Blockbuster

[Perkins Cobb]

They say that the talking hamster and rabbit from the Blockbuster ads have ties to the Illuminati.

Well, the little fuckers are off to the gas chamber now....

[Dylan]

Son of a bitch. That place is amazing. Unfortunately I live too far south or I'd be in there every day. I always got a kick looking through their laserdiscs and it's a trip just how much stuff they have on multiple formats (laser, DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, and so on) from multiple regions.

It is a magnificent place. Last time I was in there I was also stunned at how they're stocking a complete (or at the very least, near-complete) selection of Warner/Sony/Universal/Fox Archive titles. It will be a tremendous loss to our cinema culture in Seattle if it goes.

I actually only went to Blockbuster once since moving here many, many years ago. I remember how busy the place was on Friday nights. Driving by it in recent years it was always a ghost town.

I forgot about how extremely busy video stores were on Friday nights many moons ago. In my home town, the biggest video store on Friday nights was (almost) always even more crowded than the pizza parlor & movie theater across the street.

[SpiderBaby]

I worked at Blockbuster in college and am not familiar with the whole cheating and lying to get late fees thing. We would routinely, multiple times per shift, pull titles out of the drop box to scan them in. Whether they were chewed by a dog and covered in slobber, or returned without the case, we'd do everything in our power to get them to the right place.

I worked at Blockbuster when I was younger as well, and I side with everything you said. There was never a "cheating" when it comes to late fees when I worked there. Countless times (pretty much anytime a customer wasn't at the front desk) throughout the shift, we would check the drop box. We also a couple times a month, do a full store inventory scan (literally shutting down operations to scan all items in the store, even counting candy inventory, just in case any releases were not scanned when return, which we waive the charges if we did find one). We also had to print out and call daily, customers with movies that was overdue (just in case they had return the releases).

On the flip side to Blockbuster conspiracy plots of charging late fees, a non-Blockbuster employee would have no idea how many people would literally hand me a return only to have me run after them to their car before they leave because they handed me an empty case (so they wouldn't have late fees). How many people gave back fake discs, chewed cases like mfunk has said, just to give a start to the weird stuff you would get back. Also how many times when we would get a video game in stock (new release), we would never see it again after the first week. A customer would start up a new account, rent it, and keep it (never coming back and thus the store pretty much selling a brand new video game for $6). When you are on the other side of these transactions, it's an eye opening experience on how many people would lie their way out of a $2 late fee because they can't return a movie in the 5 day window. Got a laugh out of customers when they complained and then gave the "Redbox is cheaper" argument. These people couldn't return a $4-for-5-days rental, but since Redbox charged a $1 a day (at the time), that they would return it the next day? If they kept a Redbox release as long as they did our rentals, they would be paying more (and you best believe Redbox would get it from your card 100% of the time as compared to Blockbuster, when a customer whines enough, you might be able to get out of the fee).

[SpiderBaby]

You would think they would want to know if a DVD was scratched so they could take it out of circulation, but they didn't care. I'm sure they just put these scratched DVDs back into circulation. This was obviously store policy, and horrible customer service.

Actually my store took scratched dvds out of circulation. When a customer complained about a release skipping, we gave them store credit (even money back when they would throw fits). Customers also took advantage of this policy though, as when they rented a foreign movie "by mistake" or one they didn't like, they would say it skipped and got another rental, for free (some customers did this every time they rented, we would keep tabs). So all this anti-employee stuff is kind of hilarious, when I can remember all of the stuff customers literally try to scam us with.

[Drucker]

So all this anti-employee stuff is kind of hilarious, when I can remember all of the stuff customers literally try to scam us with.

As someone who never worked in a video rental store, but has plenty of retail experience, that's how I've been reading this thread. A bunch of paranoid people thinking a cashier is out to get them.

[SpiderBaby]

So all this anti-employee stuff is kind of hilarious, when I can remember all of the stuff customers literally try to scam us with.

As someone who never worked in a video rental store, but has plenty of retail experience, that's how I've been reading this thread. A bunch of paranoid people thinking a cashier is out to get them.

Working in retail is way more stressful than it needs to be. You quickly learn if you're a "people person".

[LavaLamp]

Actually my store took scratched dvds out of circulation. When a customer complained about a release skipping, we gave them store credit (even money back when they would throw fits). Customers also took advantage of this policy though, as when they rented a foreign movie "by mistake" or one they didn't like, they would say it skipped and got another rental, for free (some customers did this every time they rented, we would keep tabs). So all this anti-employee stuff is kind of hilarious, when I can remember all of the stuff customers literally try to scam us with.

Well, I wish I had gone to your Blockbuster. As I said, in my case when I mentioned that I couldn't watch the movie because of a scratch & even offered to take the time & show them where the scratch was, they refused. They didn't even look at the DVD at all. They obviously could have cared less about the scratch, and just put these DVD's back on the shelf.

Re: the late fees, I do think a $2.99 fee is very excessive if you are, for example, one day late on a return. $2.99 is almost the cost of an actual rental.

I haven't ever worked at a Blockbuster, but I did work for several years in food service. And, yes, I completely agree that if you go out of your way to help a customer & they are still jerks then it's on them - from personal experience, I can say that entitled, a$$&%$$ customers are tools. That being said, if a place has poor customer service then the consumer has the right to complain.