Blockbuster

Yesterday I looked at my credit card bill and saw four mysterious charges from Blockbuster on it. Two debits about a week apart, then two credits on a later day. All told, it says I owe Blockbuster $11.64.

Today I got a friendly postcard from Blockbuster reminding me to return a disc of 24 that I rented, along with The Ringer (didn't rent this) and some movie called Grandma's Boy (never rented this one either) on the same day. So I called my local Blockbuster and explained that I had only rented one movie when I came in that day, and was there some mixup to explain why I had been charged for not returning these movies that I didn't rent? I eventually talked with the manager who told me that never would one of his star employees have messed up and done something like accidentally left my account open while someone else was renting movies. So then, I asked, what should we do to resolve this? I rented the movie with a free coupon, so unfortunately I don't have a credit card receipt for it. He said that the only thing he could do was look through "the tapes" early next week and see if he could verify that I, in fact, rented only one DVD. I'm assuming this is their security video, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, since they're a "very busy store," he couldn't be bothered to check right now. Apparently I forgot how much of a madhouse Blockbuster is at 7pm on a Wednesday night.

This is really frustrating. I realize that it's only 11 dollars, but I did not rent those other movies, and I'm not interested in paying Blockbuster because someone else didn't return their DVDs on time. But I don't really have much leverage here. I can see that from their point of view, the computer says that I rented these movies and returned them late, so they assume that I'm lying to get out of paying the fees. I should have kept my receipt, I guess, but who keeps a receipt for a movie they got with a free coupon over three weeks ago?

I didn't like the fact that I had to give Blockbuster my credit card information to open the account, but I can appreciate that it's the only way they have to charge delinquent customers. But if they can't keep their stuff straight, then I'm not interesting in keeping an account with them.