Letter sent to Famous Players Cinema
xxx, xx xxxx St,
Toronto
ON XXXXXX
8 Nov 2006
Dear Whoever-this-got-shuffled-off-to-in-Famous-Players
I was pretty surprised when I checked my credit card statement and found unauthorized charges from an obviously suspicious company. "Oh no", I thought, "Which scummy despicable low-down meritless weasely cleaner-of-bottom-feeders-bottoms company gave my credit card information to scammers?"
Well, Famous Players, turns out it was you.
I traced the payments and the company back to this summer, when I opted to save time with the fast and convenient online ticket reservation service, movietickets, who administrate your e-ticket needs. They offered a "Reservation Rewards" option, dangling the enticing promise of future free tickets. I am wary of online business, "But surely", I thought, "a business as reputable as Paramount Cinemas would not consort with maggotlike interweb con-artists?" Ah, the naive days of my innocent youth. I then put a tooth under the pillow and wrote my letter to Santa (I've been good!)
I just don't see what Famous Players has to gain by hanging out with the business-equivalent of a cockroach living under a toilet bowl. I've come to expect much higher standards of honest, bare-faced thievery from your cinema. You steal half an hour of my life with adverts before the movie I've already paid to see, so I turn up late or with headphones. You charge for soft drinks like they were the cure to cancer, but you also advertise the prices clearly. In fact you stick them up on big cardboard standouts with exclamation marks and dashing yellow lines, as if you personally led a commando raid against Fort Coke in order to steal precious beverage and sell it so cheaply.
Your company has actually tried to steal from me until now, and don't give me that shit about "all the terms of the agreement were clearly stated". Legalese and ultra-fine print are not 'clearly stated'. If you have to spend a day with an archaeologist, a paralegal and an electron microscope to find the terms, then guess what - those terms are not in plain sight and were never meant to be.
You should advice movietickets to discontinue offering this 'promotion' to your customers, move to another online ticket vendor, or at least get "WLI Reservation Rewards" to leave an extra five dollars on your nightstand or something, because whatever your gain it can't be worth the damage to your reputation. The profits of shaving unidentified credit card charges just aren't necessary for a company like yours, and are downright suicidal at a time when it's only tradition and habit that keeps your business alive in a world of downloaded avis and home entertainment systems. The city still has a few horse-drawn carriages too, because they're old-fashioned and fun - but if the horses starting biting the arses out of passengers, those nags would be put down and buried under a parking space; think about the analogy.
I got my money back, have no goddamn fear, because "WLI Reservation Rewards" know that if they resisted for even a single second then the few rags of the consumer protection laws they aren't currently pissing on would blast them to smithereens. But that doesn't make everything okay. Time is far, far important than money and that's two hours I will never get back - but I'm sure save a few by never going to Paramount cinemas again.
Yours, full of hate where I once had a warm feeling from watching Batman kick ass on a screen the size of a football pitch,
Max Radical (real name included on actual letter)
xxx, xx xxxx St,
Toronto
ON XXXXXX
8 Nov 2006
Dear Whoever-this-got-shuffled-off-to-in-Famous-Players
I was pretty surprised when I checked my credit card statement and found unauthorized charges from an obviously suspicious company. "Oh no", I thought, "Which scummy despicable low-down meritless weasely cleaner-of-bottom-feeders-bottoms company gave my credit card information to scammers?"
Well, Famous Players, turns out it was you.
I traced the payments and the company back to this summer, when I opted to save time with the fast and convenient online ticket reservation service, movietickets, who administrate your e-ticket needs. They offered a "Reservation Rewards" option, dangling the enticing promise of future free tickets. I am wary of online business, "But surely", I thought, "a business as reputable as Paramount Cinemas would not consort with maggotlike interweb con-artists?" Ah, the naive days of my innocent youth. I then put a tooth under the pillow and wrote my letter to Santa (I've been good!)
I just don't see what Famous Players has to gain by hanging out with the business-equivalent of a cockroach living under a toilet bowl. I've come to expect much higher standards of honest, bare-faced thievery from your cinema. You steal half an hour of my life with adverts before the movie I've already paid to see, so I turn up late or with headphones. You charge for soft drinks like they were the cure to cancer, but you also advertise the prices clearly. In fact you stick them up on big cardboard standouts with exclamation marks and dashing yellow lines, as if you personally led a commando raid against Fort Coke in order to steal precious beverage and sell it so cheaply.
Your company has actually tried to steal from me until now, and don't give me that shit about "all the terms of the agreement were clearly stated". Legalese and ultra-fine print are not 'clearly stated'. If you have to spend a day with an archaeologist, a paralegal and an electron microscope to find the terms, then guess what - those terms are not in plain sight and were never meant to be.
You should advice movietickets to discontinue offering this 'promotion' to your customers, move to another online ticket vendor, or at least get "WLI Reservation Rewards" to leave an extra five dollars on your nightstand or something, because whatever your gain it can't be worth the damage to your reputation. The profits of shaving unidentified credit card charges just aren't necessary for a company like yours, and are downright suicidal at a time when it's only tradition and habit that keeps your business alive in a world of downloaded avis and home entertainment systems. The city still has a few horse-drawn carriages too, because they're old-fashioned and fun - but if the horses starting biting the arses out of passengers, those nags would be put down and buried under a parking space; think about the analogy.
I got my money back, have no goddamn fear, because "WLI Reservation Rewards" know that if they resisted for even a single second then the few rags of the consumer protection laws they aren't currently pissing on would blast them to smithereens. But that doesn't make everything okay. Time is far, far important than money and that's two hours I will never get back - but I'm sure save a few by never going to Paramount cinemas again.
Yours, full of hate where I once had a warm feeling from watching Batman kick ass on a screen the size of a football pitch,
Max Radical (real name included on actual letter)