Sorry, typing error. I'm not Blockbuster customer stupid.

This isn't rocket science, people. They say "no late fees" when they do, in fact, charge a late fee and just call it a different name. Also, it doesn't matter if it's a better deal than the old policy if they guy who is suing never would have rented from Blockbuster had they not changed their policy to this one. No math required.

A "late fee" is when the item you are borrowing/renting from them is returned late. If you wait past the ten days or whatever, you are no longer 'borrowing' it, it has converted to a sale, regardless of when they bill you for it. If you 'return' it after that point, it's just like returning something to Best Buy, who also charges restocking fees on some items. The restocking fee, apart from being a slight disincentive, is probably also to help cover the costs, like someone said, of the postcards, re-bar-coding it, maybe getting a new dvd case, whatever.
I think this lawsuit is stupid.
Consumers need to read the fine print, which was quite easy to find in this case. Any one who goes to a company like Blockbuster, who makes huge money off late fees, hears 'no late fees' and says "Wow, that's great!" and doesnt' ask, "Okay, what's the fine print?" is a dumbass. I'm all for consumer protection, and I'm not a huge fan of BBV, but I don't see any fraudulent activity here--EXCEPT for the stores having No Late Fees signs, when they didn't participate. That is definitely misleading/fraudulent.

I rented some DVDs at the beginning of the year thinking that late fees were over and returned them maybe 2 or 3 days late. Apparently the store didn't participate or just didn't feel like giving me the new deal and I got socked with $25 worth of fees.

Blockbuster deserves to be taken to the cleaners.

If they didn't 'feel like giving you the new deal', that's wrong.
If they didn't participate, but had signage implying they did, and didn't tell you otherwise, that also is wrong.
Given those two facts, I think you would be able to argue the reimbursement of the fees. But, just because you had a noncomplying store or a jerkass manager, doesn't mean the entire company is evil.

Did they tell you 'no late fees' at the counter, or were you going by the signs? Did you say, "hey, does that mean I can keep the dvd forever for 2.99?"

I'm not a moron, so please don't treat me like one .

I returned two videos a few days late and got hit with fees. I didn't think "GEE WHIZ!!! I'M GOING TO KEEP THIS FOREVER!" No, much like the fine print said, "I HAD ONE WEEK TO RETURN IT."

Because this is the upteenth time I've charged for essentially bullshit from a Blockbuster (it has happened at least three different locations), I've decided not to go to Blockbuster again.

I'm glad that you appreciate Blockbuster and have never had any problems with it. I have, several times.

first Ioff I have to say I am tired of people bitching about blockbuster video. Its always there fault when you guys dont return a video . What ever happend to personal responsibility. What on earth would give you the impression a billiondollar company like blockbuster would let you rent a movie and keep it forever. The poeple whoi think that are idiots and I am tired of them passing the buck. The policy is real simple why do you haters go out and read it, you have seven days after your due date to return it first off you inconsiderte people should return it on time to begin with. But seven days common how lazy are we people. Then the rental is converted into a sale whats wrong with that you didnt return it when your were suppose to. They said no late fees not no due dates, when you are charged and you return it you get your money back minus a 1.25 common thats 5 quarters. So a rental in essence for a month for 6 bucks where i live who can beat that. And the fee is for putting the item into their inventory and if they refund to a visa or mc account the cost of that. People you are aware everytime they take your visa or mc even as a debit visa or mc they pay a fee to the company right. Think about this you haters blockbuster hires hundreds of thousands of people who depend on it to feed their family they have some 8000 stores, who are you to jepordize their livelhood because you cant return a video on time. What if more cases are filed and penalitites and they go under thousands lose their job. Take personal responsibility find out their policies or dont but stop crying about it. I like blockbuster video and I hated their old late fee policy but this one is great. I think New Jersey is crazy for suing the company with no complaints or one it said in the cnn news article everyone likes to pick on blockbuster i swear man people are ignorant and lazy, hey im late lets pass the buck commmon get with it people

No they're not. You rent. You DUE date comes up (2 or 5 days depending on the movie). Then ANOTHER WEEK passes by. THEN they charge you for themomvie. If you return it within THIRTY days you get the movie price minus ~$1.25 back.

What would you like BBuster to do, let people keep them indefinitely and not charge anything?

