When TNR was young, we provided outstanding customer service. I remember sending someone to a customer’s home to pick up a DVD because they were sick and couldn’t get to the store! We ALWAYS erred on side of giving customers their money back.

Then “big money” came in, causing TNR to hire new management and develop aggressive growth plans. Suffice to say, the new management was terrible.

It breaks my heart to read of the above problems, and to see that Redbox has surpassed TNR by such a huge margin. To think that TNR really launched the grocery store market and that, now, people refer to all kiosks as “Redbox”. I guess you have to give the Redbox folks some credit.

Fast forward to 2008. Obviously, TNR (and DVDPlay) are struggling and Redbox is expanding aggressively - including 3200 WalMarts to come.

Here are some corrections to above posts and some thoughts:

1. The machine does not charge you when you rent a movie. It authorizes your card for (most commonly) $1. You get charged when you return. In some cases, where returns have been declined, or you’re using a gift or debit card, they may authorize more.
2. The charge for keeping a movie for more than 14 days should be $35 plus tax. If someone was charged $69, something was wrong.
3. If you have any problems like #2, dispute it with your credit card company immediately. It’s up to the vendor to respond with proof.
4. While the above posts sound pretty terrible, many millions of customers have rented with no problems. On behalf of the industry, I apologize for those who had problems.
5. Redbox focuses on new releases. TNR started (and this may have changed) as a company that has a broad catalog that would appeal to entire family. I don’t know about you, but I never leave the video store with just one new release. I always get one for the family to watch and one for the kids.
6. TNR changed machine providers mid-stream. The new machines were (are) horrible and slow.

Like it or not, this is the way that DVDs will be rented in the future (not counting Netflix, which is awesome). Brick-and-mortar video stores are going away, and will become rare like music shops - probably focusing on hard-to-find stuff.

Hope this helps. Bottom line, if you have a problem be persistent. You’re the customer, and you’re right.

On 4/13/08 I went to the movie box located inside a Kroger grocery store. I was going to return 3 movies, however the movie box was out of order. I was instructed to call customer service, which I did. I spoke with a CSR who told me to place the movies inside the box on the right of the machine with the incident number she provided. I did so and kept a record of the conversation.

When I checked my bank statement on 4/28/08 I realized I had been charged $1.07 for one movie (the correct price) and then charged $74.90 for the other two(obviously incorrect). At this time I called customer service for the second time and spoke with another customer service rep. who told me that this would be corrected and that I would be charged $2.14 for the two movies (the correct price) and that I would receive a refund for the $72.76 overcharge.

04/29/08, I look at my bank account and I have been charged $74.90 with no refund and my bank account has incurred overdraft charges in the amount of $65.00. I called “The New Release” customer service center for again and Chris Borner is the supervisor that I spoke to in trying to correct this. He asked me to fax a bank statement and a written statement and he would get back to me in 24-48 hours. I disagree with the time-frame Chris gave me but I decided to fax the information and check back with him later in the day to confirm receipt. (when I called back, Chris was “in a meeting”)

After sending this fax and receiving no phone calls from Chris or any other supervisor I called back to the customer service department where I was hung up on and then when I called back I was lied to and then hung up on (I obviously have a super power that allows me to call whenever the “supervisor handling my complaint” is out to lunch, in a meeting, or out of the office). I called several more times and after escalating slowly up the ranks in the company I came to speak to Nathan Gilbert (”the supervisor handling my complaint”) who, by the way, should be fired. Nathan was supposed to have called me on several occasions and each time I ended up having to call him because he apparantly does not have time in his busy schedule to make the phone calls he has promised to make.

When I FINALLY spoke to Nathan on 5/2/08 I was informed that the “New Release” had issued a credit to me in the amount of $65 and that it would take 2-5 business days to process. So, I confirmed that I should receive my refund by Wednesday 05/07/08 and Nathan said yes.

TODAY IS THURSDAY 05/08/09 I still have received no credit to my account and upon calling the customer service department AGAIN I was told that the credit was issued on 05/06/08. I supposed I should be shocked but since I have not encountered anyone with this company who can be honest I expected this to happen. Now, one would beg the question ‘why would Nathan tell me something had been processed on Friday that was not yet processed until Tuesday?’ I however can answer that question myself….Nathan thought he would get rid of me and have me stop calling by lying, but when I am trying to recover money that was essentially STOLEN from me I am not going to trust someone who has repeatedly lied to me. At this point I am so angry that I want to tell everyone NOT to use these boxes. I want to warn consumers about giving their personal information to a company who has no regard for their customers and their money. It is much cheaper to visit a local video store or digitally rent a move…..these movies cost much more than ONE DOLLAR….BEWARE!!!

We inadvertantly forgot to return three movies…the kids “put them away”. When my card was charged some $69 for each of them I automatically went looking for them. I found them and called the Customer Service dpartment and asked how to return them and get a refund. I was perfectly willing to pay a reasonable restocking fee but $69 was not reasonable.

Well, after a lengthy delay I did get to speak to someone, but the conversation that followed was ridiculous. She told me how they could not take the movies back they were “out too long”…I explained 14 days was not too long..these movies were still being rented in their kiosk. Then, she said peple don’t rent movies after they have been out for 14 days, so basically, we used up all the “profitable rental time for them”. I explained to her that two of the movies we rented were “E.T.” from the 1970’s and “The Shaggy Dog” from about 10 years later. She wasn’t phased, still said they were past rental time.

When I asked to speak with a supervisor I got “Nathan”, and things just got worse from there. Nathan was one of the most arragant men I have ever talked with and was just quoting their policy the whole time. He made it very apparent he was not interested in talking to me and there was nothing he was going to do to resolve the situation. I finally asked to speak to another manager and he said I could “call back on that Monday and schedule a call with the on duty manager, but that it was just going to be him again, and he would not take my call”. Then, he hung up on me.

There is no reason for anyone to put up with aggravation like this from any service organization, I will take my business somewhere else, and with 4 children…we watch a lot of movies. I too have filed a complaint with the BBB and hope enough complaints will make a difference, but from the sounds of all these complaints I doubt. They are not intersted in solving problems within their organization.

Here is my experience with TNR - I had rented from them for months. I don’t check my balances on my cards, never have. So, one of their customer service reps called me out of the blue and said that I had over 25 of their movies, and that I need to call them back or that they would press theft charges against me. I called them back immediately, and she proceeded to tell me how I had rented these movies and not returned them. I told her that I would look into it - and call her back the next day. When I called her back the next day, I told her that I still wasn’t sure but that I needed a list of the movies so that I knew exactly what I am looking for. I then explained to them that there were numerous times that I called in, couldn’t return movies, or that they were late and the machine wouldn’t take them. She confirmed that but says I owe them over a thousand dollars. I have been round and round with them - honestly I don’t think that they know what they are doing. It is a nightmare. I would highly discourage anyone from renting with them. I do have to say - exluding the “we are going to press theft charges” comment they have been very friendly. I guess they figure they are going to get lots of money from me - who knows! They are showing listed on the BBB in 2006 (I think) and have had over 28 complaints since then. That seems like a whole lot of complaints for a small company. I am sure there are many more who haven’t complained - including me. =)

It’s deliberate false advertising, and needs to stop.

I won’t waste my time or gas with them again.