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[Movies] blog post
By RevChris at 2009-12-05 22:29:29, updated 2009-12-06 00:49:09
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Let me setup the scene for you. It's Wednesday , Im checking my emails and after sorting through some emails regarding ebay and facebook updates I spy an invitation from Warner brothers to join the one time BD-Live director's chat with McG for Terminator Salvation on December 5 @10PM. Excited, as I did enjoy the action in the movie and love new technology like BD-Live, I sign up , call some friends and setup a viewing at my place. Now I don't own the Director's Cut BD for Terminator Salvaiton due to budget constraints (wedding, student loans, rent ect, I know priorites are all messed up) but I did have the forsight to head out to the local rental establishments and spy where I could rent copies. A local spot had a few and so did the local Blockbuster (Charlottetown). So on the big day I woke up early and started preparing, we picked up snacks and drinks, readied the sofa and headed off to blockbuster to rent the movie, knowing from earlier recon they would have copies.
And boy did they have copies , two full rows of clearly marked Directors Cut Terminator Salvation Blu-ray disks for rent. I paid my $5.76, took the disk home and waited paitently for the time to pop it into the ps3. Now, being that I wanted to anticipate any potential problems with the BD-Live setup or what have you I gave myself a full half hour window in which to get into the BD-Live menu and wait for the "login" button to appear , as instructed by WB. However, there was a slight rub in the plan. The BDlive menu did not appear to be available, I investigated furthar... the disc case indicates that this Directors cut edition of the movie is BDlive compatable... so thats fine and I dive back into the menu thinking I've missed something.. nope , Im fairly menu competent and it just isn't there. I google the directors cut + BDlive access and find out this is actually a 2 disk set ... one for theatrical cut and one for directors cut.. but my case contains only the theactrical cut! No Need to Panic , I can just rip upto blockbuster , calmly explain the mistake and the urgency of the situation and be back in time to log in. If only it were that easy...
So I get to blockbuster, get in line and am next .. OH my fortune except that the guy working, lets call him David since his nametag did, is chatting it up with some old friend rather than servicing customers while the other employee , lets call her Helpful T, is busy ringing people in and generally doing her job. After several agonizing minutes David finally says goodbye to his chum and decides to service me. I present the Disk and the dialouge begins, it goes something like this:
Me: Hello, I was in earlier and rented this directors cut version of terminator but it seems a disk is missing. This is the theactrical cut and I would like to exchange it and this cut is missing the features I rented it for.
David: ... (takes disk from me and heads over to the shelf , taking down all available copies of Terminator salvation Directors Cut and bringing them over to the checkout)
Helpful T: Oh , thats not right , someone must have returned it one disk short and we didnt notice
David:... (opening all the disk cases and checking the contents)
Helpful T: (checking the cases) oh , it looks like they are all theatrical cuts . But why would they send us all these director cut sleeves for the rentals if that isn't whats in them
Sam (friend of mine): this is time sensitive guys it starts in 15 minutes
David: Well , do you want the bad news first or the bad news?
Me: No I want the directors cut , like it says on your product
Sam: ahhh no, we want what was advertised, what we paid for
David: wait a minute wait a minute (talking over us) let me finish
(we pipe down)
David: It looks like the two disk set needs to be bought , otherwise you get the theatrical version
Me: But that's not what I came here for, I rented from you specifcally because all your cases and ads say Directors Cut. If I'd have known you didn't have the directors cut available I would have bought it from Walmart hours ago. (this of course was kind of a bluff since my finances left me with only a few dollars to my name, but I could have rented from somewhere else earlier)
David: Well I dont know what I can do for you, what did you want with that version anyway?
Me: There is a one time only, invite only directors chat with McG. tonight in 10 minutes and only the directors cut has access
David: Well I dont know what I can do for you
Me: Your misleading advertising is preventing me from taking part in something.
David: Best I can do is reduce the price of the rental from a purchase of the directors cut BD disk
(in other words, he feels Im over a barrel and tries to upsell me instead of helping me)
Sam: No , we wont be doing that
David: Well then what do you want
Me:Directors Cut
David:(Shrugs, dismissingly)
Helpful T: You can just give them a refund
David (leering at her, in an aggrivated tone): I know that!
(for all this knowing he never offered)
Me: none of this helps me , I cant buy the Blu-ray thats why we rented
David:Well I can refund it to your account
Me: fine , just do that
David: I don't see why all this is important to you guys..
Sam: That doesn't matter , you didnt provide what was advertis... (shuts up before he gets too mad)
David: Well I don't see how a refund helps your night , we Do sell the directors cut .
(forget that I can't afford it, the fact that this would solve my problem is irrelavant to the situation. I already paid for the directors cut rental , they advertise a directors cut rental, all the cases say directors cut and instead of doing something to help me like discounting a directors cut copy or comping me it or something helpful or at least taking a helpful and nonconfrontation tone upselling me the product while he has me over the barrel is the best he can muster)
Me: Just refund it
David takes the blockbuster card , and credits (not refunds) the amount. At this point I feel too disappointed that I'm going to miss the event to say anything else or argue anymore so I go home. There is more to this conversaiton that I can't really remember, mostly between Sam and David, the gist of it is David implies we are losers for being concerned over this stuff and expecting him to right the wrong their false advertising has caused.
Sam calls the store back to get the managers name, owners name and their contact info along with leaving a voicemail for corporate about our experience.
I plan on calling blockbuster Canada corporate on Monday, the local manager tomorrow (after 5, when he is in) and even though nothing they can do will provide me with the experience that was taken away I can always hope some kind of reprimand will be coming David's way for the very poor service and attitude and indifference to our situaiton he displayed. Also, I feel I have to let them know that everyone who came to my house for the viewing will never rent or purchase an item from blockbuster again. They can keep the 5.76$ credit, I don't need it.
4 comments:
 |  Dana Olson
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Blockbuster, like every place, can and do hire douchebags.
I remember... Resistance 2 Collector's Edition, on the "release date" aka the "ship date", I called up to Blockbuster and ask them, "do you have Resistance 2 Collector's Edition for sale?" Guy checks the system, "yup, we do. It's ." Me: "So, I can go pick it up right now?" "Yup, I've got it in my hands. I'll put it aside for you." "Sweet." I leave work and make a 30-minute round trip only to be told, by the same dick who answered the phone, "Yeah, it's right here. But uh, it comes out tomorrow. We open at 9am."
Another time, I was in the store at 11:55pm, 5 minutes before closing, and I forget the game, but they had it (I could see it) and they refused to stay open to 12:00:01am to sell it to me. This is more understandable than the first, but I thought I'd mention it.
Not quite the same as your situation, but I have low expectations when it comes to customer service from places like this.
 | RAMPAGE_64
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I remember back when Destroy All Humans 2 came out, My brother went into blockbuster to rent it but the guy said we have it but we arn't renting it out yet when the boxs were right there! Many other experiences i have had with them but i dont remember them exactly.
Sorry about you missing McG, i wanted to see the chat with Christopher Nolan with the blu-ray Dark Night but didnt buy it in time.
 | BamBamBoozled
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I rented 3 things from Blockbuster before family video ran them out of here. One was an n64, the last one to rent in the city at the time and a $100 deposit. The others were snes/ps1 games I cant remember. Their selection was always pretty horrible game wise which was weird to me with the 16bit promotions they were doing.
Digg this
http://digg.com/movies/How_Blockbuster_fucked_me_out_of_the_terminator_salvation