Blockbuster Phantom late fees

Does anybody ever get the feeling that Blockbuster just adds late fees to your account at their will?

I just rented a movie and had to pay a late fee for another movie that I can honestly say I returned on time. Then I got to thinking about other times in the past in which I had to pay late fees for movies that I thought were on time. In the past, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because I'm prone to absent-mindedness at times, but now I wonder if it's a company policy or if the workers at my local store are mean or dimwitted or both.

http://www.netflix.com cures all movie rental ills. You'll never look back.

I never got a late fee I didn't earn. I still get mad when I have to pay a late fee for a movie I didn't even like.

I think they charge the credit card you have on file if you don't pay them after some set amount of time.

or paying a late fee for one you didnt even have time to watch.

today i definitely checked out a movie that had never been checked in to the blockbuster system before being put on the shelf. so yeah, the girl had to go through and cancel out all the late fees that the person was accruing because it was there. (it wasn't like the customer had just put it back on the shelf, either-- it had the lock on it.)

Hey, the same thing happened to me yesterday. I was almost positive I had late fees, so when I rented the movie I stated, "I think I have late fees, I can take care of those now" and they said I didn't have any late fees. I know that I had Goodbye Lenin for at least a week longer then I should have.

Maybe there's a late fee fairy or something.

they hit me every time, so i deserved it. gotta do the monthly thing with them. unlimited, 2 at a time, keep as long as you want. wow if only that was a dating description.

Well, I wouldn't have brought it up if I wasn't 100% positive that I returned this particular one on time. I can understand your frustration though. It just sucks being told that you owe a late fee when you are convinced that you were not late.

EXACTLY. I tell people this and they just cannot get it through their skulls. And honestly, I've had just as many people that have thanked me for getting rid of late fees as people swear they didn't owe anything.

as a company we've only gotten easier on people with late fees, and they just bitch more. no one in this country wants to take any fucking responsibility for their actions. if you have late fees, 99 percent of the time, it's your bad.

hmmm...an insider.

i don't work in blockbuster but it's the same for us.
if it's on the computer you owe it, stop wasting my time.

my favorite are the people that say 'but i brought that back on monday'
"well sir i'm guessing by the fact that it was returned on the system first thing in the morning tuesday that it went in the drop box after we closed"
"yeah it did, on monday night"
"but obviously if we were closed it couldn't be returned until tuesday, and was terefore late"
"but it was only five minutes after you closed, i'm not paying for that"
"the important words there were 'after you closed' and if you're not paying, you're not getting anything else"
"i'm going to kill you and your children and pets, because i'm too much of a fucking retard to grasp the concept that i really do owe you 3 pounds"

can't wait to not work here anymore...

Bah, I've had no less than 6 friends who've worked at Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos and they all will back up that many late fees on rentals are incorrect. Be it from they not liking the person so the "accidentaly" drop it somewhere, or it actually accidentally falls somewhere, or one of them actually had a manager who would have them backdate rentals by a day on new releases.

While some places are by the book, just as many or more are fucking crooked.

From now on then, I shall gracefully concede all future late fees, and pay them w/o question. Not that I haven't already. I just won't question it anymore.

Hey I've got an idea, just boycott blockbuster and you won't have those problems.

Would it work if you just put the movie directly on the shelf instead of returning it to the clerk if you were returning it late?

i had a problem with blockbuster once. when i rented the movie, it said it was a 2 day rental. and 2 days later, i took it back.

but unlike every other video store i've ever been to, at blockbuster, the day you rent it counts as one of those 2 days, so it really means you have to bring it back the next day (ie: a 1 day rental everywhere else).

i'm pretty sure they do this knowing most people won't realize they count days differently than everywhere else, subsequently collecting a lot more late charges from a lot of people.

worked at blockbuster.

Honestly say it was thee BEST and WORST job of my life

netflix.

at blockbuster, i used to wonder if they didn't check them on time when we dropped them in the box. there was always a late fee. so, me and my mom would go out of a way to drop it off many hours before closing, or even the day before. still with the late fees, wtf? sooo we got to making sure we were not only early, but that we personally handed it in to someone working at blockbuster behind the counter at the time. STILL LATE FEES!

so then we decided to not rent from blockbuster ever again, and we had no problems whatsoever,

1st of all the guy who didn't rent for months and then found he didn't have any, Blockbuster every 6 months or so has a "erase all late fees" program. The idea is if people are avoiding them because of late fees, they're actually losing money in the long run.


Also, since netflix. Blockbuster has also developed a 20 dollar/month plan where you get any movie you want w/o late fees.


even if i don't use netflix, i love them for making blockbuster revise their late fee system, which is pretty crooked.