Blockbuster
Besides the ‘conversation’ with my brother, there were perhaps two other things I wanted to blog about from my T-day visit with my family… One of them was about Blockbuster. My mother has a Blockbuster account and RARELY rents stuff; I did not get my movie gene from either of my parents… So as she was about to send me on my way back, we ended up with an extra ½ hour after dropping my older brother off on his train (me and my bro went to different train stations- as he went on a Conn. Local to our sis while I went on Amtrak), and she decided to kill time at a Blockbusters. We searched for two movies for her to rent and when she checked them out, the clerk gave her a handful of coupons… 7 in all- 2 free rentals and 5 $1 off anything( but foodstuffs). Attached to these coupons was the reason for the coupons- The class action brought against Blockbusters for being ‘misleading’ about their end of late fees.
See their current policy is that you can keep the movie as long as you want HOWEVER if you keep it out for ‘too long’ they’ll charge you for the movie… and then if you decide to bring the movie back after that, they’ll JUST charge you a nominal ‘re-stocking’ fee. So not really ‘end of late charges’….
Now the ‘fun’ thing about these coupons is the expiration date. Yup, the class action suit ended up with coupons usable only at Blockbusters for a certain time. My mom got the coupons on Friday and they expired on Sunday… And of course they gave her the coupons AFTER she paid for the movies… so she couldn’t use the two free rentals for the two movies she just rented. What a crock.
She gave me all the coupons as she didn’t plan on renting or buying anything else at Blockbuster that weekend.
I don’t have a Blockbusters account, nor did I feel the need to get one just to have two free rentals. I did however offer them to anyone who came into the game store on Sunday. There were no takers for the free rentals.
And at first no takers on the $1 off coupons… Until I realized that a friend of mine’s husband wanted the epic battle ccg- Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, which can only be bought at Blockbusters. I called her up( as she also works Sunday) and told her if she wanted I’d use the coupons to buy her two starters( one of each) and two boosters( also one of each) leaving me with the 5th coupon to do with what I will… Wasn’t sure how I was going to use the 5th. Now since it was only one coupon per transaction, I had to buy one starter and then leave and come back later for the NEXT transaction. Bleh. After I bought the two starters, one of the regulars looked at the spread of rares in the Starter and declared that it would be better to get another starter then 2 more boosters… the logic being that the Starter had 5 rares for about 9.44(with ‘sale price’, coupon and tax) vs. the 2.99 + tax for a booster- which prolly had only ONE rare.
So I got my friend 3 Epic Battle Starters and for myself I got a novelty ps2 controller. I prolly wouldn’t have bought the controller without the coupon, but it was a dollar off and it had FLASH and several other Justice Leaguers in the animated style… I bought because I’m a Flash fan, Flash was the most prominent and the controller was a nice Flash red.
I really wanted to share this because I just thought it was sort of funny that Blockbuster *tried* to make up for their wicked ways by giving coupons off for a dollar good for only a certain amount of time… So either you let the coupons expire and get NOTHING for Blockbuster rooking you in the first place OR you use the coupon to buy something and ODDS ARE they’ll make more then a dollar on the transaction esp. as you can’t use more then one at a time and not for foodstuffs( which is prolly the only thing that costs them a dollar or less).
See their current policy is that you can keep the movie as long as you want HOWEVER if you keep it out for ‘too long’ they’ll charge you for the movie… and then if you decide to bring the movie back after that, they’ll JUST charge you a nominal ‘re-stocking’ fee. So not really ‘end of late charges’….
Now the ‘fun’ thing about these coupons is the expiration date. Yup, the class action suit ended up with coupons usable only at Blockbusters for a certain time. My mom got the coupons on Friday and they expired on Sunday… And of course they gave her the coupons AFTER she paid for the movies… so she couldn’t use the two free rentals for the two movies she just rented. What a crock.
She gave me all the coupons as she didn’t plan on renting or buying anything else at Blockbuster that weekend.
I don’t have a Blockbusters account, nor did I feel the need to get one just to have two free rentals. I did however offer them to anyone who came into the game store on Sunday. There were no takers for the free rentals.
And at first no takers on the $1 off coupons… Until I realized that a friend of mine’s husband wanted the epic battle ccg- Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, which can only be bought at Blockbusters. I called her up( as she also works Sunday) and told her if she wanted I’d use the coupons to buy her two starters( one of each) and two boosters( also one of each) leaving me with the 5th coupon to do with what I will… Wasn’t sure how I was going to use the 5th. Now since it was only one coupon per transaction, I had to buy one starter and then leave and come back later for the NEXT transaction. Bleh. After I bought the two starters, one of the regulars looked at the spread of rares in the Starter and declared that it would be better to get another starter then 2 more boosters… the logic being that the Starter had 5 rares for about 9.44(with ‘sale price’, coupon and tax) vs. the 2.99 + tax for a booster- which prolly had only ONE rare.
So I got my friend 3 Epic Battle Starters and for myself I got a novelty ps2 controller. I prolly wouldn’t have bought the controller without the coupon, but it was a dollar off and it had FLASH and several other Justice Leaguers in the animated style… I bought because I’m a Flash fan, Flash was the most prominent and the controller was a nice Flash red.
I really wanted to share this because I just thought it was sort of funny that Blockbuster *tried* to make up for their wicked ways by giving coupons off for a dollar good for only a certain amount of time… So either you let the coupons expire and get NOTHING for Blockbuster rooking you in the first place OR you use the coupon to buy something and ODDS ARE they’ll make more then a dollar on the transaction esp. as you can’t use more then one at a time and not for foodstuffs( which is prolly the only thing that costs them a dollar or less).
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