Something Funny About Blockbuster
 

I'm sure you all remember the whole New Jersey thing with the no more late fees thing a few weeks ago. Anyway I work at Blockbuster in Chicago. When the no more late things started up we were talking about it constantly even answering the phone "...where you'll never have a late fee again", well no because of the New Jersey thing we don't talk about late fees anymore. They're still gone, but we just don't bring up unless the customer asks about it. We also have long detailed papers all over the place explaining the whole no late fees thing.

I just thought this was funny and I'd bring it up.

i dont think BBuster lying and using false advertising is funny :/

You know at my store we did nothing but tell people everything about the policy. The thing that really drives me nuts is that people see the advertising about "No More Late Fees" and they think they can rent a movie and NEVER have any penlaties EVER? People can just come in rent the movie then keep it forever for $4? The policy is too long to put into an ad. Here's what it would sound like:

"At Blockbuster you'll never have a late fee again. Unless you keep it 7 days past it's original due date, then you'll get charged for the movie to own. But if you return it within 30 days of the charge you'll get your money back minus a $1.25 restocking fee"

That's nuts!

I'm sorry about this rant, it just drives me nuts! I wish they never had this stupid no late fees thing. The whole was stupid from the beginning!

Indeed it was, and right now I think Blockbuster is getting exactly what it deserves with all the misleading advertising lawsuits. They didn't <I>eliminate</I> their late fees; they simply changed what they're called and the way they work to get more money in the end (add a grace period, but then charge people's cards automatically). No more late fees my ass.

I can't wait for everyone to go after Netflix. They're clearly lying and putting on false ads. I mean, they say you can rent a movie and keep it "as long as you want", but that's not true unless you continue to pay the monthly rental fee.

Considering that, before the change, Blockbuster charged you for the movie after you kept it roughly seven days past the due date, what they did was actually eliminate the actual LATE FEE that was charged between the due date and the time they wrote off the movie and charged you. That is, by definition, no more late fees. That people want to be able to buy movies to keep for the rental fee is completely crazy and unreasonable. But, for some reason, they hate Blockbuster because that isn't the deal.

Apparently the "reasonable man" standard has been thrown out the window to be replaced with "If the dumbest guy in the room can't understand, then you will have to PAY!" or the "We want a system that makes no sense from a business standpoint. Give it to us, or we'll hate you forever" standard.

BBV has ALWAYS charged customers for movies after the 9th day of having it out. That has actually never changed. I guess I don't see where the advertising was deceptive, because it advertised the end of late fees, not the end of due dates. I mean, as you are walking out the door and they tell you when it is due, did people think that was a suggestion? They never added, "Or keep it forever, we don't give a shit." Geez, I wish customers would pull their heads out of their asses.

I know back when I worked at Blockbuster when I was in college, students could get accounts at Blockbuster if they showed their student ID and didn't have to put a credit card on their account. What is the policy now? I know that I haven't used my account that was opened when I was an employee for over 5 years now, so I'm sure that it's not in the corporate database anymore for the servers to look up. (It's definitely long gone out of the system at the store where I worked.) Since I didn't have a CC on my account when I was an employee do they make you put one on your account now so they can charge you if you don't bring back the movie/game, etc.? What kind of collateral do they have if you rent 3 movies and decide to never bring them back and never rent at Blockbuster again?

Yeah, wow, customers come in BELIEVING claims made in the advertisements! What a bunch of jerks!! Companies should be allowed to say whatever the fuck they want in their ads, since customers should all be following the "too good to be true" rule! That makes perfect sense!

I'm waiting for Sprint to be sued . . . Their ads say "No more ugly overages!" But if you go 1 minute over your package they charge you $10! New Jersery poltitcian-whores where are you?!

My Big Mac isn't 30 feet long like the one on the side of the dleivery truck!

My girlfriends' breasts don't look the same as the lady wearing the one in the Victoria Secrets' ad!

I drank 30 cases of this beer and I didn't get any babes like the ones in the ad! All I got was a toothless 200 lb version of Joan Rivers!

You can't legislate common sense . . . but we sure as hell try.

Ugh... don't we already have a thread about this?

