Reader and commenter Salviati writes in to share his personal experience with Blockbuster and his theory for why they will never survive fierce competition from Netflix and the new Apple video rentals.
I am writing to explain why I am no longer a Blockbuster Total Access subscriber and never will be again. Service wasn’t always so deplorable at Blockbuster, but in the last several months I have had three very negative experiences with the chain that has caused me to turn from a Blockbuster evangelist, who persuaded my parents and friends to join the Total Access plan, to a disgruntled consumer who won’t step into a Blockbuster until they’ve reformed their customer service attitude.
Keep in mind, I was an easy customer. I auto-paid my monthly bill. I held my movies for weeks and months on end without mailing them back or taking them back to the store for exchanges. I even went for a period of 6.5 months without exchanging my movies (While being charged $17.99 all the while). In the past year I was with Blockbuster, I exchanged only 11 movies in-store. I was as profitable as they could get. But between August and today, I have had three incidences which have convinced me that Blockbuster managers are (1)Incompetent (2)Powerless and (3)Apathetic.
Incident 1: I had exchanged out a set of 3 movies in-store in August. After keeping them out past their initial due date I was billed the price of the movies which is in-line with their policy. As long as they are returned within 30 days, Blockbuster is supposed to refund the charge minus a $1.25 processing fee. However, I got called out-of-town on a business trip, and I left before being able to return the movies. Once I realized the situation, I called my local store and asked if it was necessary to have my wife return the movies while I was gone, or if I could wait a week and return them myself. His answer was that it wouldn’t be a problem for me to return the movies after 30 days, but I would be charged the $1.25 fee per movie. Great, I thought, until I got back home. When I tried to return the movies (32 days past their due date), I was told that it was impossible to return the movies, and that I’d have to pay the ridiculously marked-up used price of $40 for the three (the price at Target for all three new was $21). The manager simply wouldn’t acknowledge that one of their employees had mis-informed me about my ability to return the movies. I tried to call their corporate customer service, who could only refer me to the district manager. To cut this long story short, I spent 3 weeks calling between the store manager and district manager trying to simply refund the movies, which they still sold on their Used racks. I was repeatedly told it was “Impossible” and “the computer won’t allow it”. I know the time I spent trying to return the movies was worth more than $40, but I felt like I was being wronged, and didn’t want to let the issue go. I finally caved when I received a threatening Credit Agency letter. I thought about writing this letter to The Consumerist back then, but I figured it was partially my fault, even though I thought Blockbuster did a terrible Customer Service job.
Incident 2: This one was much shorter. Me, my wife, and her friend walking into a Blockbuster with three return envelopes to exchange. My wife, who had never exchanged movies before, didn’t know to hold onto the envelopes until checkout and sat them on top of the counter as she walked in (thinking that she wasn’t allowed to walk around the store with them). About two minutes later, I realized she wasn’t holding them any longer and walked back to the counter to pick them up. Too late. The clerk had already checked them in without pausing even for a second to see if someone was planning to use them. Again, the clerk and manager claimed that they were powerless slaves to the computer and wouldn’t be unable to let us use the credit towards any new movies since they were already checked-in. Still sore after the treatment I had received a month earlier, I didn’t want to let this go, but they wouldn’t budge. I explained that I was a long-term customer who rarely redeemed my credits, but they stood firm. We ended up paying for two movies and left.
Incident 3: Today. I tightly clutched my return envelopes as I slowly browsed the shelves for three new movies to exchange. Finally, I settle on two movies and a Wii game. Last year, I was able to use a return envelope to pick-up a Wii game without a problem. Well apparently things have now changed. After scanning my three envelopes, they scanned the three items I had brought up. $5.34. “Excuse me, this should be an even exchange.” Apparently not. Now the returned movie only counts as $4 off a $9 game rental. Oh well, I thought, “Just take it off and I’ll grab another movie”. Nope – Apparently each credit gets automatically applied to a specific item and can’t be re-transfered to another item. On top of that, they wouldn’t remove the game from my checkout and insisted that I HAD to pay for the game, even though I hadn’t payed yet and the transaction was unfinished. They insisted that the transaction WAS finished and now I had to pay for it (Which doesn’t make any sense. How can the transaction be over before I am even told what the cost will be). After much debate with the manager, they agreed to take the game off the transaction (as a “Favor”), but they couldn’t do anything about applying the credit to another movie. By this time I had already decided that I would be writing this letter when I got home, and canceling my year-long subscription to Blockbuster Total Access.
