer protection measures, or government regulations, while your credit card bills get bigger and your income gets smaller (don't go by the number on your check - trust me, it's getting smaller). Your grandparents and greatgrandparents are shaking their heads and thinking what putzes your are.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I had their service, and it was a superior offering to Netflix because you could swap out movies at their stores also. Their service was fine, and their online selection was decent. The tracking system was not perfect, but nothing that didn't get sorted out easily. But they keep changing their terms, first the price increase, second the limit on in-store exchanges. The slimy nickel-and-dime tactic put me off and I stopped the service.
Their large network of physical stores can give them an edge over Netflix, but they make me wonder if they actually want to stay in the business.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The people who study businesses and evaluate their potential upside have clearly signaled that Blockbuster is dying. Their share price has dropped 96% since 2004, whereas Netflix has increased 20% in the same time period.
That's not to say that Blockbuster will go out of business anytime soon, but it does imply that over the past five years their business has been contracting rather than growing.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
True, but Blockbuster has been dying for years. I don't think this will be anything but a (very) temporary reprieve. If they can't turn themselves around, I'll be quite impressed, I wrote them off years ago.
But I doubt it will happen.
This isn't "we've been struggling but we suddenly our market found us", this is "we've been struggling for years and now we can remind people why they abandoned us the first time".
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Blockbuster *IS* corrupt. I used to work for them, and know firsthand the slimy tactics used.....
The part that really pissed me off was when I worked 21 days in a row, and was told that I'd be getting overtime for every additional 7 days I worked. Overtime was every seven days: Regular time the first 7 days, then 1.5x the next, then 2x, and so on. The store manager kept calling me in, and told me that I would get overtime on this schedule.
When I went to collect my overtime pay, the DM said "It doesn't matter what you manager told you, we're only gonna pay you what we are required to under CA law", and paid me $111.00 for overtime.
When I called to explain this, the DM got really snotty. I told him I was now in a big financial spot since I had just paid for a brand-new M1A-1 semiautomatic rifle (which was followed by an awkward silence). He than just gave a smarmy reply and said he had to go.
Not only that, they still claim I owe them money for 3 movies I returned, but they lost, and I have to explain this to the collection company that keeps sending me letters.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
For some reason my movies are only mailed to me promptly if I am a new customer. Otherwise it could be that they get a movie back from me on Friday, but don't mail new one till Monday.
Netflix has been caught "throttling", that is delaying new movies for heavy users. But they lost a big lawsuit about that some time back, and I can't imagine them risking the loss of another. More likely you're just ordering a lot of popular movies. Your perception that things speed up again after you open a new account is probably one of those things that doesn't stand up when you track it carefully.
I have to say that I don't really see anything wrong with throttling, as long as they're honest about it. (They pretended they weren't doing it, hence the lawsuit.) It must cost over a dollar to put a disc through the mail/return/restock cycle. (Postage alone would be about 65 cents, counting the extra charge for prepaid return.) Suppose you have a $14 2-at-a-time membership, like me. When I'm in my worst video droid mode I can run through 10 discs a month, and they barely break even on me. (Lucky for them, I sometimes read a book, watch broadcast TV, or even get out of the house.) If I really watched a lot of videos (or ripped them to disc for later viewing), they'd be losing money off me.
So throttling isn't evil, it's just economics. Dishonestly pretending you don't throttle when you really do is another matter.