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Blockbuster Total Access Unannounced Policy Change
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Mar 14, 2009 05:26 PM
from the bricks-and-mortar-and-chains dept.
from the bricks-and-mortar-and-chains dept.
NuclearCodeMonkey writes "Blockbuster Total Access has changed the terms of its user agreement without notice to users. Previously, users could return online (mailed) rentals in-store for free rentals. The next set of online rentals was immediately mailed out. Now, without notice, they have changed their policy so that the in-store free exchanges count against you, and no more online rentals are mailed out until the in-store rentals are returned. No wonder they are closing stores and losing to Netflix! Needless to say I am canceling my account in protest."
Update - 3/15 at 11:55 by SS: NuclearCodeMonkey has sent new information about an email from Blockbuster which clarifies the situation. Read on for his follow-up.
NuclearCodeMonkey writes
"A second email from Blockbuster Support admitted that a change in policy had taken place (the first didn't acknowledge it). And they stated I should have received a notice: 'We have updated your "Terms and Conditions" with regards to in-store exchanges. A week before March 2, 2009, notifications for this new policy was added as banners on the top of your queue page, announcements were also posted at your local Blockbuster store, and we have sent out emails to inform customers about the new change.' I did not see any of the aforementioned notices and I have double-checked and did not receive any email. At least one commenter did indicate he had received an email. So, maybe an announced change after all and I just got missed? I wouldn't want to mislead anyone."
"A second email from Blockbuster Support admitted that a change in policy had taken place (the first didn't acknowledge it). And they stated I should have received a notice: 'We have updated your "Terms and Conditions" with regards to in-store exchanges. A week before March 2, 2009, notifications for this new policy was added as banners on the top of your queue page, announcements were also posted at your local Blockbuster store, and we have sent out emails to inform customers about the new change.' I did not see any of the aforementioned notices and I have double-checked and did not receive any email. At least one commenter did indicate he had received an email. So, maybe an announced change after all and I just got missed? I wouldn't want to mislead anyone."
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It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Seems reasonable to me, too. Here in the UK, you can't return your mail-out DVDs to a store, anyway. Mind you, their main rival LOVEFilM is just the same, since they have no physical stores for you to return the DVDs to. Netflix hasn't made it to the UK, yes, and they'd have a hard time against LOVEFiLM if they did; aside from a few customer service issues (not to gloss over that...) they're doing pretty well...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This may be out of date. I hope it is, since my favorite is Sainsbury's. I'm very concerned after seeing the Sainsbury's web site has a "finance" section. Either food has gotten VERY expensive in the UK, or Sainsbury's is getting involved in financial services. Both possibilities are unsettling.
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a loophole, it was calculated to get you into the store where they could sell new movies, used movies, new and used games, and consumer electronics (because that's never a desperate move to start selling CE stuff).
The fact that this didn't work out well enough is why they are stopping, but it wasn't a loophole. They used to advertise the fact.
Now the fact that Blockbuster has been dead for at lest 6 years and just doesn't realize it yet is kind of sad. But then again I lost what little respect I had left for them years ago, and they've only managed to baffle me with some of their stupid decisions since.
The ONLY reason I have left to go into BB is to rent games, but it's so expensive and such a pain, I only do it about once or twice a year max. With GameFly possibly opening RedBox style kiosks, I may never need to go in again.
Not that I've heard great things about GameFly. But soon digital distribution will make renting console games irrelevant anyway.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Dead?
I just read that Blockbuster is one of the few companies experiencing growth in profit. Apparently during a recession, when people are cutting costs, they spend more time at home watching rented videos.
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not a sign of a healthy business, it just means they are in the right place at the right time. Look at the last few years, they've been diving.
Any failing business could raise profits by hiking prices. The problem is that it only works for a short while. Once customers notice and stop shopping, profits dive faster than before.
One quarter of growth doesn't mean they are in good shape.
Parent
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not a sign of a healthy business, it just means they are in the right place at the right time. Look at the last few years, they've been diving.