It no longer surprises me that Blockbuster is failing as a company. They are closing many stores and hemorrhaging cash. Many analysts don’t even expect them to survive more than a few years. They may not be able to compete with the price and selection of Netflix or the new Apple video rentals, but they had one thing strongly going for them – availability. I knew that if I really needed to, I could go down the street and pick up a physical movie and talk to a real person if I needed to. Now my mindset has changed. Clearly, Blockbuster has decided that their employees and even managers are too incompetent to run their own stores and must be treated like trained monkeys. Even when I found a sympathetic ear, they were simply powerless to over-ride the computer for even simple tasks. Oh well, now that Netflix has unlimited downloads at less than half of the price I was paying at Blockbuster, maybe this is exactly the incentive I needed to make the change.
What do you Netflix customers think? How’s the water in your end of the pool?
Should he switch?
(Photo:medalian1)
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I finally joined Netflix this week because of their unlimited downloading and I’ve called them twice to get it to work. Their customer service is excellent and knowledgeable, but they could not fix my DRM problem, which is a Microsoft/movie studio problem. It works great on XP, but not on Vista because my TV is my monitor.
@matt1978: Actually, BB doesn’t have tons of movies that people are looking for. I have had a couple movies in the top of my queue for quite some time, and these aren’t big blockbusters.
i used to think netflix sucked but it sucks less than BB. I used to be a power renter. I had 5 or 6 level sub and would watch and return them the same day…but secretly they SLOW you down. instead of putting new movies in the mail for you they hold them for 2 or 3 days and THEN put them in the mail. They have a secret limit on how many you can rent in a month. I let this annoy me and they i gave up. I changed my sub down to 3 discs at once and never thought about it again. I have had that level for over a year and it’s just fine. i finish them they go back. if they don’t play, i just go online and register it as damaged and they ship me another. if they get lost in the mail, i just go online and tell them. if you play by their rules they are just fine. and besides that the BB inventory bites, Netflix has almost everything.
on the other hand if you ONLY rent new releases you are gonna be pissed off, the wait times aren’t good.
You won’t have any of these problems with Netflix, because there is no such thing as a Netflix store to exchange movies. He could pay Blockbuster less money if he didn’t want to exchange movies.
@meiran: You keep IE around to watch movies, not because it’s impossible to remove without breaking Windows?
Netflix is good, but there are some problems with the service. Sometimes, although it hasn’t happened in a while, weird crap will happen and you:
A) don’t receive the movie – to which the solution is reporting it as “lost”. Netflix promptly sends a replacement.
B) Receive a movie, but it isn’t the right one
C) Receive a snapped in half/otherwise unplayable movie
D) Receive random, extra movies/cds
B and C are bad. If this happens to you, Netflix doesn’t go ahead and send you a new movie to take care of it’s mistake, they wait for you to return it, which makes the process of getting the movie you originally wanted last for a week instead of a couple of days, which is the average time it takes them to send a movie once they receive a movie from you. I wish they did like in A, where they send out a replacement right away, and if you happen to receive the “lost” movie weeks later, just return it as normal. For some reason, they trust you to say it’s “lost” but they don’t when you say it’s not the right movie or broken, and actually have the ability to send it back. D can be good; I once got a free copy of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Kind of strange to get a music cd randomly slipped in. I sent it back though because everybody acts like they forgot about Dre, whereas I actually did forget. I’ve also gotten a couple of random movies that were slipped into another sleeve or (somehow) arrived in a mutant envelope, which is the only way I could describe the monstrosity of an envelope I once received.
I also have a $15/month thing at a local indie video store which works like Netflix except you obviously have to physically return and pick up your rentals. Works for me since it’s close. I like indie/foreign/crazy movies that aren’t usually hollywood hits, so the combo is nice because Netflix has maybe 85-90% of what they have, but that 10% is worth it.
I haven’t set foot in a video store in years and never will again. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to see a video *right now* and couldn’t wait two days to see it.
Netflix is great, I never considered joining BB’s program. One problem I’ve always had with BB is that their employees, in my experience, have always been rude or apathetic. Remove the human equation and we’re good.
