Blockbuster Continues Pissing Off Customers

It was only two months ago that I wrote about my experience with Blockbuster and how they were raising the prices of their “Total Access” services and/or changing the services for their customers (BLOCKBUSTER Total Access – Not So Total Anymore). The result of that was that I now pay the same amount ($17.99 per month) for a service where I once received unlimited movies by mail and unlimited in store exchanges, but now get unlimited movies by mail but only five in store exchanges per month (and we said goodbye to the one free movie rental per month coupon as well).

We weren’t the only ones effected, of course. Blockbuster got a new CEO back in the summer and his plan was to raise prices for pretty much everyone. The result was the loss of at least half a million customers. I stuck with it…mostly because it was still cheaper than renting movies one at a time.

Yesterday, however, I received yet another email from Blockbuster. You guessed it. This time, I wasn’t given the option of changing my service (what else could they take away from me?). Nope, this time, it was clear. The price for the service option I have will now be $19.99 per month. If I don’t like it? Tough.

It’s all over the news too. Seems like people aren’t very happy.

It could be worse, though. My wife and I had discussed staying with the option we had had previously – the unlimited movies through mail and unlimited in store exchanges. The price for that option went up back in October to $24.99 (which would have been a $7 increase for us). We decided against it mostly out of principle. I’m glad we did now.

With the newly announced price increases the increase for that “package” will now be raised yet again. This time it’s going from $24.99 to $34.99. That’s a 40% increase if you’re keeping count. How many movies do they think a person can watch? And at what point does the whole thing stop being any kind of value? I mean, it’s really only a value if you’re getting more movies than you would if you went and paid for them separately each time you wanted to see a movie. at an average rental price of say, $4.00, you’d have to watch 9 or more movies in a month in order to make this any kind of a value. To really feel like you’re getting something for your money I’d guess you’d have to probably watch 10 to 12 movies at a minimum. With the mail service being the way it is, and people being as busy as they are, I don’t see this being a valid option for “most” people.

If Blockbuster is just trying to get people to drop out of their program their doing a pretty good job. Netflix, who has been the one trying to keep up recently, saw their stock jump 9% after the news of the price increase hit the airwaves. I expect they’ll see their stock go even higher as news of the inevitable backlash against Blockbuster begins making even more waves.

I haven’t yet decided what I plan to do. Technically, the number of movies I receive for $19.99 per month is still a pretty good deal. I get five in store exchanges and probably get at least another five, sometimes more, through the mail in a month. Ten movies for $20 bucks works out to only $2 each (if you don’t forget to take the in store movies back on time and have to pay the $1.25 “restocking” fee or whatever they call it). But I’m starting to wonder about the principle of the matter. Blockbuster has shown little to no regard for their customers at all.

At what point should we begin saying that we no longer want to be Blockbuster customers?