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Blockbuster Online

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Hong of Katy, TX November 12, 2009

In June, I opened a blockbuster account (account # 12416398) for 2 weeks free trial. Due to the slowness, during the 2 weeks, I only got 2 movies, I did not like it and I called blockbuster to cancel my account at the end of trial period. After the cancellation, in Aug, blockbuster sent me another 2 movies, I sent the two movies back to blockbuster and email blockbuster 4 times to tell it that my account was closed and please stop sending me any movie.

But it seems all emails were ignored. and my nightmere started: 1) blockbuster keeps charging me 18.39/month to my credit card since July, 5th, 2) every month I have to ask them to give me refund and told them to close the account, I got two refunds till now. 3) today when I called them, a man named Robby, claimed as an account manager, he is so rude, and he lied, he said I have never requested to cancel my account. He refused to give me refund and told me that I have never requested cancellation. It is totally a scam!!! I don't use the account for 4 months already, is there any reason to leave it open?

Beware of Blockbuster's free trial, it is a scam, they are all liers, leaded by Robby. They will charge you regardless you close your account or not.

Jamie of Waltham, MA September 23, 2009

I have a blockbuster all access account. They advertise that you will have 3 movies at time and when returned they will send out the next available title in your queue the next business day. This is a false statement as at times they have not sent me videos for over 5 business days. I called and told them about this....they explained they were updating their systems and all the problem would be solved in a week. This has continued for over one month now and is still not fixed. I have called the corporate office, made and executive complaint to no avail. This problems continues to happen for over 6 weeks now. They should not be allowed to advertise their service as one thing and deliver a totally different level of service. I have had this account since it began and they level of service is continuing to decrease with time. When you have title that are available in the top of your queue, they do not send them out the next business day. They send the videos out in such a way that you really are luck to have 1 video at a time even though you paid for the service with 3 videos at a time.

Martha of Pittsburg, KS August 27, 2009

We had a "3-at-a-time" account with Blockbuster online for three months. Though our queue held about 20 available titles, we would receive only one or two. We figured we could live with that, as long as they shipped movies out the day they received the ones we'd sent back. As the weeks went by, they began to take about a week to ship the next titles. Last week we decided to ship the movies back, empty our queue, and once we'd received confirmation of receipt, cancel our membership. We canceled on the 25th, and received an email confirming that the membership had been canceled. On the 26th, we received a notice that the next movie in our queue had been shipped. I filed a complaint on the Blockbuster Online site, and received a reply stating that the shipments would not stop until the account had been inactive for ten days. Just long enough to run into the next billing cycle. I emailed them again, asking them not to ship any more movies. Their reply was a copy of the email stating that the next movie in our queue had shipped. This is turning into the membership that doesn't end! How do I deal with this?

Michael of Essex Junctionq, VT August 25, 2009

We joined Blockbuster to rent movies we can't find in most video stores. Blockbuster has many movies on their lists that we can't find anywhere else. When we try to rent the movies, however, they are often shown as "unavailable". When I asked Blockbuster about this, they responded saying that this is often because the movies are no longer available being produced for sale to them or anyone else. However, they list many of these as being for sale on the web site, right next to the "unavailable" status.

A lot of movies are also listed a have various wait periods from a short wait to a very long wait. The only "wait" status I have ever seen is a change from a "short wait" to becoming available. Movies listed with longer waits never seem to become available. As with the "unavailable" movies however, many of these are also listed as being for sale.

They (Blockbuster) told me that I need to leave the movies with the wait status at the top of my queue for the status to change. However, when I do this, they don’t ship me any movies and the status never changes. They also told me that I needed to keep available movies at the top of my queue in order for them to ship me movies. Catch 22 anyone?

Michelle of Lansdowne , PA August 8, 2009

Received a letter from a collection agency stating they represent blockbuster and that I owe about 10. The letter also stated that blockbuster attempted to contact me and had no success and that is why they turned me over to the Collection agency. That is where I have a problem. They never contacted me although they have my contact information as I am also a Blockbuster online member as well. They have my current credit card information too.

