Why Blockbuster Video Should Rule the Rental Market of Santa Barbara, CA

In the world of brick and mortar movie rentals Blockbuster is looked upon by some as the corporate destroyer of all competition. Blockbuster can afford more product and offer longer rental periods, which is convenience that is often worth the higher prices. Many say Blockbuster is one of the killers of Mom and Pop style rental stores that cannot keep up with the competition. My experience with renting movies in Santa Barbara, California has me on the side of Blockbuster saying: kill them. Kill them all. And by all I mean only one, because I only know of one Mom and Pop style rental store in Santa Barbara and it is a tradition in need of destruction.

The Video Store is a small movie rental store located at 128 West Mission Street. I have lived on Mission Street a couple of times and would walk to the establishment sometimes for movie renting due to the fact that The Video Store has a habit of letting new releases out a week too early. Yep, what other places do not get until a Tuesday, The Video Store would sometimes put out on the shelf as early as the Thursday of the week before! However, my business has been driven away and I'll just walk on by in the future.

There is a nice selection of movies at The Video Store and the prices are lower than Blockbuster video, but you only get to keep the movies for a single night. More times than not, however, one night would not be enough to watch the movies I would pick out. In fact no amount of nights would be enough because the movies would never play! The Video Store is full of damaged DVDs that skip or freeze. If you want to watch movies with large chunks missing or watch part of a movie just to have the rest of it quit working and never reboot: The Video Store has the product for your attention span! I am not exaggerating to say more than every other time there would be an issue with the movie not playing correctly.

The movies you rent at The Video Store come with the back sides caked in some sort of white, putty like substance. If you do not scrape this off you risk ruining the inside of your movie player. I think this gunk is left over from their buffering machine. They have a scratch removing system where they buffer the movies an insane amount of times. I rented The Lion King, looked at the back of the disk and swear it was a blank disk. The movie did not play, and my returning of it was the last straw.

One generally wishes to applaud employers giving disabled or mentally handicapped people a chance at a job. However, in the case of The Video Store this backfires as customer service is terrible. There were two main employees I had to deal with. One with a physical deformity, is a chatter box hanging out with friends and calling everyone "brother." He does not remember anything and time and time again I hear him giving customers made up information, news about movies, or factoids that are absolutely not true. This is the employee I brought The Lion King back to. He tested the DVD and concurred with me that it did not work. He said that he would credit my account with a free movie rental. I did not have time for a movie that night, being the night after I had rented The Lion King, and so I told him I would come back at another time for the free rental.

The very next night I went into The Video Store to rent a movie. This time it was the employee who is rude to most everyone. I'm not sure if he has a mental disability or what the issue is, but he speaks very blunt and matter-of fact mean to people. I walked up to the counter with my movie selection and expected to have it be free. Instead he looks at me and tells me he will not rent me a movie until I return The Lion King. I explain to him what happened with The Lion King and he does not care. He says it was not returned to him so if I want to ever rent there again I would have to come back the following week when the other employee would be back to work. I was under the impression that my account would have a credit. On top of that the movie did not work, surely there is a note about it or it is laying around by the DVD player where the other guy tested it? Nope. And then I was told that I would have to buy The Lion King if I wanted to rent the new movie. I left.

The next week I called The Video Store to speak with the employee who had taken in The Lion King DVD. He recalled the event after I told him the story and then told me to hold on. He came back to the phone and said: "There must not be anything wrong with The Lion King because it is out on the shelf for rent." He went on to tell me he'll let me rent it for free though, "on me, brother." All hail Blockbuster.

Blockbuster's movies through the mail system coupled with returning the movies in store as coupons is a way cheaper and more convenient way to rent movies if you have a Blockbuster store near you. You can also buy used movies from Blockbuster with a guarantee that they will work at a low price.