I find it horrifying that the various states spend 630,000 dollars to legislate this... I mean, how much of a threat was this to consumers? What if they lost the case and had to pay all that money themselves to the lawyers? Not one cent of that money went back to the consumers.

Everytime I get notified that I can take part in a class action lawsuit, usually my reaction is... was this $2.50 refund really worth it? I understand the need to prevent false advertising, but geez. And it's not like this wasn't all spelled out in the fine print anyway. Always read the fine print, people, if something seems to good to be true (why BB will let me steal as many movies as I want from them, forever), it probably is.
Can I just claim ignorance by never reading fine print again? Next time I get a 0% APR offer from my credit card company, I'm disregarding the fine print about them jacking up my APR to 22% next month.

Why can't they spend some money to go after these gas companies that are recording record profits, but insist that they have to keep gas prices insanely high?

Man am I tried of hearing people whine over Blockbusters late fees. Do you honestly think that they would let you keep a movie for as long as you want without paying? That's ridiculous. Seven days after the due date is more than enough time to watch a movie, and if you want to keep it an extra month it's only $1.75.

That being said, the one thing that does piss me off about this policy is that they raised the price of a game rentals to $8.00.

Yeah, I saw game rentals are ridiculous now. I hadn't thought about them being covered by the No Late Fees thing. That actually isn't such a bad deal then. Most games nowadays take longer than a week to finish. $8 to rent it for a couple weeks then, and if you don't finish it you can keep it as long as you want and just pay an additional $1.25 more when you bring it in?

Would that work with the Blockbuster Online free rental coupons too? Free game rental and just $1.25 restocking fee when you decide to finally return it way overdue? Thats a really good deal.

Waaaaah! $1.25, Waaaaaah! Why the hell are you renting a moving and keeping it for 10+ days? Just because it says No Late Fee's dosn't mean you can keep it forever. However, I'm sure the person that bitches about the $1.25 stocking fee they have to pay is the same type of person who gets pissed when Elektra is all checked out for 2 weeks straight, and whines that you should have more copys or others shoul return their's on time.

No shit. If you can't watch it that day or the next day why the hell are you renting it. "Well I might have time to watch this movie in a few weeks but fuck it, I'll just rent it tonight."

Good God! Use some common sense! If they just let people come in and take the movies with no late fees ever again then Blockbuster would have closed all their stores after the first day! What would have been the point of having memberships anymore? I understand the movie pass at BBV, the MVP at Hollywood and Netflix, but for all of those you are paying for them by the month. Did you really think that for FREE you would have gotten to keep the movie for as long as you want?

THANK YOU!

Really? They get more money in the end? So changing a "late fee" to a "restocking fee" (which is NOT what was done) is making them more money? Instead of charging people $70+ in late fees they're making more money by charging $1.25? Yeah...that's right.

Also they DID NOT change the name of a late fee to a restocking fee. A late fee occurred over days and weeks of having the movie past it's due date. A restocking fee is what you are charged AFTER you get charged for the movie to own and you bring it back! At least they are offering for you to get your money back in the first place! They could just stand there and say "well you had your movie for more than 9 days screw you we have your money now!". No, they offer you 30 DAYS to get your movie back to get your money back, minus a $1.25 fee! A DOLLAR AND TWENTY FIVE CENTS!! It sure as hell beats the shit out of a $70 late fee!

I haven't kept anything into the 1.25-fee range, but I have kept a game out longer than the 7 days. Free 13-day rental, not bad at all. And if you like the game, that coupon you used counts as 6.99 off the price of the game [check the 'Own It For' on the receipt.]
Too bad BBO's DVD inventory levels suck--now at 62% Wait Status.

It did take us 10 days to watch the last movie we rented, just due to schedules and mood. The game I've got out now [God of War] is technically due tomorrow, but I'll probably keep it over the weekend.

The first thing *anyone* should have said when hearing BB say No More Late Fees should have been, "Okay, what's the catch?" The catch is the rent-to-own thing, but overall, that's a pretty darn good catch, compared to the hardhanded late fee thing they used to have.
And, of course, always read the fine print. When I see and add for a car that says '129 down, 129 a month!' I don't go to the dealer with 129 Washingtons and expect a car.

