Well since they aren't raking in dough from the mail-in-movie service like Netflix how else are they going to make money?

So they weren't "prohibited" from overcharging before? I don't get why not...

What ever happened to their "no late fees" false advertising?

And I'm going to guess they overcharged way more than $300,000, so it was still a good (read "profitable") business decision.

More than likely this is just the faults of the stores not doing their jobs. Corporate likes to send out 300+ price changes weekly. And its probably from movies beeing hidden or lazy employees not finishing their task of finding the movie and repricing it.

In normal retail its easy to see if a coke is placed in a pepsi cooler.
At blockbuster unless you take your time its hard to find Save the last dance in with Center Stage for sale.

@xredgambit: But, it's their job, and whenever I walk into a Blockbuster the employees look pretty bored.

Fuck Blockbuster.

I don't think this is what Joe The (unlicensed) Plumber had in mind when he was arguing with some presidential candidate regarding "redistribution of wealth".

@xredgambit: Sounds like it's mis-tagged items from markdowns/markups. Happens frequently in retail, though it's usually in the customer's favor (items that ring up cheaper than they're marked). If the opposite is happening they're something wrong besides simple missed markdowns. Either regular price items are being accidentally tagged or employees are changing prices at the till.

Whichever way it happens, California's the state that'll really get you on it. Sometimes I think my company would make more money if we actually closed our Cali doors...

I give it maximum 5 years before Blockbuster shuts all of its doors.

Has anyone noticed how all these lawsuits happen in california?

@komodork: This kind of stuff happens in every state, it's California's unusually stringent consumer-protection laws which enable "all these lawsuits", as you say.

There are also an insane amount of labor-related suits, for the same reason.

hurry up and file bk already, won't 'ya?

@ceriphim: Which makes one wonder if increased regulation of business is really a good idea after all.

I'd bet anything Obama & co would love to get California style rules adopted at the federal level.

So weird that this story would be on here tonight...

My wife and I just went to Blockbuster tonight (someone gave her a gift card for her birthday) and rented, among others, Jim Gaffigan's Beyond the Pale. Technically, this is a Blockbuster favorite and should be 1.99 per rental, but it didn't have the sticker on it which meant it should be a .99 rental.

Sure enough, I was overcharged at the register. As I was standing there, she put a new Blockbuster Favorites sticker on the box between me paying and giving me back the DVD. I asked if she just put that sticker on and she replied that she did. I checked my receipt and it said that I paid the extra dollar. I opened my mouth to complain, saw the employee's I-don't-get-paid-enough-to-give-a-shit facial expression, and, after a few seconds of deliberation, chose to leave. I figured it was better not to waste a good rage on a place like Blockbuster.

Thank you, Blockbuster, for inspiring me to finally get the Roku player and a Netflix subscription.

It's no wonder they screw up if my Blockbuster is any indication. On this table we have 4 used DVD's for $20.

On this table, we have 3 used DVD's for $20.

And on this table we have 2 DVD's for $20 dollars. The difference?

Who the hell knows and who the hell cares but these and concessions were the stuff they were overcharging on.

@paulrules:
Step 1: Charge more than you advertise
Step 2: Pay $300,000 in legal charges
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit?

@ceriphim: Or, y'know, stop ripping off your customers living in the other 49 states.

@clyde55: Well, if they go under, who the hell else am I going to buy cheap candy for $3.00 from?

@dragonfire81: I know.
Wish it was back to the good ol' days when companies could rip off consumers with impunity. Even angle for getting a Presidential Medal of Freedom!

@rambow681:
I haven't recieved a late fee yet. I have blockbuster online and return the movies for blu-ray's in store. I have had in store movies for 3 weeks with no late fees, since they started this promotion.

Although this little no late fees thing is actually a disguise to hide the fact that you aren't getting as many movies as before. I used to be able to get 6+ rentals a week, which was a combination of in store and online rentals. Now its down to 3 a week. BB online no longer ships on saturdays, and they don't send you a new one out until your in store rental is returned.