I don't care what BB does, but if they say "NO LATE FEES" then they should not be charging FEES for LATE returns.

I am confused....how is charging the price of the moive you decided to keep considered charging you a fee? They added no fees to the price of the movie they charged, so where's the beef? Before, you'd get charged the price of the movie ON TOP OF the late fee.

And the restocking fee of $1.25? You're crying over that? That's not a late fee, it's a restocking fee, and it's to cover the costs of them calling you and sending out post cards to remind you to return the movie you figured you could keep indefinately. There are still no late fees. They didn't advertise the end of fees with movies, just the end of late fees.

It's just a misnomer used as a marketing gimmick.

I don't like it either as it's basically false advertising. It's a stupid policy anyway as there's never anything I want in stock anymore, as people are keeping movies much longer now.

Wow, many of you people must really hate your local banks for advertising free checking accounts when you pay for your checks, ATM fees, money orders, traveller's checks, safe deposit boxes, and all that fun stuff. I love it when people cry "FALSE ADVERTISING" when all they did was fail to read the small print. Guess what, Blockbuster, your bank, and every business in the world are going to keep coming up with advertising gimmicks to get you in their place of business and, more often than not, there will be a catch some where. Be prepared.

How does this thread get resurrected after 2 months, when there are so many threads already about this, with all the same arguments, etc.? And now I bumped it up yet another time...

To be fair, I think most people know "Free Checking" simply means no monthly fee just for the priviledge of having an account.

I don't have much problem with the no late fee slogan either. I did have a problem with how hard it was to find info on it. The first time I went to the store there was no small print on the no late fees sign, and I asked the cashier what the deal was. And he just said "there's no late fees but if you keep it too long we'll charge you the full price of the movie." I asked him how long you had to keep it for that to happen and he replied "Don't worry, you won't keep it that long anyway."

So at least in that store they could make the specifics of the policy more clear.

But like I said, it's a dumbass policy anyway as there's a ton less movies in stock now. I which they'd just go back to late fees.

Slightly OT....do any of you Blockbuster employees know if anything is being done to fix the low availability of rentals? I like the new movie pass and no late fee programs, but now they hardly ever have new releases in stock, which is starting to piss me off.

I like the new policy, so they are saying that i can keep a game for up to 30 days and pay the 7 dollars for rental and the 1.50 for restocking fee.. so i just paid 8.50 for a game since i will surely beat it in 30 days and be ready to get rid of it anyways.. The alternative? spend 50 dollars on a game that i don't want after 30 days? I like what they are doing. If i like a game that much anyways i can justify a 50 dollar charge.

I work at a Blockbuster.

I have been told: The movie distribution companies were not happy with the new "No Late Fees" policy, as they also used to get a cut of that (since it was considered revenue from the rentals), and as a result will lose millions of dollars each year, and so they penalized BBV by cutting down on the quantities of New Releases.

This has been gradually easing due to negotiations between BBV and the distributors, and this week (for example) we are getting far more copies of "Phantom of the Opera" and "National Treasure" than we had for other recent "big movie" releases. But the new policy is that we have to destroy many copies of them after a certain amount of time (cool new disc-destroyers that punch a whole bunch of little pinprick-sized holes in the discs) and send them back to the distributors, or else we have to pay a big fee/fine. All those poor AOL discs that have been sacrificed so far while we play with the new toy...

I have worked at BBV for a while, and I will, quite honestly, never understand the "gotta have it this week because it's new" mentality of the majority of the customers. I'd like to go 5 minutes at work without somebody asking if we have "Lickety Lemons," "Snickely Lemots," "Fortunate Events," "the new John Carey movie," etc., etc., etc.. Everybody wants it, but nobody even knows what it's called. And in a month there will be 100 copies sitting on the shelf collecting dust. But everybody wants it THIS WEEK. Three weeks ago, people were practically coming to blows over "Sideways" and "The Final Cut," but now they're sitting on the shelf, ignored.

As for the "No Late Fees" issue, I think it breaks down into essentially two categories of people.

Those who are happy with it are the kind of people that live lives feeling grateful for good things. Those who are unhappy with it are the kind of people that have an overinflated sense of entitlement and even when good things happen, complain that they're not even better.

