Blockbusted, Part 2

I used to work at Blockbuster. When VHS gave way to DVD, we had a slew of customers who thought they were being smart by renting a movie, copying it at home, claiming it didn’t work, and trying to get a free rental.

In these instances, we would say:

Me: “Sorry, sir, we can only allow you to rent the same movie again. We can’t rent you another movie.”

Customer: “But it didn’t work!”

Me: “And we apologize. You can rent the same movie again for no extra charge, with an extended rental period.”

Customer: “Why?!”

Me: “To discourage video piracy. Sir, this was also our policy with VHS. It hasn’t changed now that we have DVDs.”

This particular customer seemed extra upset by this, but I didn’t know how far he would take it until he went the extra mile and actually scratched the heck out of every DVD he would rent. He would always blame it on the person who rented it beforehand and kept making remarks like “Oh, you must be running out of copies of this movie, maybe you should rent me another title?” 

Little did he know, we have a record of the number of times the particular copy had been rented before, and his was brand new. He didn’t appreciate my sleuth work or that we charged him to replace it. 

I’m sure he’s somewhere thinking he got the last laugh when we closed down. 

Related:
Blockbusted