Blockbuster is to get rid of late fees as of the 1st of January. In it’s place will be a new, worse, plan. Customers will be given a one-week grace period for their over due movie. After that grace period ends, Blockbuster will automatically sell you the product, less the rental fee. If you don’t want to purchase the movie or game, you can return the product within 30 days for a credit, less a restocking fee.
To me this isn’t a good idea and may stop me from renting at Blockbuster. Where does it go wrong? First off the grace period does sound good but selling me the product or game is not what I want. If I really wanted it I would have gone out and bought it. Course I could return it and pay the re-stocking fee but that’d would be the same as a late fee! Second, do you know how much videos cost? I’m sure Blockbuster will charge around $20 a movie for you to buy them as that’s probably the suggested retail price. Plus, have you ever noticed that some movies come out for rent before they are available to buy? Well those movies are sometimes over a hundred dollars appease because they are specially sold to rental stores to rent. Not for the public to buy. I know this because I worked at a video store once. So what will Blockbuster do then? Charge the customer $100?
I think Blockbuster will hurt their business in the long run with this idea. Sure it may make money in the first few months as people will not be used to the new rules but once they get charged for a movie they don’t want to own they’ll be one un-happy customer that may never return.
I havent returned a movie for 2 months.Does that mean I now own it?
You’d have to ask them as I’m sure their policy has changed since 2004 when I wrote this post. 🙂