They charge my credit card every month for membership. In fact they did so just a few days ago. They could have just as easy charged my credit card for the 10 and been done with it. However it is outrageous and unthinkable that they would even contemplate sending me to a collection agency over something so trite when they never even bothered to communicate with me in the first place. I contacted the corporate office and also filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau because I shutter to think what could have happened had that Collection Agency placed that on my credit report. But all of this could have been avoided if they would have communicated with me.

Art of Flushing, NY July 19, 2009

I cancelled my Blockbuster online membership on June 15th, before the next billing cycle was to begin on June 18th. Today, July 19th, I received 3 automated emails indicating that they did not receive my last 3 rental returns. I was charged 21.66 on my credit card for each 'missing' disc that I had returned over a month ago, for a total of 64.98. I emailed Blockbuster and a representative simply indicated that they will 'look out for the returned rentals' but my account will not be credited until 5 business days after they can find the 3 discs I had already returned. Unbelievable!! I will go out of my way to dissuade friends and family to avoid Blockbuster like the plague.

Ed of Lemoore, CA July 10, 2009

I cancelled my Blockbuster online account in Jun 09 and on July 09 i found that Blockbuster had charged my account for the cost of 2 movies which they claim I never returned. This is not true.

Shelley of Van Nuys, CA May 21, 2009

I signed up for a 2-week free trial on May 8, 2009. I had to provide my credit card info to create an account which is a usual practice for online free trials I know. Then I changed my plan because the plan they indicated I had signed up for was not what I remembered signing up for. A few days later I noticed several charges to my credit card for 17.31 - seven to be exact. I was still within my free trial period (in fact it ends TOMORROW May 22, 2009) and when I logged into my blockbuster account it indicated that I was still within the free trial period and that the free trial period would expire on May 24, 2009.

I remembered their website being extremely slow and cumbersome to use to browse movies or add to my q, or basically any process on their website, and I would close it and come back later several times to try to resume, but it was always nearly impossible to do anything on their website. I kept checking my bank account to make sure those excessive charges did not post to my account, at this point they were pending. I figured it was an error and they would never actually post to my account. Then the next day they disappeared from my account and I thought all was good and I would not be charged.

Then on May 19, 2009 I saw that seven separate charges of 17.31 each from Blockbuster online did in fact post to my account and the funds were removed from my account. Now I have checks that will bounce because of this. I emailed customer service (the only option on their website) and got no reply. I then called my bank to try to reverse the unauthorized excessive charges, and they told me I had to deal directly with blockbuster online and get a refund from them, the bank could do nothing.

I then called the phone number listed in each charge in my bank account - and talked to a customer service rep. She refused to accept the fact that these charges had occurred and also that the charges had cleared my account. She said that once I changed my plan, I convert immediately from the free trial account to a pay account. But that still does not explain the excessive charges. She refused a refund, refused that I was overcharged, my ONLY Option to keep from getting charged more charges is to cancel my account. She informed me that she saw that there were seven charges but that only one went thru my account.

I informed her that this was COMPLETELY untrue, that the funds had actually cleared my account and now my account was short for the incoming checks, in addition to the fact that I should not have been charged AT ALL because I was within the two week free trial period. Apparently that was in the small print - but I would be WILLING to lose 17.31 for this lesson, but not the excessive charges that they put thru which total 103.

I cancelled my account today. I am out 121 for a FREE TWO WEEK TRIAL with no possibility of getting this money back. A loss of 121 from my bank account that was unexpected. Bounced check charges are occurring because this was an unplanned expense.

Dana of Groton, CT April 13, 2009

Dana of Groton CT (04/13/09)
I have been with blockbuster for quite some time and have rearely had any problems. However, recently blockbuster added there no hastle program. Which basically meant that you get no late fees from participating blockbusters. This means that we you do an in store exchange they do not ship you another movie until you return the one you purchase from the store.

So I called blockbuster to see if my store participated and the online representative advised me that they did. So believing what I was told i kept a movie 4 days past its due date. Returned the movie to the store and was advised that I would have to pay a late fee.

I was angry that I had been lied to and I had no problem paying the late fee, although I truly felt that I should be refunded since I was misled be the rep. So of couse I was like, well if my store doesn't participate then there is not reason that when I return the movies they shouldn't ship out my new movies right away. To me I am not getting the full use of my membership

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