On another note: BB charges $9 for a game?!
@irid3sc3nt: I agree…the library is a pretty darn good way to go.
p.s. Netflix also went to bat for me, arguing with the postal service in Chicago (notoriously terrible postal service), which was continually losing my Netflix mailers, not to mention regular mail. Eventually, Netflix somehow worked everything out because I always got my Netflix mailers from then on, as well as my regular mail! I was pretty happy with them for doing that, because my complaints to the P.O. had been ignored.
Channeling Judge Judy…
Incident #1: Dude, the return slot in the front of the store is open 24×7. “But the person on the phone said…” is inadmissible. Ruling in favor of BB.
Incidents #2 and #3: BB’s corp POS systems are obviously locked down too tight, making their own employees and managers look and act like asshats. Ruling in favor of Salviati.
Good decision to walk away before they hose you some more.
Oh, hell, I’ll jump on the Netflix bandwagon and report how happy I am with my service with them. I’ve been a customer for about a year now and have never received the wrong disk, although I did receive a cracked one once, but as soon as I reported it they sent me a brand new one. Blockbuster would have charged me for this, saying *I* had cracked it, I’m sure.
The only thing I don’t like about Netflix is you need IE to watch the downloadable movies, and I’m not a fan of IE. I’ll stick with my Firefox and just wait for my movies by mail.
I’m another recent convert to Netflix. We had Blockbuster’s Total Advantage, 3-disk package, and we were heavy users of it. We didn’t trade in as many movies in-store as we mailed back, but we did trade some in. Ultimately, three things drove us to netflix:
1.) The whole reason why we like DVD-by-mail is that we don’t have to go into a store, and we don’t have to return to a store! Blockbuster’s “trade-in advantage” required us to do both, which made it less of an advantage. I don’t like the experience of wandering through the store, looking for titles I might want, and having to return the movies or face absurd fees.
2.) The in-store experience has slowly been getting worse. Before, all I could really complain about was poor selection and over-marketing of popcorn and other high-margin items. But over the last six months, I’ve been getting more wrong-DVD-cases, especially when I’m trying to rent a TV series. When the box says “disc 2″ and the disk inside is actually disk 3, that’s bad. When it happens multiple times, it’s worse. But the real prize-winner is when I discover the mistake and return to the store and DON’T get a rental credit unles I raise a stink.
3.) Blockbuster raised our prices, and changed our plan. What was $17.99 (3-at-a-time, unlimited by mail, unlimited exchange in-store) is now almost double that. Since going to the store was never that appealing, and less so now, I’d rather take my business elsewhere. But what really steamed me about the price increase was how it was done. No notice in the store, no mention of it anywhere on the website, just a single email sent along with all the other email notifications of shippments.
Nope. Blockbuster can wither and die and I won’t miss it at all.
Don’t know why anyone has a problem with BB.
I guess the main issue with the problem is at the actual store. How about the mail-service?
I generally just use the mail service even though there is BB within 3 blocks. I rarely go to store, I’m just lazy. But when I do, I do remember to return on time.
I can’t complain about the mail service, just as good as netflix.
I very much doubt that there is no way to reverse a transaction at the POS. Why? Because mistakes happen. I’m not talking about the necessity being able to do nice things for the customer or ambiguous cases. Heck, I actually have an example!
A few months ago, I went to BB to get some movies. I was not paying enough attention to what was going on and ended up walking out of the store with a movie I had not picked up to rent. The clerk had mistakenly (I give him the benefit of the doubt) thought that another movie which was on the counter was part of what we wanted to take out. I noticed the error as we were walking out, went back, said that there was a mistake and did not want that movie. He just reversed the charge for that movie on the spot. No problem.
Here’s the deal: any company will want to have a system which can handle errors like this. My theory is that Salviati dealt with liars or badly trained employees.
I have also submitted a complaint about Blockbuster too. Teresa has taken that email with the garbage that I was fed about blockbuster needing to keep their shareholders happy and to keep the business making money. Yet in the end we get less for our money when they constantly change their subscriptions.
Another very happy Netflix subscriber here. They’re pretty fast about getting movies out to me when I return them, so when I’m going through series discs, I don’t have to be kept in suspense for too long.