Here is my favorite part :

When you rent a DVD, the receipt now states "Own this movie at this date for this amount of money." If I were an ignorant consumer, that would say to me that Blockbuster wants me to keep the movie if I really like it and wanted to pay that amount for it (I got Sid and Nancy Criterion for 6.57).

Here is the catch, if you do keep the movie, or according to Blockbuster, decide to own the movie, most Blockbusters will not give you the cover art for the movie and will eventually end up throwing the cover art away.

To me the whole scheme is shady from both ends...

Corihor1, I am willing to bet that if you went into the store and just said you decied to buy it at their price, they would be fine with that, and if you went in when they weren't busy and asked for the cover art, I bet somebody would be happy to get it for you.

dvd-fanman, the collateral is still the same now as it was 5 years ago. Five years ago if I decided to rent three movies and never returned them, they would send me a bill from their collections department and it would go against my credit. They still do that. The main difference is they don't try to collect the late fees any more, just the price of the movie.

So, no, they are not making MORE money in the end. Now if I decide to keep a new release, all I pay is the price for it previously viewed if I never return it, but before I would have to pay for the price of the movie PLUS the late fees tacked on top of that. BBV has actually lost 20% of their revenue over this and are cutting hours across the board at all corporate stores. I just don't think it had the effect they were hoping, which is to weaken Hollywood's stock so they can buy them out and also to get back customers that they are losing to Netflicks and customers who just got disgruntled with them over the years.

I just wonder how they plan to make back that loss of revenue. I am willing to bet when you walk into their stores now it's much like going to Best Buy where people approach you on the sales floor with a ton of sales promos they want to force upon you, and I hate shopping at places like that.

Unfortunately that is not the case as I have been denied twice at two different Blockbusters. One guy was extremely rude to me and said that they didn't release the cases because "Blockbuster doesn't wan't people to make money from their movies...". Funny part is that I was only keeping one movie and it was for me.

That's just poor customer service. You paid for the movie as a previously viewed title, and it is essentially no different than if you walked over to the previewed section and picked up the title and bought it with the cover art. I know at the store I go to, they WOULD do that, not that I have tested it, but they told me they would do that when I was asking them about their new policy back in January. And the extremely rude part would be getting me very tempted to get a district manager involved.

So the other option? Steal the cover box off the shelf!

I just recently pulled this back up and read through. It's funny it's now been about 3 1/2 years since they got rid of late fees and I am very very surprised they still have that policy. I really thought that they would have realized it was a mistake and went back to late fees.

And yes I still work at that same Blockbuster, over 5 years now!

Be sure to thank your lovely BB Marketing Guru for coming up with the dumb idea. Of course, they know they will never have to face a customer in their entire life. You will.

Oh believe me I know. Every Christmas that rolls around I get so pissed off because I love Christmas, it is my favorite holiday and we all have to work on and around Christmas and the fucking corporate guys get like a week off which includes Christmas eve and day!

Also they put so much pressure on us to sell their crap and we get absolutely no thanks whatsoever for doing it. I'm tired of it, they don't even say thanks!

Agh! I'm sorry I'm just venting.

I've enjoyed the "no late fees" policy since it began. I must be in the minority. I've never once been charged for a movie that I've returned by the OWN IT date that is clearly printed on my receipt. In fact, there have been a few occasions where I have returned a video game on the day after the OWN IT date and still not been charged. No complaints here! :thumbsup:

I have even knowingly kept a movie past the OWN IT date thus expecting a charge which eventually shows up 3 to 5 days later. Upon returning the disc (within the allotted 30 day period), I have always received my refund (minus the $1.25) within 48 hours. :)

I love the policy because 2 days for a DVD with special features just isn't enough time. I usually keep it for the maximum 9 - 10 days.

Are people (consumers) really *complaining* about the "no late fees"? Apart from the impact on BB's inventory, I think it's a really good deal for the consumer. Keep it more than X days, you own it and will get charged for it. That's not a late fee, that's a purchase, and if a customer calls it a late fee, they should be slapped in the head.
And even if they do argue that that 1.25 stocking fee is a "late fee", well, it's only ONE late fee, not a late fee for each day it was late; so "no late feeS" is technically correct.