Block Busted!

If my day off for the week happens to fall within a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday I have begun to make it a habit to visit Blockbuster on those days.  The reasoning behind this is because one day on a venture to my local Blockbuster, the noteworthy saleswoman, Paula, pointed out to me that if I am frequenting this location that much that I should really invest in their Rewards program.  It is not a credit card but what it entitles me to is a free "Favorites" rental along with my new release rental.  This benefits me because I love to rent television shows on DVD and watch each season all the way through.  Its just a thing I like to do.  So this way I can do that for free and only pay for the new movies that I watch in between.

So I get on board with rewards.  This is in the midst of Blockbuster's "NO MORE LATE FEES" Launch, right?  So they explain to me that there are NO LATE FEES, but that if you have the movies for longer than 7 days then they charge your account to BUY these movies but credit you back when you return them.  This doesn't sound so bad, until it actually happens because when it does they CHARGE you a $2.50 "Re-Stocking" fee.  Whoever came up with this verbeage for their company was a GENIUS!  When you say "Re-stocking" to a customer it initially sounds like such a strenuous task that you should be charged on behalf of making blockbuster do this, right?  But no.  All they are doing to "Re-Stock" is taking the DVD from your hand, placing it on their cart, and then rolling it to the section and taking said DVD from cart to shelf.  They don't even carry the DVD themselves from the counter to the shelf!  

So when you actually think about it.  Why do you need to pay them $2.50 to do this?  In actuality, this is what they do every time you return your rentals ON TIME, so what makes it such a hassle when they are a few days after the fact?  Just because you don't call the CHARGE on the customer's account a FEE, does not make it exempt from being classified as a late fee.  If your DVD's are late, you are CHARGED.  This sounds worse than "fee" anyway.  

What made all this worse for me today was that when I asked her about this she went on to tell me that in a few months there would be fees for every late rental.  When I enquired further she then told me that the company would roll out the program at that time but that she could not talk to me about it now.  I thought, "In that case, why the fuck did you even mention it?"  I found it hilarious when I realized that Blockbuster was the company that ran huge ads in their windows, billboards, and on TV that screamed "NO MORE LATE FEES".  

I guess that didn't pan out the way they had expected.