Being in the right place at the right time can mean the difference between enormous, lucrative success, and trillions in profits, VERSUS bankruptcy, complete and utter failure, or years of languishing, before even breaking even.
Imagine, if you will, Linux and Gnome in its current form had hit the marketplace, and become widely available, before MS Windows 3.1 had emerged.
The opportunity for success, before the Windows hegemony had been firmly in place, would have been much wider.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but Blockbuster has been dying for years. I don't think this will be anything but a (very) temporary reprieve. If they can't turn themselves around, I'll be quite impressed, I wrote them off years ago.
But I doubt it will happen.
This isn't "we've been struggling but we suddenly our market found us", this is "we've been struggling for years and now we can remind people why they abandoned us the first time".
Well...dying, not dead yet! (Score:5, Interesting)
Blockbuster Said to Hire Firm for Bankruptcy Advice [bloomberg.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The people who study businesses and evaluate their potential upside have clearly signaled that Blockbuster is dying. Their share price [google.com] has dropped 96% since 2004, whereas Netflix has increased 20% in the same time period.
That's not to say that Blockbuster will go out of business anytime soon, but it does imply that over the past five years their business has been contracting rather than growing.
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh? How big is your hard drive? BD-ROM's can hold 50GB, and even if they aren't full you aren't going to want to download and install too many of those suckers on your hard drive. You could also forget about having a large game library. In fact, if your ISP has a low bandwidth cap you simply wouldn't be able to download them. That's not to say that digital distribution doesn't have a place for "little games"
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of CD's/DVD's/BD-ROM's
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. But it's not reasonable to do this without notice. Kind of like Facebook with their third interface "upgrade" (I say this loosely).
After a while, people stop using the service. I know I've stopped using Facebook.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Informative)
I am a suscriber, and so far this year, other than confirmation they they have received my returned movies and have sent new movies, I have received a total of 6 emails from them. All 6 of those are ads telling me to add certain movies to my list. This article on slashdot is the first I've heard of this change to my plan. Regardless of my feelings for the change itself (which I do find a bit annoying), the lack of notice really irritates me.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?
They did no such thing. They just said 'hey, slow down' as he was doing the equivalent of Homer just lifting out the serving bowls, rather than taking a plate at a time. No-one said he couldn't eat as much as he wanted, just off the plate, so other people could get more, not just wheelbarrowing the serving bowls st
Re:One spoiled idiot from the crappiest generation (Score:4, Informative)
They marketed the contract by talking about how you could get movies from the store for free by returning your mail-in movies. That was part of the deal. They've changed the terms after the fact. There is no "entitlement mentality" in this. Blockbuster is providing less service for the same price. That's definitely a "negative impact."
The obvious solution is to walk away from Blockbuster. That's what you do when the other party doesn't live up to their obligations.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I've been on the Blockbuster plan for years, and I love it! I've never been "throttled" like people on Netflix were, either.
No wonder they are closing stores and losing to Netflix! Needless to say I am canceling my account in protest.
Well that makes sense, I guess with Netflix you can take home as many DVDs from the store as you want! Uhhh... wait, what? Netflix doesn't have any stores? Well... um... so how is it better, again?
Actually, I don't have the "Total Access" plan. That's what I used to have, but then they went up on the price so I canceled. Well they immediately contacted me (I guess they figured I
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Informative)
Do in-store exchanges count towards my BLOCKBUSTER Online® membership plan? [custhelp.com]
On a linked page they have another answer that completely contradicts the answer linked in the article.
Do in-store exchanges count towards my BLOCKBUSTER Online® membership plan?
Free in-store movie rentals are in addition to the number of DVDs allowed out by your BLOCKBUSTER Online® membership plan.
one says they count against you, one says they dont and are an additional perk. They cant decide apparently. Im glad I have netflix instead.
Parent
Re:It sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Free in-store rentals are handled differently from in-store exchanges.
You get x number of free rentals per month from the store. You are able to return your mailed movies for instant exchange, which does not count towards those free in-store rentals and they would immediately begin mailing your next movies. However, now they have changed that procedure somewhat, so that when you exchange your mailed dvd's you must return those before the next movies will be mailed to you. Its got nothing whatsoever to do with your free in-store rentals.
