GRRRR

if you had hardly any money in the bank and are on unemployment you
shouldnt be wasting what you do have on movies. Its irrisponsible to
be reserving movies, obviously if you bounced a one dollar movie, not
to mention 3!!, you should have known that if reservations were free,
you still couldnt afford to actually rent it.

I'm willing to bet that if you overdraft your account when you pay
your Netflix fees, you'll still be charged an overdraft fee.

From the sound of your letter, there was less than $1 in your account
when you put in the reservation. You state that Redbox charged you 3
separate transactions, each for $1 plus tax, and each transaction
resulted in an overdraft fee. Not a good practice to use your card
for any reason when there is so little money in the account.

Seems to me that the problem isn't with Redbox, it's with whomever is
responsible for keeping track of the balance on the account the debit
card is on.

Redbox owes you nothing. It is clear on their website that you are
billed at the time of the reservation.

Easy rule to live by, if you give your credit card information out
online it will be charged, always be prepared for it.

Also, always check your account BEFORE making a purchase, not after.

Instead of Netflix maybe you or your wife should check your local
library. Our library is filled with VHS tapes and DVDs that you can
take out for free (with a library card). They have lots of material
for children, and you can keep them for five days. I think you can
even renew online if necessary.

You might not be as lucky with your library, but you won't know until
you find out. It's worth looking into, don't you think? You can even
pick up some books for the kids while you're there.

They didn't force you to do anything. You didn't pay attention to the
policies, and that isn't their fault. Nothing "crappy" or "Scum"
about it.

What you think they should do doesn't matter. What they do does.

Per the FAQ's at redbox.com

Am I charged from the minute I click "RENT ONLINE NOW"?

Yes. But, once you've received your confirmation email, you're
guaranteed that your title will be at redbox when you get there. Sure
your buck could've earned .000006381 cents in a money market account
during those 5 hours, but imagine how much more relaxed you'll be
knowing you have your movie waiting for you.

but you assumed that there would be no charge for a reservation and
that assumption turned out to be wrong.

How is that Redbox OR the bank's fault?

Look at it this way: suppose someone reserves all the DVDs at a
location. This prevents anyone else from getting one.

So, to ensure that people actually want the DVDs they reserve, they
need to charge you.

Now, as for the fact that a $1 DVD turned into $30. It sounds like
that's due to the fact that, with a debit card, they put a "hold" for
$30 to ensure that they'll get paid if the DVD isn't returned. This
is a reason not to use a debit card (or a credit card near its limit)
with things like this.

This said, $1 DVDs do sound like a cheap form of entertainment. Much
better to spend $1 for the entirely family to watch a movie, than $12
for a theater ticker for one person.

i gave up renting movies when i thought my funds were going to be low

and didn't rent again until *after* my funds were in place.

it's my responsibility to ensure my funds can cover what i'm
spending.


and if it's a lean time... that's when i look at the dvds i already
own or do other things like reading a book...

Hulu.com is free too. Its also a great place to catch TV shows that
you missed.