With great fanfare, Blockbuster Video grabbed headlines everywhere (and tons of free advertising) by announcing the company was “eliminating late fees.”
Read the fine print, though, and you may see this news in a completely different light:
BLOCKBUSTER: To celebrate our great tradition of crushing most independent video stores, eliminating the competition, and engaging in unfair business practices for years, we’re dropping all late fees!
THE PUBLIC: Hooray!
BLOCKBUSTER: But, if you keep a title more than a week, we’re going to charge you the full retail price we pay for it … an amount usually higher than the late fees we used to collect … and certainly more than you’d pay for a well-used copy of the same video.
THE PUBLIC: Hoo — um, er, what?!?
BLOCKBUSTER: But no worries! If you bring the video back within thirty days, we’ll still refund your money!
THE PUBLIC: Hooray!
BLOCKBUSTER: Of course, we’ll have to charge you a “restocking fee.” We’re not revealing yet exactly how much that fee will be.
THE PUBLIC: Hoo — er, um, what?
BLOCKBUSTER: So, essentially, we are dropping late fees … but we’re going to collect the same money — or more! — by forcing you to buy videos or charging you a super-secret restocking fee that’s so high we didn’t dare mention it in our press releases today!
THE PUBLIC: Wait … how, exactly, is that better for us?
BLOCKBUSTER: Well … did we mention that we’re doing away with late fees?
PEOPLE: Hooray!
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