If I had faster internet the netflix $8.99 plan and red box would be a better option for me.

@clyde55:

It has to do with the price that they're trying to sell the movie individually.
If you look more closely, you'll see that (generally) the 2 for $20 are normally $14.99 each, the 3 for $20 are $9.99 each and the 4 for $20 are $7.99 each.

I buy pretty much all my movies at Blockbuster; they're mucher cheaper than buying new, and they have a decent return policy if there's a problem with the disc. (As long as you keep the recepit; but, I've only had an issue with a disc once so it wasn't a big deal)

Hey, someone has to pay for the losses due to Netflix, and for all the expense shit Tori Spelling needs.

@gyroball: $3 candy is cheap?! I hope you're joking.

Wait. Don't people look at their receipts BEFORE paying? If I go to a store to buy a movie, video game, game console I'm going to make sure I know the price of the item BEFORE I pay for it.

If the item has a sticker on it of $299.99 and the register rings up $399.99 and I didn't ask for a warranty or service plan, then I'm going to say "WTF? What is it $100 MORE than it should be?"

Come on people, use some f-ing common sense. So many people today can't add, subtract, multiply or divide on the fly. They don't think for themselves. They feel thay OWN the damn road and everyone should obey THEIR driving rules. They don't think they need to take responsibility for their kids in public places. These morons are the reason we have become a sue-happy, blame-someone-else society.

WAKE THE F UP PEOPLE!!!

@rambow681: There was a settlement. You got a whole huge roll of coupons.

@dragonfire81: Yes, California's doing so poorly it's the world's 8th-largest economy, slightly larger than Canada's, producing 13% of the US's GDP with only 11.5% of its population ....

All that regulation is really stifling the crap out of California's economy!

Netflix FTW, I'm just saying...is anyone still using Blockbuster?

@dragonfire81: "I'd bet anything Obama & co would love to get California style rules adopted at the federal level."

So would I. I don't like getting ripped off if it can be helped.

I know Netflix is really popular, and so is redbox.

However, my wife and I had to take a good hard look at our budget recently, and movie rental was one of the first casualties. We tape things off (free) TV with a VCR, visit our library (which combines with all libraries in 4 counties online to offer quite a good selection), or, sometimes, decide we just don't need to watch anything.

Are there any other people out there shedding luxuries like movie rental (and cable TV, trips to the theater, $5 lattes, etc etc)? I know BB sucks, but is it possible the demand for movies is shrinking regardless of business practices?

@takes_so_little:
I'm not sure if movie rentals are considered a luxury, in fact to a lot of folks they are probably a cheap alternative to more expensive luxuries.

It seems like Netflix is doing good business these days. I'd rather pay $10 a month to watch a bunch of movies at home, rather than $10 bucks a pop per person to go to the theater, I'd imagine a lot of people feel the same way.

@takes_so_little: All of the above. Lattes have been out for over a year, cable since Xmas, theater moreso because of rude patrons ruining the experience than cost, and movie rentals have made way for downloading by bittorrent. I'll panhandle before I give up my Internet! :)

@takes_so_little: I'm sitting at my desk with my $4 latte, a ticket stub from my second viewing of Star Trek, and I'm browsing the newest releases at the local Redbox kiosk...so in my case, I'm not skimming. The only reason I don't cable right now is that I'm moving. As soon as I get into my new place, I'll get cable (documentaries and sports don't stream online much at all, and if it does, it's not very good quality).

The only media-related luxury I shed was Netflix, which has reduced my expense from $9 to nothing (when I have a Redbox code or don't rent) or $1 (when I don't have a Redbox code). We've cut from other areas, like dining out and buying clothes. We still buy clothes of the same quality as before, but we wait until there are really good sales, and we wait until we get coupons in the mail.