The only reason I would switch from Blockbuster to Netflix (potentially) is the ability to download video. Truth is, I can’t sit at my computer watching a video for more than ten minutes. I’d much rather sit on my couch and watch it on my television. I know there are ways to do that, but that would require more time and money to make possible.
I had Netflix for a while before Blockbuster, and my greatest problem is being lazy. If I don’t make it a point to put the movie in the mail when I’m done with it, the next time I want to watch something I’m S.O.L. I suppose Blockbuster caters to people like me more. I know I’m no more than five minutes away from being able to watch something I want (again, while sitting on my couch!)
Sorry, I’m on the boat with Coder4Life… sounds like you got the typical pathetic treatment from Blockbuster, not surprising, but unlike some you deserved every last headache. You are like the customer that finally broke “the customer is always right.”
You can’t expect stellar customer service when you can’t follow basic store policies and instructions. You are an idiot if you took the word of some blockbuster phone monkey about the movies coming back after the 30 days. It’s a nationwide policy – over 30 days, you pay. There are reasons for those policies, and you are the reason.
Your scenarios all sound like this: “Well, you see, I know I’m really at fault, but I’m feeding you some really lame excuses as to why I shouldn’t be held accountable, will that be enough to get me off the hook?”
It’s no wonder they wouldn’t budge on the Wii game exchange, look at their previous 2 experiences with you as a customer. It probably would have gotten him fired, but I would have loved to see the manager take your membership card and run it through the shredder before handing it back to you as he asked you to leave.
Walked into Blockbuster last night for the first time in about five years. I don’t watch many movies, but I wanted to rent a zombie flick and the first season of Lost. Price? $40. Y’know what… I’ll just pass on that. God bless high speed internet.
I’ve been with Netflix for almost three years now and I’ve never had any serious gripes. A few times I have received movies that were cracked or otherwise damaged, and they sent me a new one no questions asked. My only gripe is that you can’t use the Watch Instantly feature on a Mac.
Library for me. Why pay good money for something you can possibly watch about once? I’ll save my money and borrow whatever I want to watch at the local library. The only time I would consider renting is if it is for a movie I HAVE to watch, and that’s never.
Nothing brings me greater joy than to see Blockbuster & Hollywood video die a twisted, horrible death.
I have been using netflix for over a year. The only problem I ever had was solved by customer support in a minute, and the rep was really nice, apologetic, and quick to make amends.
I’ve been a Netflix customer for about a year now, and I’ve never had one complaint with their service. They send a movie, I get it the next day. I send one back, I get a new one in two days. I rarely have to wait for a movie unless it’s older and in high demand (renting Christmas movies around Christmas can be a challenge).
Their selection of independent films is fantastic, and they carry a lot of the unrated versions of films that Lackluster Video refuses to carry. I can even thank their suggestion system for directing me to a number of great movies that I wouldn’t have watched (or, in some cases, even heard of) otherwise.
With the 3-at-a-time plan I pretty much always have something to watch, and in those rare cases where I don’t have a movie in-hand, the Xbox Live Video Marketplace makes an adequate fallback (and if the rumored Netflix set-top-box allows watching their Watch Now movies without an additional fee, even XBL will go unused).
I do live terribly close to my local Blockbuster, but I can’t remember the last time I went there. I don’t even carry the membership card with me anymore. Nice to be able to reclaim a little bit of space in my wallet, what with all the money I’m saving.
Our library has only old movies (circa 1940′s), kid’s movies, and educational movies. So borrowing anything reasonably current from them is a non-starter.
I go to BB maybe twice a year to get the more obscure movie – ones that Redbox wouldn’t have.
Other than that – REDBOX!!! No membership card, no snippy salespeople, $1 + local sales tax per rental, good list of recent releases.
Our Hollywood Video closed about a year ago with no notice. So sad. I still have a $25 gift card to the store and no place to use it!
Salviati,
I used to work for Blockbuster up until about May of 2007 so things may have changed. Im a computer science student so i always had an interest in the computer systems there at work. Anyways, from what I remember the manager of the store had all of the power. Not the computer. I think that the people you encountered were simply unwilling to help. It may have been apathy, but I think its more likely attributed to the pressure they face to keep credit totals low.
Next time someone (who isnt just a CSR) at BB claims “the computer won’t allow it” your BS detector should go off. The manager can add/subtract any amount (s)he pleases(among other things). The question is simply whether or not they want to deal with their superiors on your behalf.
