Brian signed up for Blockbuster Total Access, which lets you rent movies by mail and return them in store.

Problem was, Brian says Blockbuster didn’t send him the next movies in his queue once he returned his others to a store, and wasn’t quick about resolving the problem, as Brian details in his message to us:

I have spent nearly the past two weeks trying to get Blockbuster to send me any movies that are on my Blockbuster Total Access account after I returned my previous three to my store. However it seems that they are incompetent on trying to resolve any issues let alone even sending me the “free” in-store rentals that I’ve been promised by their customer representatives over the phone. Here is my detailed time line.

Thursday August 6th: Stopped by the (redacted) location to drop off my three online rentals. Rented out a Blu-Ray title at the time as well as my plan includes five in-store rentals. Get home and see said movies are “returned” but the status on the return doesn’t show the date of return since they are being mailed from the Northtown location to whatever location they originate from.

Friday August 7th: Nothing shipped out yet. Assumed they might not of been able to get my next movies sent out so I decide to sit through the weekend on the issue. No big deal yet.

Monday August 10th: Still nothing. Decide to wait until Tuesday to see if anything happens.

Tuesday August 11th: The returned rentals today show they are officially “returned.” Still nothing sent but I decide to give it one more day to see if anything is sent.

Wednesday August 12th: Call Blockbuster after again nothing has been sent. Woman on phone says she will send a message to their IT support on the matter and I will get in-store free rentals due to this. I simply write this off as a simple technology issue and move on. However none of the free rental coupons show up.

Friday August 14th: Two days later and still nothing sent. I call again. Man I get says he will send message to the distribution center in my area and once again I am promised free in-store rental coupons. He says I will have them “within the hour.” Did I get them? Nope. But I did get an e-mail from Blockbuster telling me what new releases I
can rent that weekend. Returned Blu-Ray rental to store.

Monday August 17th: At 10 AM CST an e-mail showed up in my box saying a movie has just shipped out. Happy to put this issue to bed. At 10:15 AM CST however the issue worsened. A second copy of the same exact title had shipped out. At first I thought maybe somehow my ISP didn’t delete the e-mail off the server the first time I got it so I checked my account. Nope… I indeed have two copies of the same title on the way.

Call Blockbuster at 1 PM since I had other things going on. Get told that two different distribution centers had sent out the title and there was nothing that can be done at this point. Told I can return one of the copies to an store and have it exchanged for an free in-store rental. Brought up that I never even got the promised in-store rental coupons. Woman argued with me for over five minutes before she finally realized I wasn’t about to drop the issue. She then in a very unprofessional tone told me that she would resend them to me and that I should be happy she is doing that for me.

When Brian called to cancel his account, the CSR fixed the issue, attributing Brian’s problems to a reorganization in his local distribution center. He sent Brian the e-coupons and credited $9.99 toward his September payment.

Boy, those cancellation threats can sure move things along.

(Photo: FleaTheMagician)

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