Ian was annoyed. He sent us this photo while on hold with Redbox to complain. “Some jerk replaced the disk in the case with a paper photocopy so the return code could still be read,” he wrote. Well, that’s an evil trick. And not foolproof: Redbox knows who had their discs out at any given time, and also happens to have their credit card numbers. Once Ian got through, he explained what happened, and also how Redbox tried to make this up to him.

I ended up waiting at the McDonalds around 20 minutes for someone to answer the phone, and they gave me three free rental codes (worth $1.20 each, note the game rentals are $2.00/night) to make up for it. I ended up trying to rent Black Ops II again at the same Redbox location, and the second disk had also been replaced by paper! The third and last disk in the machine, however, ended up being fine.

So I called the next day as well and got three more free codes for the second disk. So it definitely appears as if someone was trying to defraud Redbox of multiple copies of the game, possibly with a stolen credit card as well because every time you rent a disk, you need to swipe a credit card. I ended up paying a total of around $3.60 and got the game rental and four remaining rental codes which expire in 45 days, which is not a bad deal overall for me. This appears to be their standard operating procedure, as I have had issues with scratched DVDs and when I called they did the same thing. I’m satisfied with their response, and it’s unfortunate that someone is trying to take advantage of Redbox.

At least it’s obvious right off the bat when you get a photocopied fake disc as opposed to just a scratched one, so you can call before getting your heart set on playing the game or watching the film and traveling all the way home.

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