PS The total access fiasco makes me sad
Blockbuster and hollywood video will go out of business because they are expensive and have limited amounts of titles. HEre at the library we just got blu-ray and hd-dvd titles and we have more selection then the local hollywood videos and blockbuster videos.
For online movie rentals, Netflix can’t be beat and I’ve tried both. Total Access was nice for a while when I used it over the summer, but if your business plan can’t afford outliers like me who exchanged every movie for a free in store rental, you shouldn’t have started it. I canceled when the prices went up and the plans changed.
For in-store rentals, if you live near a Family Video: GO THERE. New releases are 2.50 for 5 days, maybe 3 if it’s a very new release. Almost every non new release is either 1.00 or 0.50 per movie. It seems like every time I go there they have a promotion, and I’m forced by a deal to go find another movie to rent. The only problem is that they actually enforce normal late fees. Of course that’s only a problem if you’ve been using Blockbuster for 4 months and then switch back.
@deadgoon: IANAL, but I believe you are mistaken. Movie studios can’t charge a video rental store a “right to rent” fee.
This is a fundamental copyright issue – once you purchase the disc, you can rent it out as part of owning the disc. You can’t broadcast it, charge people to come in and watch it, etc, but you can rent the disc out for non-commercial private viewing. Anyone could start a video or CD rental store out of their own home with their existing collection.
You are correct, though, that video stores used to pay exorbitant prices for their videos – usually around $100 per copy. Studios released their movies at this higher price point, knowing that the only buyers would be rental stores that could recoup a $100/copy investment. Then, once rental demand slacked, studios would re-release the film at a consumer purchase price – around $20.
I don’t believe that this is true any more. Now, there is a lot of competition for shelf space at video stores, therefore studios give huge volume discounts to retail rental stores, hoping that a lot of discs on the shelf will make people think it is a great movie with lots of demand.
Remember that the entire cycle of films has become much shorter. In the past, the theatrical window would be 60-120 days, airline showings and pay cable about 1-2 months after that. Then about 6 months later the video rental, then 4-5 months after that, consumer video. Then, on to regular cable, and finally broadcast after about 2 years – for a total of about 4 years for the cycle to unroll.
Now, the whole cycle has been compressed to under 2 years. Therefore, studios release rental and consumer DVDs at the same time. Usually different versions though – the consumer one will have more crappy deleted scenes, glossier packaging, and even more lame audio commentaries, hence a slightly higher price point.
I’ve been pretty happy with Netflix. They definitely give you the benefit of the doubt concerning disks lost in the mail. I have noticed, like another person above, that if you’re ultra-diligent about watching a DVD and sending it back the same day they will slow the rate they send you movies by 24 hours or so.
I also have some trouble because I live in a huge apartment building with a concierge desk for packages larger than the tiny mailboxes. The Netflix mailer will fit in the box, but only if it’s folded. Most of the time, though, they send it to the front desk so I have to wait for them to sort it even when I know it’s already been delivered. I hope blockbuster stays in buisness, if only to keep the price of Netflix low.
@deadgoon: I wrote a long post just now, then the site erased it. Annoying.
Here is the gist:
You are wrong about the studios charing a ‘right to rent’. They can’t. Rental rights automatically convey with the purchase of a physical product, and movie and music studios have not been able to wrap copyright around this.
In the past, studios released their videos and DVDs at a $100 price point (knowing that only rental companies would buy them), then several months later, at a consumer price point of $30 (then $20, now around $15 retail). Right to rent comes with both of these purchases. Therefore, anyone could start a video rental store with their own movie collection.
Now, however, I believe that this practice has pretty much ended. There is so much competition for shelf space at the video store, that rental companies get huge volume discounts from studios. The studio wants a whole wall of the same title, which tells the consumer “this movie is great, and super popular”.
So I don’t think the economic rationale of your argument holds water. BB is just plain dicking you over by charging you some made up price for the movie.
Damn the delay in posts being updated! Sorry for the double post.
As someone with first had experience with blockbuster as a company their computers are incredibly old. It’s MS Dos based. The most simple things are made more complicated by this system. The employees weren’t lying the system really is that problematic.