I am not a customer nor an employee, but my mother has the service and she enjoys it alot.
Parent
!news (Score:2)
Blockbuster has been dead for a while. The only thing they had going for them was their physical presence for those with slow internet or those who like brick and mortar stores. Now they've killed the interaction between the two and alienated those who will now go to Netflix (likely) and those who see themselves as being screwed and will go to Hollywood Video and other rental stores. This wouldn't have been such a shot in the foot if they had given notice to users, but now they haven't and costumers are goi
Re: (Score:2)
All the B&M stores are horrible overpriced. Hollywood video charges $9 for PS3, 360 games, its insane when the rental charge is close to 20% of the retail cost of the game.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. Last time I went to a Hollywood Video store specifically was some years ago when at the time Blockbuster was costing ~$5 for a video game rental while Hollywood Video was around $3. I don't see prices on their website (of course), but if it really is $9 for a video game for 5 days then that's insane.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazing isn't it? When I first moved here about 10 years ago you could rent games from Blockbuster for like $4, the same as movies. They've hiked the prices at least 2 or 3 times since then, and game rentals are now quite expensive. Combine that with their moronic selection (we'll buy 2 copies of some great game, and 300 of The Matrix game, even after we haven't been able to rent the last 300 out) and they're terrible.
They have made it convenient to just buy games I want to play and sell them back to GameS
I am a bit confused (Score:5, Insightful)
So before you would turn in an online rental and get a new in-store rental AND be sent a new online rental DVD as well? So lets say I had a 2 at a time plan... I turn in one, get an in-store rental and a new online one sent as well.. I then turn in my new online one and get another in-store rental and have a new online one sent.. so I now have 2 in-store rentals and 2 online.. rinse and repeat and I can have infinite in-store rentals?
This makes no sense. It also makes no sense to expect this. Please tell me I am missing something.
Re:I am a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
Oh well, over to Netflix. The in-store exchange was the only thing BB had over them anyway.
Parent
BBI Stock drops last week (Score:2)
Check out [google.com] what their stock did last week. It went from $1.00 to $0.22 in a single day - of course it rebounded back 'up' to 50-60 cent range a few days later.
Does not bode well for the company.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That was on news that they were going to announce bankruptcy. It didn't happen, but the market took it seriously.
The market took it seriously because everyone knows that BB has been in deep trouble for years (see recent Circuit City / BB talks last year) and many expect them to go bankrupt any time now.
Huh? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If I get a sudden urge to watch a particular film It's usually on VOD or XBox Live Marketplace.
Even sudden urges are going the way of the dodo.
ZIP.ca (Score:2, Interesting)
A bit off-topic for our american friends, but any Canadian care to comment about the quality and speed of the service from ZIP.ca [www.zip.ca]?
Re: (Score:2)
I've only just heard of it now. I'll have to give them a try.
I usually get my movies from the library. Same with games.
Re: (Score:2)
What about the shipping speed? I can't seem to find anything about it on their website. Are they using Xpresspost or something slower?
Re: (Score:2)
Never mind, all these infos are on the "Service Guarantee" page (which is a weird place to put such information IMHO).
No late fees (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm confused (Score:5, Funny)
They don't want to be in business. (Score:5, Insightful)
Long ago, I used to rent from maybe a couple times a month. One day a roommate grabbed my card and rented a couple movies with it. He returned them late; the late fee was something like $20. I wasn't aware of this, and obviously, they didn't check ID; fine, okay, whatever. The next time I went to rent from them, it was at a store in a different city; I'd moved. They wouldn't rent to me because I hadn't paid the fee. I told them I'd pay now. They said they couldn't take the payment for another store. I called the original store to pay with a credit card; no, they couldn't do that either. I had to physically pay, in cash, at the original store, for their mistake, or I couldn't rent from Blockbuster again. That was something like ten years ago, and I've never given them another dollar. Stupid companies like that can't survive in an open market. What do they think they are, a telco?
