1. I'd expect that from Blockbuster. They're absolutely horrendous and treat their customers like garbage. I will never rent a game from them. Hollywood Video is the way to go. Oh, and while I'm at it, Best Buy is just as bad or possibly worse.

Posted at 1:10AM on May 4th 2006 by schiftya2

2. for some reason i am not suprised. remember blockbusters "no late fees"??? that lasted real long...all they did was change the names for their fees, "restocking fees"(etc.) i guess that is why they ended up in court. it seems like a good way to get people to not rent games...hey its their loss...goto hollywood

Posted at 1:44AM on May 4th 2006 by edon

3. I work at a Hollywood Video and was this $2 specifically for the game or the account in general? We have to hold a dollar for an hour or two when new accounts are made or credit cards expire, (We don't normally ask for the dollar thing because it can be too much of a hassle on a Sat night) If it is for the game then yeah it's a shame. Theft of games is easy to prevent. My store lost 300 movies in a quarter and zero games. Zero games. They come back because gamers know better. PS: nothing worse than a negligent customer telling you that the "other place" doesn't have late fees

Posted at 1:55AM on May 4th 2006 by John

4. Oh Blockbuster, just when I thought your idiotic ways couldn't get any worse...

To think I gave them a second chance with their version of Netflix after they had charged me a late fee for returning a movie "2 days late" when I had actually returned it 1 day early.

If theres a Hollywood Video near you, by all means PLEASE GO THERE instead. Sure, their 360 titles are not all the same at each location [there are more where there is a GameCrazy next to it] but they have at least 6 or so. The people that work there not only know what they are doing, but are also pretty cool & laid back.

Heres what you do...
`Obtain 8 dollars
`Go to ebay
`Search http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=hollywood+video+game+coupons
`Enjoy 12 Video Game Rental coupons that are good for 2006 AND 2007.
`Once out of coupons, repeat.

`ENJOY YOUR 0.67 Xbox 360 Rental [8 dolares / 12 coupons]

And that my friends, is how you get the easy 1000 gamerpoints, or games you don't want to purchase [GUN, Madden 06, etc]

Good Luck =]

PS: If all else fails, theres always GameFly.

Posted at 5:34AM on May 4th 2006 by John Valadez

5. I'm just glad Ken used my joke about an extra cerdit card, 2 ID's and a blood sample. Classic puh_fifer sarcasm.

I wasn't sure if they were putting a hold for a couple bucks or the whole thing, I though it was silly so I just figured I'd goto Hollywood Video on my way home.

Posted at 8:51AM on May 4th 2006 by puh_fifer

6. The $8 rental fee does more to drive me away than the $2 hold. When I rented my first 360 game, they didnt tell me about a hold they just said they needed a major credit card, I never recieved a hold on my account. I bet it is just some corporate policy. Either way, I remember renting games at blockbuster in the old school days for $3. Dont we get a discount at hollywood with the XBL diamond card anyways.

Posted at 10:20AM on May 4th 2006 by Doc P

7. Gamefly! I had given up on both Hollywood and Blockbuster about a year ago when I walked into the local Hollywood video and couldn't find Psycho, by good old Alfred Hitchcock, and to add insult to injury, all the section titles were in Spanish. I don't mean to sound ignorant or rude, but this is America, and our language is English. Its perfectly fine to have Spanish translation below the English, but to only have Spanish? What a joke. And the rental fees are getting rediculous!

Posted at 11:16AM on May 4th 2006 by Phil

8. In February, I walked into a very large Hollywood Video here in Indianapolis that had their integrated game store attached. I asked the employee working the counter to point me towards their XBox 360 games. They responded "We don't carry them yet."

I went to a smaller Hollywood Video closer to my house. They had 5 titles, all launch day titles.

As of then, there have been no alternatives for brick and mortar rentals in my area. With finals, I haven't had time to look recently.

Posted at 11:35AM on May 4th 2006 by Joe Eversole

9. Whats crazy is you can't even use cash?!?!?!?
Last time I checked all money said "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" so why is cash no good. Well I called my Blockbuster regional manager and they told me why. They said that some people have rented games w/ there Debit/Check card and their bank had over-drafts and they sued Blockbuster and thats why they must do it. Hmmm if thats the case, why only 360 games. Top Spin 2 is a $40 game..why should I pay 9 to 11% intrest to play a game.

Posted at 11:54AM on May 4th 2006 by Razor_1138

10. I rented 2 360 games from BB a couple weeks ago. They said they needed a credit card to rent it, but not an Xbox 1 game. I thought it was stupid, but went with it.

Renting games is hella expensive. With tax, it cost over $17 for 2 games. Crazy!!

I finally found what seems to be a decent online game rental site. I had been with Gamefly, but turnaround with them seemed to be like 10-11 days.

I switched to Gamerang. They have 4 distribution centers in the country. I've only rented like 5 games from them, but their turnaround has been under 5 days so far. Nice!!

