No More No More Late Fees At Some Blockbusters
from the these-aren't-the-late-fees-you-thought-they-were dept
Almost exactly a year ago, Blockbuster announced to the world that it was ditching late fees in an attempt to compete against the growing Netflix challenge. The fine print (there's always fine print) got some people upset, however. While there weren't "late fees" exactly, they would charge you the full price of the movie if you didn't return it by a certain date. Perhaps Blockbuster should have named it the "easy rent-to-buy purchase program." Anyway, some states sued and won some cash from Blockbuster for being misleading. However, that apparently didn't stop the marketing campaign trumpeting "No More Late Fees," even though the settlement suggested they would stay away from that phrase. Yesterday, there was some buzz after some Blockbuster stores quietly started charging late fees again, claiming that without late fees, their inventory management got all screwed up (the popular movies were never in stock). Blockbuster has quickly jumped up to claim that it's not a chain wide policy, and only a few independent franchises have chosen to go this route. Either way, it does suggest that the whole program isn't working out as nicely as they had hoped. It's not hard to see why the "no late fees" program makes much more sense for a system like Netflix, where the DVDs are warehoused much more centrally (if still distributed around the country) allowing for better inventory management and (the important bit) returning a movie gets you a "reward" of sorts -- a new movie. The Blockbuster program doesn't have that same Pavlovian effect.
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Oh and netflix it too expensive for the people here... since they all are on the bandwagon for self imposed poverty to collect welfare. I love amer-africa... I mean America.
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Late fees aren't the problem
Because every time I rent anything from there, movie discs are always scratched, have fingerprints and grease all over them, or are in such bad shape as to be nearly worthless. I can't count the number of times I was near the end of a movie and it suddenly "froze" because of the problems.
Poor disc quality, not late fees, is really the only reason I choose to no longer rent anything from Blockbuster. Oh that and the high rental fee, which should be reduced by a dollar or so.
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Re: Late fees aren't the problem
Or, maybe they should put someone at the door checking all of the discs with the customer there, and have them pay or be arrested for destruction of property. Having them impose a fee the next time they rent will only screw the stores and the rest of the customers... once most of the idiots have a fee, they never rent again and walk out without paying it. And blockbuster just lets them walk... way to go!!
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