I was tempted by the Total Access plan a while back, until they wouldn’t even let me SIGN UP FOR A MEMBERSHIP at my local store. Why? Because I’m a college student with out of state ID. Their “system” won’t accept my ID. Keep in mind, I live in a COLLEGE TOWN where there are probably thousands of kids (who rent movies a lot) with IDs from another state — they are basically turning down all that profit for no good reason. It’s ridiculous.
It costs NINE dollars to rent a game?
iTunes is going to do to Blockbuster what it did to Tower Records.
Like mom and pop record stores, small video stores are going to survive
because they have obscure indie and cult movies, plus you can’t beat
their selection of porn.
Thanks to everyone for your input. I think I will definitely be signing up for Netflix tonight after all of the positive reviews.
Sadly, after writing this article I realized that I’ve paid an average of $9.50 a pop for each of the movies I rented…not quite the deal I expected. (15 mailed, 11 instore, -3 that ended up being sold to me, and $18 for 11 months/$20 this month).
I certainly see my part in the first incident, and didn’t really hold Blockbuster responsible for it. But the way they treated the whole situation just left a bad impression that should have prepared me for the future encounters.
As for the second and third incidents, I totally blame BB for not meeting there end of the bargain. In incident 2, I brought in movie slips with the clear intent of exchanging them for movies. Otherwise, why would I bother to bring them INTO the store. If I just wanted them mailed back I could have put them in my mailbox. The fact that they wouldn’t (or couldn’t) exchange the movies is a problem with their system. I don’t even know what to say about incident 3. They basically refused (or were unable) to adjust at transaction that wasn’t even finished yet – basically voiding one of my coupons. And yes, each time I had trouble, I spoke directly to the managers, not the regular clerk.
@BKPATT – This was not a “the customer is always right” issue. At least not for the last two times. It was a “The customer is NEVER right” for me. The entire reason I chose BB over Netflix in the first place was so that I could make in-store exchanges. If I wanted mail-only movies, Netflix was much cheaper. It didn’t have to be this way, if only Blockbuster would have shown a little courtesy to a customer. And from the other comments in this thread, it sounds like I’m not alone.
@majortom1981: Hollywood video already filed for bankruptcy. It’s only a matter of time the other shoe drops.
Blockbuster = Sucks.
Netflix = Great.
I will never give Blockbuster another cent. They screwed their customers over royally with their late-fee fiasco. They made their money, but pissed off their customers. As soon as their was decent competition, they were doomed. I’ve never had a problem with Netflix. I know they’re not perfect, but they’ve never maliciously ripped me off the way Blockbuster has. I smile just a bit every time I drive past a closed Blockbuster.
Nine freakin’ dollars to rent a game?!? I must be getting old.
@lmbrownmail:
Yes! Redbox! My free year of Netflix is almost up (won in a contest), and we don’t rent enough to justify the monthly recurring charge. Redbox is great, as we use freebie codes from [www.insideredbox.com] and get the first night free. We make sure to get them back in time the next day, so essentially we’re just paying for the gas up to McD’s (and we’re in that area a lot anyway).
Netflix is very good, but like I said, we don’t rent enough. They’ve got some of the older, more obscure titles, but we mostly watch the new releases anyway.
Judging by the comments here, it looks like
Netflix – 934,501
Blockbuster – 0
I think it’s a blowout.
@harshmellow: Well, not exactly.
More like Netflix – 934,501 Blockbuster – 0 and Redbox – 2.
I’ve thought about Redbox, but ultimately it doesn’t interest me because sometimes I really do want to rent a movie from 1950 and Redbox will only offer me ‘Suberbad.’ And Redbox doesn’t do TV shows on DVD.
I hate Lackluster Video and had my own story to tell. It’s one of those “For the want of a nail” tales. Excuse the length.
I go into a store and pick up three films, all marked for a week but you only get for six days (that’s for another rant). At the counter, the minimum wager says, “This movie is only for 2 days”. I point out that the staff marked it, not me, but he was too dim to grasp that, so I said I’d take only the two others. The idiot had the temerity to say, “You have to rent all three.”
I ask the store manager to come over and I explained what the McJobber said. The manager said, “The clerk can handle it, I don’t need to deal with this.” Wrong. I left the store sans movies and a few days later called the district mangager. She says, “The store manager can deal with it, not me,” and the store manager calls back all apologetic. Too late. I call the regional mangager, explaining how both sloughed off the chance to answer why, and her response? “I’m too busy, they can deal with it.” So I wrote to the head office of Lackluster containing their emails and descriptions of calls. Did they address it? Nope. Silence, and then a few books of coupons for free movies.
