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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 never looked into the Blockbuster plan, but if you were able to exchange mailers for movies in the store AND get the next mailers, it kinda sounds like double-dipping. Someone probably overlooked that little detail when writing up the procedure.
12:50 - press return.
So before you would turn in an online rental and get a new in-store rental AND be sent a new online rental DVD as well? So lets say I had a 2 at a time plan... I turn in one, get an in-store rental and a new online one sent as well.. I then turn in my new online one and get another in-store rental and have a new online one sent.. so I now have 2 in-store rentals and 2 online.. rinse and repeat and I can have infinite in-store rentals?
This makes no sense. It also makes no sense to expect this. Please tell me I am missing something.
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.
You mean to tell me Blockbuster is still in business? Who knew?
Long ago, I used to rent from maybe a couple times a month. One day a roommate grabbed my card and rented a couple movies with it. He returned them late; the late fee was something like $20. I wasn't aware of this, and obviously, they didn't check ID; fine, okay, whatever. The next time I went to rent from them, it was at a store in a different city; I'd moved. They wouldn't rent to me because I hadn't paid the fee. I told them I'd pay now. They said they couldn't take the payment for another store. I called the original store to pay with a credit card; no, they couldn't do that either. I had to physically pay, in cash, at the original store, for their mistake, or I couldn't rent from Blockbuster again. That was something like ten years ago, and I've never given them another dollar. Stupid companies like that can't survive in an open market. What do they think they are, a telco?
That was on news that they were going to announce bankruptcy. It didn't happen, but the market took it seriously.
The market took it seriously because everyone knows that BB has been in deep trouble for years (see recent Circuit City / BB talks last year) and many expect them to go bankrupt any time now.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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..
Why did this submission from an oh-the-world-owes-me-a-livin' whiner make it to the front page? The change in policy could be argued as perfectly reasonable - assuming it's even really a change in policy - whether this person happens to approve or not. Clearly he feels some sense of entitlement; whether he had a right to feel entitled is another matter. In any case he's doing the right thing by voting with his dollar, but why is this such a blockbuster that he has to shout about it?
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.
I had blockbuster a year or 2 ago. It was great. then they knocked down my weekly free coupons to 2 per month. then they took them away completely. then they raise the price. i think i left at that point but since then I believe they started limiting how many in store exchanges you can do to 3 per month, raised prices yet again, and now returning to the store doesn't even send out the next movie. really...what good is blockbuster? why would anyone want it over netflix? if blockbuster's plan is to drive away all customers so they can declare bankruptcy then it's working. I'm no CEO but i would think you would try to build brand loyalty and bring in more customer rather than lose the ones you already have.
Netflix pulls it's own shenanigans all the time. It's gotten to a point that every few months I cancel my account and set up a new one using a different email. 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.
that a story on Slashdot's front page was announcement enough. And that the notice would spread faster this way, with more people likely to read it.
What?
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.
Consumerist reported this on Feb 24th...
Dude he's not pissed at the fact that now they have a no free lunches policy, he's pissed that he went to an all you can eat buffet that decided they were going to charge him for every plate after his 3rd one without even telling him. Not only that, they decided to implement this policy change while he was in the middle of enjoying his "all you can eat" buffet. Bad way to run a business.
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
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.
I have the same feelings. Blockbuster also had a habit of losing my membership, forcing me to fill out their silly form multiple times. I complained and it took three months (!) to get a reply to my complaint. By that time I had given up on it forever.
They don't deserve to be in business IMHO.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I don't like the new policy. In fact I'll be switching to netflix because of it. But saying that it was changed without notice is crazy.
Not only did I get an e-mail on this change, it was posted on the front page as an alert, and I was told when I returned some envelopes for rentals.
Maybe you just didn't pay any attention?
Where's BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?
They did no such thing. They just said 'hey, slow down' as he was doing the equivalent of Homer just lifting out the serving bowls, rather than taking a plate at a time. No-one said he couldn't eat as much as he wanted, just off the plate, so other people could get more, not just wheelbarrowing the serving bowls straight from the buffet table.
There's no negative impact to his contract - he's not being charged more. He's just not being allowed to get away with things above and beyond what the contract entitled him to.
"Getting away with things above and beyond contract" also equals "bad way to run business".
Man, the entitlement mentality in this place is horrific.
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....
They marketed the contract by talking about how you could get movies from the store for free by returning your mail-in movies. That was part of the deal. They've changed the terms after the fact. There is no "entitlement mentality" in this. Blockbuster is providing less service for the same price. That's definitely a "negative impact."
The obvious solution is to walk away from Blockbuster. That's what you do when the other party doesn't live up to their obligations.
man, I feel like mold.