It's been a long time coming for us, though. We rarely go to the theater (we've seen four movies in theaters this year, and they were deliberate decisions, not "we're bored, lets go see a movie"...and whichever couple picks the movie pays for everyone), we rent very little (we tend to watch more TV), and we only buy movies that we know we'll enjoy, and even then we wait for a sale (the most we'll pay for a new release Blu-ray is $25).

I still have a Blockbuster card, but I haven't been there for ages. I barely have time to watch my Netflix rentals. Sometimes I drive by the BB and go, "??? They're still open?"

What about being charge for a movie that your return, even though Blockbuster claims it wasnt? Now, I used to work at Blockbuster so, there was a lot of lazy employees, and yes I was one of them. So there was a lot of times where the movie didnt get "checked in".

There was also this scam where one of the workers would "check in" the movies, and another friend, who was in on it, would "rent"(meaning the worker would "check" them out) the same Movie, so in turn getting a movie for free.

Lackluster lives down to its name again.

I didn't encounter assholes trying to charge me extra fees at the times of rental, but I did get liars trying to claim several times that I returned movies late. I have the receipt in hand or at home of the date I rented it, and yet they try to claim I borrowed it before the date on the receipt.

It's people like that which make me feel no qualms about telling them to fuck themselves. If it weren't for the fact that they're the only game in town (no more Video Update) and I still want to rent movies occasionally, I'd tell them to get stuffed.

What is this "Blockbuster" of which you speak?

My rented DVDs arrive in the mail every day at noon courtesy of the Netflix Fairy.

@gyroball: Okay, that's just getting old now.

@takes_so_little: I don't have cable. I pay $10/month for NetFlix's 1-disc service (it's all I have time for, anyway) and utilize their Watch Now a lot (they have Star Trek: TOS right now woooo!), and I use RedBox a few times a month. Let's say RedBox totals maybe $5/month (I return them on time). So that's $15/month. I'd say I am getting a deal. Especially when you add in Hulu and torrents.

@nakedscience: Forgot to mention Hulu in my original statement, that's great.

I guess I have to say that, for me, a luxury is anything I could live happily without. So movies are a luxury in whatever form. Books are not (subjective, I know).

Has a former Blockbuster employee I'll shed some light on what happens quite a bit.

Blockbuster home office likes to send out a list with about300 items on it that need to be changed. Generally they are price reductions, but sometimes it's items coming off sells or specials and are going back up. They are always trying to come out with some new special on certain movies.

With them cutting man hours in most stores, it can be very easy to fall behind in changing those price tags. The prices are auto changed in the computer, we just have to manually change all the stickers.

Also, do you have any idea how many people tell us 'I returned that movie' or ' I returned that movie last week'? 90% they did not. It's either in their car, their kids car, their boyfriends car, at home, they returned it to another store(not even a blockbuster). Yes, sometimes we made mistakes, we're human and we're using an old system .

Good, i don't feel bad about buying a used Little Big Planet that had the wrong barcode/tag for $14.99 from there.

@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): Ah. . .you do realize that California was operating for months with no budget because the politicians couldn't stop arguing? And we're still billions of dollars in the hole, with state workers taking mandatory days off, libraries and parks closing a few days a month, and teachers being laid off? Oh, and the state government is looking for federal bailout money. We may also be one of the first states to reach 10% unemployment. AND there was an earthquake in LA this past weekend AND Southern California is in the middle of a 3-year long drought.

okay, so those last two aren't relevant : )

But yeah, California is not in really good shape right now. . .

@dragonfire81:
...

In this case I'd say increase regulation is good, because Blockbuster obviously isn't policing themselves.

They probably netted way more than 300K from this scam, rendering the fine completely pointless.

@ceriphim: You can't change the retail prices at the till. Unless they are using a futuristic system in Cali.
Blockbuster mostly had price markdowns, but sometimes they would have the markups. I'm not sure on the specifics of their situation there. Plus I stopped working there a year ago, but unless you see some random positive number on the receipt then they adjusted something.