Maybe some of you here are different, but at least that's my experience in the store. Customers who are generally good-natured and friendly to the employees are the grateful type, and when they return something 10 days late often say something like "boy, I'm glad you did away with those late fees." But the others who feel the need to treat you like a servant in their mansion are the ones that get in your face about the $1.25 after returning a DVD 15 days late: "But your advertising says "NO Late Fees! This is why you guys are getting sued all over the place!"

And for which person do you think we're willing to hold that last copy of "Meet the Fockers?"

I used to work there, too. I know there were people who came in just to rent ANYTHING that was new, regardless if they thought they would like it or not. Which is fine, if I don't have to listen to them bitch when they bring it back, but I can't tell you how many people rented Mulholland Drive then complained later on. They rented it, knowing NOTHING about David Lynch and the type of movies he makes. "Why did you rent it?" "It was there."

It makes scenes in Ghost World and the joke about the movie "The Moon that Drank the Flower" just all the more amusing to me.

Personally, I have never understood the "gotta have it now" attitude. Then again, I have quite a few DVDs, so if I don't buy a new title the day it comes out, no big deal, because I have a vast libary of titles that are unwatched I can fall back on. But even if I didn't have my DVDs....I don't know, I think I can find better things to do with my time. Maybe get the titles I missed out on that were new a few weeks ago? Of course, I never rent so that's beside the point.

The 'want something new' phenomenon is not limited to DVD rentals...just check out the weekly 'What new releases are you getting this week?' threads on this very forum. And opening numbers for most theatrical releases, etc.
Sometimes I like to see a 'new release', but I also won't freak out if I can't get it. I also don't rent something just because it's 'new' [although using the 'buffet' mentality of BBO and Netflix, I am more likely to rent something I'm not very familiar with.]

Then again, when I did rent in BB B&M, I focused on the 'new release' section, simply because virtually all of the catalog titles I was interested in, I had already seen/rented; Blockbuster's historical inventory status might come into play as well.

I can understand wanting to get/see something brand new. What I can't wrap my head around are those people who get bent out of shape when things don't work their way and they can't get or see the brand new thing right away. One time when I worked at Blockbuster, this mom came in with her young son and wanted to rent a game. We were out of the game they wanted, and the kid threw a fit, crying and pretty much throwing himself to the ground. There are adults who act like that if BBV is out of the new release on a Friday or Saturday or if their movie is sold out at the theater or in other situations. Some times it's fun to see something new, and I do know I plan on being at Star Wars Episode 3 opening night, but if circumstances prevent me from doing so, I will get on with my life and really won't care.

Oh, I agree with that totally. Many/most people have such a sense of entitlement and instant gratification that it's nauseating and frightening to watch. That's expected of little kids, but part of growing up is realizing that 'you can't have everything you want when you want it' and 'the world doesn't owe you a whole lot'. A lot of adults apparently haven't learned that lesson, or have chosen to forget it.
I just went to BB this afternoon, they were out of the game I wanted. Oh well, I'll try again [although I do wish the website allowed you to check inventory at a store, that would be a nice feature].

For me, it's the fact that I've seen just about everything else in the store that I'm interested in, but I love to watch movies. So when something new comes out that I actually want to watch, I'm anxious to get my hands on it. Also, many prices on new releases are lower the first week, so if there's something I think I might want to buy I try to get it watched in that first week so there's time to buy it if I like it.

To be fair, with purchases part of the motivation to get them release week is that they are cheaper then and get bumped up in price the following week. So it's either buy it then, or wait several months to see if it becomes one of the 2-$20 2-$15 type deals.

I think that's a big part of it as well. People that watch a lot of movies have seen all the catalog titles they want, and want to catch the new movies that the missed in theaters.

Plus you have all the ads and word of mouth when stuff comes out making people want to see the newest thing.

I am sick of the "I hate no more late fees, you never have anything!" I realize that the normal person doesn't see this, but the reason we don't have anything is because THEY WEREN'T SENDING US ANYTHING! The timing was horrible. During the early peak of EoLF it would be amazing if I received 30 copies of a new release. Many I only received 5 or 6 copies. Finally in the last month or so I am back to putting out entire bays of big new releases.

And as for the passes, look for the phase out to begin (actually it already has). Some areas are eliminating the pass all together, most are eliminating the 1-out and 3-out passes. Some areas will be raising the price, some won't.