Dude... (Score:5, Interesting)
My account isn't even active anymore and I got like 3 emails about this change. You really received no notice? I'm not disputing the policy change (which sucks), just the notice..
Not a Blockbuster (the Article, that is) (Score:4, Insightful)
Why did this submission from an oh-the-world-owes-me-a-livin' whiner make it to the front page? The change in policy could be argued as perfectly reasonable - assuming it's even really a change in policy - whether this person happens to approve or not. Clearly he feels some sense of entitlement; whether he had a right to feel entitled is another matter. In any case he's doing the right thing by voting with his dollar, but why is this such a blockbuster that he has to shout about it?
Re:Not a Blockbuster (the Article, that is) (Score:5, Funny)
Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 14, @06:26PM
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They used to run TV adverts selling this as a primary feature of their subscription service.
To me that suggests it's not reasonable to change it without prior notice.
keep taking away (Score:2, Insightful)
Netflix is not much better (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Netflix is not much better (Score:5, Interesting)
For some reason my movies are only mailed to me promptly if I am a new customer. Otherwise it could be that they get a movie back from me on Friday, but don't mail new one till Monday.
Netflix has been caught "throttling", that is delaying new movies for heavy users. But they lost a big lawsuit about that some time back, and I can't imagine them risking the loss of another. More likely you're just ordering a lot of popular movies. Your perception that things speed up again after you open a new account is probably one of those things that doesn't stand up when you track it carefully.
I have to say that I don't really see anything wrong with throttling, as long as they're honest about it. (They pretended they weren't doing it, hence the lawsuit.) It must cost over a dollar to put a disc through the mail/return/restock cycle. (Postage alone would be about 65 cents, counting the extra charge for prepaid return.) Suppose you have a $14 2-at-a-time membership, like me. When I'm in my worst video droid mode I can run through 10 discs a month, and they barely break even on me. (Lucky for them, I sometimes read a book, watch broadcast TV, or even get out of the house.) If I really watched a lot of videos (or ripped them to disc for later viewing), they'd be losing money off me.
So throttling isn't evil, it's just economics. Dishonestly pretending you don't throttle when you really do is another matter.
Parent
Blockbuster needs to fail (Score:2)
They probably figured (Score:2, Funny)
that a story on Slashdot's front page was announcement enough. And that the notice would spread faster this way, with more people likely to read it.
Brick & Mortar Video / Dead & Buried (Score:4, Interesting)
My Wife would leave me and take the kids if I ever took away the Roku. Almost every show the kids watch on Disney is available for free plus almost ten thousand other movies. Amazon now rents movies on the Roku and I'm sure all of the other movies will be available very soon. PLUS! (No. I don't work for Roku or Netflix) We can take the Roku anywhere in the world with internet access and a TV and I can view anything in my queue.
Enough Said.
old news (Score:4, Informative)
BlockBuster Goes Bust..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Blockbuster *IS* corrupt. I used to work for them, and know firsthand the slimy tactics used.....
The part that really pissed me off was when I worked 21 days in a row, and was told that I'd be getting overtime for every additional 7 days I worked. Overtime was every seven days: Regular time the first 7 days, then 1.5x the next, then 2x, and so on. The store manager kept calling me in, and told me that I would get overtime on this schedule.
When I went to collect my overtime pay, the DM said "It doesn't matter what you manager told you, we're only gonna pay you what we are required to under CA law", and paid me $111.00 for overtime.
When I called to explain this, the DM got really snotty. I told him I was now in a big financial spot since I had just paid for a brand-new M1A-1 semiautomatic rifle (which was followed by an awkward silence). He than just gave a smarmy reply and said he had to go.
Not only that, they still claim I owe them money for 3 movies I returned, but they lost, and I have to explain this to the collection company that keeps sending me letters.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have the same feelings. Blockbuster also had a habit of losing my membership, forcing me to fill out their silly form multiple times. I complained and it took three months (!) to get a reply to my complaint. By that time I had given up on it forever.
They don't deserve to be in business IMHO.