Folks, be careful when you rent from these convenient Redbox's. I had the exact same thing happen to me. The only different is that I only got charged for one and I'm sure I took it back. Back to downloading online movies for me. (I got this off of a site I yahoo'ed, I never expected to find a parralel universe).



Red Box DVD Rental is trying to rip me off!
Feb 13 '08 (Updated Jun 01 '08)

The Bottom Line Red Box uses innovative technology to rent DVDs. But their billing practices will leave you feeling like you partook of the world's oldest profession.

Red Box is an innovative way to rent movies on DVDs through vending machines for just $1/day. The machines allow for quick and easy rental of DVDs that are charged to a credit card. Returning the DVD is also easy, as you just have to slip it back into the machine, and they send you an e-mail to confirm the transaction and charge your credit card $1. You can return the movie to any Red Box machine anywhere, which makes it very convenient. So what could go wrong?

I rented movies through Red Box about twelve times and the transactions more or less went well. I was renting movies on DVDs at various locations and returned them to whichever location was convenient for me the next day. After using Red Box a few times I didn't give much thought to which location I rented a movie from or where I returned it. Why would I? There are 5 locations within five miles of my home, and the machine always took the DVD back without any problems. So imagine my surprise when I got over $50 in charges from Red Box on my credit card!

Red Box claims that I never returned the last two movies I rented, so they billed me $25 (plus tax) for each one! They said the only way out of the charges is to provide the date and location I both rented and returned the films and they would do an inventory of the machines to see if they can find them. Since the two $25 charges popped up about three weeks after I had rented the DVDs, I could only remember that I did indeed return them, but could only remember to which machine for one of the DVDs. I wasn't really keeping track the other times! And they never sent any kind of ''late'' message – they just billed me more than $50, no questions asked.

After giving me nothing but a run around to the past 60 days Red Box is essentially saying ''too bad sucker, we're charging you for our screw up'' Red Box keeps telling me they will do a search for the movies they claim I ''lost'', but in the meantime they cautioned that no refunds are given after 90 days. I have no recourse on over $50 in charges for two stupid movies barely worth the $1 charge.

If you decide to rent from Red Box make damn sure you get an e-mail confirming the DVD return. Then check your credit card to make sure you were only billed $1 (they once charged me for an extra day, but I let it slide – bad move on my part). If Red Box claims you did not return the DVD you will hear nothing from them – until you get slapped with a $25 charge. In the meantime I will be pursuing ways to complain about Red Box's billing practices and warn others of their nefarious ways.

© trailhound. 2008.


Comments on this Review
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lol just yesterday I said I was going to cancel my netflix and use red box... thanks for changing my mind!

 

It's not to deter you, it's just to make you aware that your handing your movies back to a machine that can't say if it remembers you or not. I don't know what I should do now except to carry a camera with me and take motion video of the name of the movie, me pushing the rental return box on the touch screen then moving the camera over to where and when I'm going and put as well as putting the movie in the slot. All this to prove in the future that I did return the movies?

 

You can dispute the charges with your CC if Red Box tries to screw you over. All you got to do is complain that they are unfairly charging you and if you have a good CC company they will go after them.

 

Well lets just say if theres a possibility of someone else getting ripped of its 100% that I will get ripped off.

Plus having to prove with motion video of what you did with their disk that was paid off a week after they bought it is retarded and we all know it doesn't cost them $25 to replace it.

I'm with the guy above me your credit card company will probably/hopefully take care of you.

 

Grim still has the video at his house. in the vcr... err i mean dvd player

 

i rented 2 movies, 1 from redbox, and 1 from the machine in heb. its blue, i dont know the name. i returned the wrong movie in the wrong box to the wrong machine, gave them a call and they took care of it all. so no bad experiences here and ive been doin it a long time. sorry about your luck

 

i still like blockbuster's total access

 

Sadly to say I really still do have 3 vcr's in my house, however it's only for playback for my daughter's freaking Dora videos.

 

Another thing to be wary of when returning Redbox movies. Do you stay at the machine to make sure that it takes the DVD and doesn't spit it back out ? I heard someone bragging one time that after the person in front of them returned a DVD, the machine spit it back out and the person didn't notice and left. So aforementioned person just kept the movie.

Always make sure that it takes it and the message pops up on the screen saying it's been returned. This could maybe result in what happened to you.

 

i think it happened because you didnt return them to the same location, unless it states you can return them to any location

 

Come to think of it, that might be the winner. I usually see "returned success" so I never bothered to look twice but now I will look three times.

I've returned many movies from 3 different locations and haven't had that problem. The website says it's ok to return them to ANY Redbox location.


btw,what is blockbuster pass that someone mentioned? If this has anything to do with mailing, things get lost in the mail too, that's why I didn't want to go netflix.

 

I got netflix and never had an issue with it, if it gets lost in the mail, they dont trip. i had one that came to me broken, they didnt hesitate to send me another asap. as far as the blockbuster pass, they have a new one that is in store only $21.99 and you can only have 1 out at a time but you can swap it as many times in 1 day as you want for a game or movie, if you can watch that many lol. Its expensive if you add up the gas to drive there unless you live across the street from one.

 

How much do YOU pay a month for that? I felt the $4.99 had a catch.

 

the blockbuster thing is you get them in the mail but you can return them to a store a pick up another

 

Another word of caution: I had a credit card number stolen (along with many other people) via a secondary reader installed on a Redbox machine. My credit card company caught them trying to buy about $3k in airline tickets, and the day was saved. However, it could have been bad. Redbox owned up to it, but I was irritated to say the least.

 

The movies can indeed be returned to any RedBox location, but like mentioned before; It may spit your movie back out. If the movie was put in the case the wrong way, it will accept the case for about 5 seconds and then it'll spit it back out. There's a barcode on one side of the DVD and the case instructs that you put it facing one way. I nearly walked away, when I saw the case pop back out. I now wait for the msg that my movie was successfully returned. That has been my only problem with them, and I rent from there a lot.

 

I think that's what probably happened to me. I will promptly wait for that "successfuly returned" message from now on, but when the machine takes the movie in, it's VERY easy to assume once it's in there, all is well. Oh well, $27 lesson learned. *shrugging*.

 

No problems with redbox, but I always stuck around & waited for the return message. Also, I've since switched to netflix & love it, no having to go wait for dumbasses lined up at the red box taking for ever....and no extra $$ spent on gas. I don't even use the free codes they send me on Mon & Weds.

I got the 3 out at a time unlimited, it runs $17 and some change, i figure for about as many times as I can rent & send em back, they are costing me around 80 cents to $1, so red box costs more because of the time & gas spent renting & returning them. Plus with netflix you can also stream movies from them as well, although maybe only 10% of their titles are available this way...but I also have a PC hooked to my nice LCD tv in the living room which makes it nice.

 

I use Gamefly for my games and Redbox for my DVD's. Return at different locations all the time, have yet to get overcharged. I guess you got "lucky"