Rising Digg: Blockbuster Screwed Me Over and Needs to Feel My Pain

[Air]

http://stopgeek.com/blockbuster-scre...l-my-pain.html

Short Version:

Guy has $10 a month online package and is used to getting a free game every month from the coupon (with added bonus of grumbling about not being able to find popular games on Friday night), used to as many movies as he can get one at a time from online, then free in store swapping. Assuming it's one movie a week, plus the free swapping that's about 8 movies a month. The plan is obviously making Blockbuster lose money, and the plan changes to be a bit more fair. He misread a sign about the plan not changing. Then he calls a manager dumb when he offers a free movie rental instead of a free game as reasonable compensation, and urges corporate to call the store's "Friday Night Manager." Gives the whole customer is always right tirade.

It's like some sort of super douche customer that's almost a wonder at which to stare

[IVR]

Yup, BlockBuster offered an unprofitable plan so they had to change the deal...unfortunately the frontline employees will bear the brunt from angry customers

[Ebenonce]

Wow, I just Posted this...

[BBVcasualposter]

Originally Posted by IVR

Yup, BlockBuster offered an unprofitable plan so they had to change the deal...unfortunately the frontline employees will bear the brunt from angry customers

Now maybe they can go to the dumpy Indies and not get any free echanges and pay twice as much as they would even with the new plan. Hmmm that sure seems intelligent and frugal.

The short term tempers will blow over rather quickly once they realize the grass is rotten brown on the other side.

[DraconianSM]

To quote from the movie 300: "GIVE THEM NOTHING, AND TAKE FROM THEM EVERYTHING!!"

Of course Blockbuster was inevitably going to change its pricing structure. Almost everyone on the exchange plans won't spend a penny in the stores while they reap the benefits and take all the hot titles away from the in store paying customers.

[MissHailstorm]

This reminds me of an advert...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H--tdhf1DPg

[MissHailstorm]

Finally bothered to read it, usual whiny bullshit.

I can't imagine why the manager didn't want to help him...

After fumbling around my account page for 15 minutes, positive I couldn’t see the coupon that’s usually right in front of me, I asked for assistance from the manager. He clicked here and he clicked there but couldn’t find my coupon anywhere.

He told me that new accounts, in addition to getting charged more, were actually going to get less for their money. The free rental coupon has disappeared from the Blockbuster packages entirely. I thought my package wasn’t going to be affected, but I see now they only meant in terms of price. I’m glad they didn’t bother to put that gem in bold letters.

These are all conclusions I had to come up with myself since the manager kept turning around and walking away in the middle of our conversation because he couldn’t do anything. He offered me a free movie rental but I told him I wanted to rent a game. He just shrugged and said there was nothing he could do and that he didn’t have any answers. Awesome.

So the manager came over and helped. It was a Friday and busy, so he was trying to get back to serving paying customers. But no!

[Blockbuster] hired a nice but dumb manager who doesn’t know that the customer is always right and couldn’t even begin to offer me any kind of answers or solutions.

What was he supposed to do? Give a free games rental? What happens next week, then?

And I do believe he gave answers:

He told me that new accounts, in addition to getting charged more, were actually going to get less for their money. The free rental coupon has disappeared from the Blockbuster packages entirely. I thought my package wasn’t going to be affected, but I see now they only meant in terms of price. I’m glad they didn’t bother to put that gem in bold letters.

These are all conclusions I had to come up with myself

Wait, wait, wait... the manager told him:

• New accounts are getting charged more
• They are getting less for their money
• No more free rental coupons

But, apparently, these were "conclusions [he] had to come up with [himself]". So which is it?!

What makes this incredibly frustrating situation worse is that the manager told me all complaints and issues had to be filed online with an email…Excuse me? You’re telling me you don’t have ANY form I can fill out in a Blockbuster store to deal with issues over at Blockbuster.com? It really isn’t shocking to me that they had such a dismal quarter and are constantly losing customers to Netflix.

I figured that instead of sending the an email, since it looked like the levels of bullshit within this company are great in number and density, I would just file this online complaint in the greater online universe.

That manager should've grabbed some paper from the printer, written "COMPLANTZ FROM" at the top, and then posted it in his arse.

Why on earth would we have complaints forms to be dealt with in store? How many of those would actually reach corporate?


I'm sure Blockbuster are quaking at this, being out there in the 'greater' universe.

[MissHailstorm]

OH MY GODZZZZ. I'm tripling penetrating!!!


You guys really need to read some of the comments left.

Jason! Oh my God! You're a secret HATAH?

Originally Posted by Jason

August 19th, 2007 at 7:35 am

I got the same message. I compained, and here is the response I got:

Thanks for contacting BLOCKBUSTER Online Customer Care.

It is my pleasure to be of service to you. Thank you for your time in notifying us. Like all retail businesses, we must periodically review our pricing structure. In introducing a wider range of subscription plans, we considered a number of factors including the number of in-store exchanges on a given account. We’re giving our most frequent renters like yourself the option of either continuing with unlimited in-store exchanges at a higher price point or moving to a plan where the number of in-store exchanges is fixed if you’d like to continue with the same rate.

We feel we are still delivering a great consumer value and encourage you to continue your membership by selecting one of the new plans we offer. You can find the details of what is available via “My Account” in the “Subscription Plan” area. Please remember that if you do not select one of the new plans we have to offer before your next regular billing date, we will not be automatically renewing your membership. Thank you very much for your inquiry.

——–
…and my reply to them:

You are not being of service to me. You are telling me that I should shut up and enjoy being raped, and I won’t stand for it. You are telling me that I should accept less service for the same price and be happy about it. Are you fracking kidding me?

Seriously, some people are taking this way too personally. Businesses change their prices all the time. Do they seriously think this way when they go to the local supermarket and see the price of beans has gone up from last week? People "accept less service for the same price" and are "happy about it" all the time! It seems to me they were getting a bargain anyway, so if anyone is being raped, here...

Originally Posted by Jason

Like all customers who are unhappy with the treatment they receive from a retail business, I am forced to take the only action I have available to demonstrate my dissatisfaction: I will never spend another penny with Blockbuster or any of it’s affiliates. I will never rent from your brick and mortar stores again (Hollywood Video, here I come). I will stop buying previously viewed titles from you as well. I will strongly encourage everyone that I know who currently uses your online service (many of whom do so on my recommendation) to do likewise. That blog that I’ve been thinking about starting, I just found a good topic to start with.

Oh, boring, boring, boring, boring.

I don't have much of a clue about this, but it probably still works out better than Netflix purely for the in-store exchanges, right?

Originally Posted by Jason

Feel free to contact me when you have come to your senses, but until then, this is “goodbye�? and “go f*ck yourself.�?

Wowee, nice way to end the tirade. I'm sure they'll be crying tears as big as wagon wheels at their loss of your custom!!!

[SavageUK]

Originally Posted by BBVcasualposter

The short term tempers will blow over rather quickly once they realize the grass is rotten brown on the other side.

I would have repped you for that if it let me, for some reason it really made me laugh (probably because it's so true).

[orbitdvd]

Originally Posted by BBVcasualposter

Now maybe they can go to the dumpy Indies and not get any free echanges and pay twice as much as they would even with the new plan. Hmmm that sure seems intelligent and frugal.

The short term tempers will blow over rather quickly once they realize the grass is rotten brown on the other side.

Um, some of us dumpy indies have sub plans as well. For $20 a month at my store, you can rent catalog, new releases, hi-def and all game platforms.


marc