All that any of them had to do was say, “Sorry, he/she/we made a mistake.” The store manager failed to take responsibility, then the district manager failed to take responsibility, then the regional manager, then the head office.
Nobody responded until after their screw up was reported, and nobody had the courtesy to reply after they were asked the first time; maybe it would have made a difference if I had used the George Carlin seven words or been angry, I don’t know. But I never used the coupons and stopped renting from Lackluster, and I let them know it.
—–
Normally I don’t plug companies and I’m not now, but I notice that no one here talks about Video Update. Where I lived once had all three of Lackluster, Hollywood and Video Update. VU had the least nice building, but the best and most lenient rental policy and prices. Their selection wasn’t as good as Hollywood’s (maybe that’s changed) but better than Lackluster’s.
Another really good point was (maybe that’s changed as well) was their outspoken policy of not demanding movie distributors or companies censor the films; they only showed uncut versions.
Blockbuster can survive. They just need someone with a ‘vision’ to move in and straighten them out. They have the people/locations/dvds – they just need someone to sit them down and say ‘THIS IS HOW WE ARE GOING TO DO THINGS…’.
9 BUCKS FOR A VIDEO GAME RENTAL?!!? bwahahahahah! I gave up my Total Access subscription back when they started limiting the amount of exchanges you could have. So glad that I did. Nowadays I just use Redbox when I want to rent. Most times I can find a code for a free movie – if not, it’s only a $1. So long Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. It was nice knowing you.
@snoop-blog: Prices can differ from McDonalds to McDonalds, usually by geographical location. I say this b/c your complaint was that some stores have different prices.
@meiran: Ever try the IE tab extension for Firefox? It basically runs IE behind Firefox. I use it for Outlook Web Access, since it has a different look and feel outside of IE. I highly recommend it.
first of all, the first incident was due to circumstances that you were totally in control of, if your wife could have returned the videos before the cutoff date, why didn’t you have her do it?
second, the blockbuster envelopes really are property of Blockbuster, if i worked there and saw envelopes sitting there unattended, i might have taken them and checked them in, is Blockbuster really responsible for your wife setting the envelopes down and leaving them there?
third, i’ve been with Total Access since June of 2007 and even i know you can’t exchange a mailer envelope for a game, they are good for a free movie, but games are $4.99 with a mailer…
i’m not trying to defend BB, because i didn’t enjoy it when they upped my subscription rate $2, but you’re complaints with BB don’t seem to cut the mustard…
I don’t know where my first comment went, but I have also sent a complaint to The Consumerist to investigate as well. I used to be a longtime Blockbuster customer and at first, Blockbuster had a great deal with their online rentals through the mail and it was cheap. Now they have raised the prices for unlimited exchanges and dropped the amount of dvd’s out at a time for the cheapest plan to 21.99$ for 1 dvd out at a time with unlimited in store exchanges. Yet they wait 2 to 3 days later after they receive a dvd to send you another one. Blockbuster has turned into a bad place to rent from after these experiences, in which I will never return to them. They also angered me when I changed my plan online and it didn’t update so I had to be stuck with 3 exchanges a month in store when I had changed it to an unlimited plan. Their system had a problem and yet it wasn’t there problem, it was mine.
I remember when I first moved to Colonial Heights… We rented from the Blockbuster there. I was in college and working graveyard shifts so we would watch the show that night and on the way to work at 11:30pm I would drop off the movies.
I went in a couple weeks later and was told I owed a late fee and would I like to pay it now? I couldnt figure out what is was for. They told me a movie I had rented was turned in late and I owed the fee. Well being as I only actually rented for 6 hours max I told them no thanks on the fee and if it was a problem I would just go to Movie Time across the street. No problem dont worry about the fee and I rented my movies.
cue 2 months later I get an odd collection call from a very nasty woman named “Ruth” who wants 14$ in payments owed to a Blockbuster in Colonial Heights VA or I would be reported to a credit agency. Being a right fun person I went to pay them right away: I got a zip lock freezer bag and $14 in pennies. When I popped them on the cashier’s desk she ‘waived the fees’
Good stuff and I have never been back.