Blockbuster Video

Go home crappy! Or drop-kick Blockbuster and seek your sweet rental goodness elsewhere

Back when I wrote for Epinions, I noted that there was no valid forum to review Blockbuster Video stores. It seemed glaringly conspicuous in its absence, especially when you consider that Blockbuster Video is (in its own words) "the world's largest home video retailer," controlling a third of the global video rental market. Hollywood Video and other movie rental stores were available for review, which led me to believe that Blockbuster Video had specifically asked to be excluded from the database of a major consumer review site.

Now why would they want to do that? Hmmmmm.

Perhaps it's because Blockbuster is all too aware of the legions of disgruntled former customers who would happily share with the public, if they could, their horror stories of a video rental behemoth run amok. This is one such story, and the reason why I will never darken the doorstep of another Blockbuster Video store.

Gather 'round, good people, and let's set the Wayback Machine for January 1999. My honey and I, both hardcore movie junkies, had just picked up our first DVD player and were eager to take in the glory of our first DVD-format movie. Although we'd rented plenty of VHS tapes from Blockbuster in the past, we quickly embraced the new format, renting between 2 and 4 DVDs per week.

Be aware that, even up to this point, our experience with Blockbuster was far from satisfactory. Rental prices were high, late fees were higher, some movie titles were edited or simply unavailable, and many tapes were so mangled as to be unintelligible, but we put up with some inconvenience because the local Blockbuster was literally only a few blocks away from our home—a quick movie fix.

That changed the first time we brought home two DVDs that were unwatchable. No, not in the sense that they were bad movies—that would say more about our lack of judgment than Blockbuster's customer service. These were titles which, because they had been heavily scratched up by previous customers and/or Blockbuster staff, would not play on our DVD player. We were able to see one of the movies because it was a double-sided DVD; when the scratched widescreen version refused to work, we flipped it and watched the full-frame version instead. The other title, however, refused even to spin up.

Annoyed but undaunted, we promptly returned to Blockbuster the same day for a refund. (Renting a DVD title, at that time, cost about the same as attending a matinee showing of a first-run film, so we wanted our money back.) Talking to an employee behind the counter only produced the kind of benevolently witless stare normally only observed in livestock, so we asked to see the store manager. Eventually one of the cow-eyed counter jockeys managed to locate her and bring her up front so we could explain the situation to her. My honey opened both the DVDs, showed her the scratches, and explained that although we had paid a rental premium for these movies, we were unable to play one of them at all.

"OK, thanks," said the manager. She then took both DVDs and walked away. Although we waited a while, assuming that she would return at the very least to offer us a refund for the one movie that refused to play at all, we never saw her again.

My understanding of good business practices includes the concept that if you pay for a product or service and it is not as advertised, the business should at the very least stand ready to replace or refund. The Blockbuster manager's understanding of business practices was simple: we'd already paid for the rentals, so she'd made money; we'd pointed out some defects in her stock, so she could replace them for future customers. The thought that we were out some rental fees didn't appear to cross her mind once during our exchange—or if it did, she blew it off as unimportant.

This cheesed us both off. We've both worked in customer service positions and realize how important it is to pay attention to customer concerns. So we had a "quick, to the Bat-Fax" moment and fired off a letter to Blockbuster's corporate offices, essentially reiterating our story, reading them the Riot Act and enclosing our membership cards. A copy was sent to the manager at our local store.

We have yet to receive as much as a form letter from anyone at Blockbuster regarding this incident, and to be honest, we don't expect a response. After all, why should they care? They've got a third of the world's video rental market sewn up, right? If a single customer feels stepped on, there are millions more out there who are more than willing to put up with high prices, poor products and slipshod service.

Well, maybe. But that's precisely the attitude that causes media empires to crumble. And we don't intend to put up with it. Because of this experience, not only will we never rent from Blockbuster again, but we've actively discouraged others from doing so. Happily, although Blockbuster was able to rip us off when we were customers, they can't stop us from saying our piece.

We've got our own forum for that now.

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