Blockbuster
Blackbuster Video is a video rental chain that charges a shitload for late videos. Almost nobody goes to Blockbuster anymore, save a few Alaskan and Texan old ladies who can't use Bittorrent and don't understand the convenience of Redbox not charging you out the ass for "restocking fees".
PROTIP: It's better to take a five dollar bill and light it on fire than to spend it at Blockbuster. Donate it to ED, actually.
Average Store Experience
Blockbuster employees hate you as much at they hate their jobs. They don't give two shits if you want the latest copy of Twilight or the newest Pokemon game for the Wii. They want you out of the store because when you're in there they are forced by their managers to try and sell you every single piece of shit they are sent by the corporate shipping department. The sooner you leave the store the sooner the clerks can go back to putting the movies from the return box back on the shelves.
Occasionally Blockbuster employees take their store name and job literally and can be found in the back alleys busting innocent blocks. This is usually carried out during their breaks and is performed mostly on poor defenceless cuboid shapes.
Blockbuster POS
"POS" literally means "point of sale", but the more appropriate meaning "piece of shit" applies as well. The computer system Blockbuster uses for its registers is akin to the MS-DOS based computers of the early 1990's and many register screens have serious image-burn to suggest as such.
The Meme
Although few details remain of the incident, ED is able to report on some of the history of this dramatic incident. In 2007, a child rented Hey Arnold! The Movie on DVD from his local Blockbuster chain, while with his mother. He however received a pornographic video, resulting in much lulz. Once /b/ got hold of this information, calls to Blockbuster over VoIP networks tripled for a short time, until the meme was considered old.
Phone Trolling
- Locate a Blockbuster phone number from Google.
- Call Blockbuster.
- Ask for Hey Arnold: the Movie.
- Listen to them flounder for an answer, get bothered, hang up.
- Post logs.
- Repeat.
Or if you're a normal person that realizes that Arnold: The Movie isn't funny at all, inform them that you had rented the movie Iron Man for you 6 and 7 year old boys, and when you got home they were watching some homosexual pornography known as "Iron Cocks of Chaos III", this is far more hilarious.
IRL Trolling
Any "fee" that Blockbuster charges you can be disputed, and if you bitch enough the manager will reverse it, regardless of the amount. You can make up any story from "my brother rented this without telling me" to holding the late movie in your hand and demanding they remove the fee. They have to do so, it's in the employee manual. Late fees in excess of $150 have been overturned because the person who was charged them wouldn't shut up. Managers hate their jobs as much as the clerks, and if it will shut you up and let them go back to sitting in the employee back room where they can cry themselves silly, they will credit the fees off of your rental account.
The only cameras in the store are pointed at the front door and the employees behind the register and nowhere else. You can do whatever you want behind the movie racks and they won't be able to tell unless they specifically see you do something - and even then they are barred by Blockbuster policy to even confront you about it. Rearrange movies, print out fake movie art and stick them on the shelves, whatever you can think of, they can't stop you. If you make a mess they can ask you to leave but they will still have to pick it up. PROTIP: Some Blockbuster stores leave their brand new retail video games OUT ON THE SALES FLOOR.
Many times the clerks in the store will wheel a metal movie cart around loaded with returns and other garbage. If they're ever distracted they will usually leave the cart somewhere in the store to attend to whiny customers with entitlement complexes. If you find the cart, open the drawers on it and see if it's where they keep their rolls of price stickers. If they're in there you can easily take a roll of $2.99 stickers, put them on something reasonable (like an old movie not an Xbox 360 game you fucking moron), and they will have to charge you that price.
All of the movies in the store are locked with little yellow strips. There really is no real effort required in opening them up if you wanted to, all you will need is a couple of strong magnets. At the bottom corner of the case where the lock is inserted there are two metal bearings inside a plastic casing, one on either side of the case. Put the two magnets on this bottom corner and pull the lock. It will come out. Likewise Ama-Ray, the company that manufactures the special cases, aren't very good at making things durable. By tearing the plastic cover off of the case you can then squeeze either the top or bottom end of it, grab a hold of the case as it buckles, and pull it apart at the rear seam, leaving the lock in place. If you want to fuck with the store, break their cases but don't steal anything.
Blockbuster is a wasteful company that, rather than selling used movies for 99 cents, will send them through a shredder. Regardless of the movie or its popularity stores are ordered to "destroy" copies of films. Of course, many times people won't do that and will simply keep the movies and act like they are throwing them out. If you find yourself making friends with an exceptionally apathetic employee you can probably get him to give you free copies of used movies that they are supposed to be destroying. Blockbuster has consistently operated in the red for many years, rather than sending stores 1,000 copies of The Dark Knight and then telling them to destroy half of them they could have easily made several thousand dollars selling them at as low as $3. And they wonder why they are losing business to other companies.
Do not let them put a credit card on your rental account, this is how they can (un)fairly charge you nonsense BS fees. They may give you some bullshit about it being "required" but it's not. If they give you hell about it tell the clerk to put "VG" as the type of credit card and it will block your account from having one listed with it. Without any way to charge you late fees you can rent whatever you like and never return it and never pay the fees. Many customers have expressed disdain with Blockbuster's credit card policy, as once a movie becomes "late" you are temporarily charged the full price of the movie. The transaction is not finalized if you return it within a certain amount of days, but Blockbuster basically has a hold on your account for X amount of dollars the entire time.
Moar ideas on Trolling Blockbuster
Even faggots do it.
9/11/10 NEVAR 4GET
On September 11, 2010, Tom Casey resigned from Chief Financial officer, due to leaks on the media about bankruptcy. The leaks became true, and Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy on September 23rd. Blockbuster said it would keep all stores open. The truth about their economic status slowly came out. Blockbuster eventually admitted they couldn't fulfill their bankruptcy. They were eventually liquidated to Dish Network. They initially had plans to make it into a streaming company, but later dropped that plan. Their last store is still in business in Oregon. Of course, nobody cares.
External links
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