Posted at 11:55AM on May 4th 2006 by Hoffer

11. same thing happened to me about 2 weeks after my blockbuster started carrying 360 games. I had been renting them with no credit card with no problem. But then I tried to rent a game and they said they needed a credit card so they could charge the whole amount to my card plus charge me for the rental. Also they said it could not be a debit card. I got pissed, dropped the game on the ground and walked out.
Since then I have been a loyal subscriber to Gamefly. Burn in hell BlockBuster.

Posted at 12:33PM on May 4th 2006 by JD

12. Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one!
Blockbuster tried this crap on me and I left and went to Hollywood.

Posted at 12:50PM on May 4th 2006 by Melton32

13. My girlfriend has been picking up games for me from Blockbuster on a regular basis (I'm injured) and she was informed that they would indeed put a hold on her card for $60 per game rented. I can sort of see a purpose in this in that people could surely use a stolen blockbuster card to rent games and then keep them, and it's likely that this would be a younger crowd (i.e. gamers) but the entire concept is somewhat offensive as it treats gamers as if we're all criminals. I'm inclined to stop renting games from them altogether but from recent comments I've seen about online game rental sites the turnaround is atrocious. Until a service emerges that works as well as Netflix I think I may avoid rentals altogether. But I suppose I'll wait until the $300 worth of gift cards I got from various people when I got hurt run out :P

Posted at 1:04PM on May 4th 2006 by [sinz]

14. People, you're overreacting about this. Get real.

Imbeciles.

Posted at 1:14PM on May 4th 2006 by SurferLeo

15. The reason is because of the lack of late fees there is hardly any penalty for keeping games as long as you want. I use blockbuster online and get two free rentals a month, so I use my free rental, keep the game for a month or two until I get tired of it, and then pay 1.25 restocking fee. My account is charged after 1 week, then it is credited for the price of the game when I return it. So I just paid 1.25 to keep a game for as long as I want. Who cares if they charge your card, you'll get the money back whenever you turn in the game. I think that is the best deal going. As long as you can put up with the automated calls!

Posted at 1:35PM on May 4th 2006 by HUFF

16. I rented Fight Night Round 3 from Blockbuster, and they required a credit card to rent the game. Once I rented it, I had it for two weeks and went back to return it, and they had charged $55 to my credit card THAT DAY and refused to refund the money claiming that "there is nothing we can do about it" which is bullshit. Anyways, my only option was to either keep the game, or they could "take it in on trade" and give me $30 for it, but I would still have to pay the $25 difference if I wanted to rent. This raised the question of...if you can refund the money to my credit card when I trade the game in, why can't you refund it for the full amount and just keep the game? I dared to ask the question, and they proceeded to feed me the same BS over and over. Anyways, I ended up saying "I thought there were no more late fees" the manager said, "There's not, you just got charged for the game because you kept it for too long" Is that not called a late fee?

Anyways, I threatend to cancel my account and go home and sign up for netflix/gamefly and she instantly started cooperating. At $7.99 per rental for a game, I'd say blockbuster is getting it's ass kicked pretty bad by the online rental jobs. After she refunded the money I went home and signed up for gamefly anyways. Blockbuster/Hollywood Video suck ass.

Posted at 4:16PM on May 4th 2006 by dsub

17. seriously, Give the guys behind the counter a break. We have absolutely no control over you returning something late or store policy. People that threaten customer service are scumbags. Just remember that we'll be making fun of you almost immeadiatly after you leave, usually with some other customers joining us. ALso just go down to a GameCrazy and buy an original gameboy or gameboy pocket. You get the coupons once you get home throw away the gameboy.

Posted at 6:49PM on May 4th 2006 by John

18. I work for a video rental company (isn't blockbuster but as I am about to rant I should probably not mention which since corporations are rather particular about that kinda thing) and I would like to say that the people at Blockbuster do NOT get paid enough to deal with this kinda stuff. You can't expect to be able to have the newest movies or videos for as long as you want and only pay $4-7 for it. That's the whole idea behind late fees, it controls the inventory so that it's somewhat predictable when the product will be back in stock for renting. These guys get hundreds of people a day yelling at them for things that are totally out of their control. They pull up your account, and a window pops up saying "this person has x amount of late fees" or "please swipe this persons bank card", it's not like a personal attack against you it's corporate polocy. However, many people decide to take that as a cue to personally attack the person behind the desk who is being paid minimum wage to be yelled at by hundreds of people a day (if it's friday or saturday) and still be expected to be smiley happy. It's not like Hollywood or any other rental corporation is any better. If you lost a game there, it's not like they aren't going to charge you the cost of the game + the late fees for not having it in. It's economics, opportunity cost, loss prevention.

And by the way, shift-leaders and managers are sooooooo much more likely to give you a break and be sympathetic to your cause. If you as a customer, act human. Though it is their job to be able to help any customer, it's still a lot easier for a person to think when they're not getting threatened by a seathing mountain of hate.

Posted at 7:51PM on May 4th 2006 by Russell Matsuo

19. Blockbuster can burn in hell anyway. I can NOT wait for them to finally go belly up. I'm not a real big fan of hollywood either, but at least they are much better than blockbuster.

Posted at 9:09PM on May 4th 2006 by mietha CAG

20. Russell I could almost cry, what you said, It's sooo beautiful, and true.

Posted at 9:14PM on May 4th 2006 by John