renting a dvd

flutegirl

I joined a well-known dvd rental store over a year ago. When I joined my cousin was with me (they are 11). I only ever rented one dvd as I moved from the area.

I found out that my cousin has been able to go into this shop without an adult or a membership card and rent dvds just by giving my name and address. Surely this can't be correct. She's a child and I had no idea she was doing this. Needeless to say I am not very impressed. Anybody can go in and rent stuff under anyone's name and run up bills if the stuff is never returned.

BrianD

Everybody has done this at some time or other "Oh I forgot my card". The shop should refuse to rent if you don't have the card but then most Irish consumers would rant and rave and threaten to ring Joe Duffy so the shop assistant will probably think its not worth the hassle.

You should bring it up with the manager and state that you will not be paying. I take it that the kid has run up a few arrears? One could almost live with a sibling or a son/daughter renting it but a cousin is a little to distant!!!

Aidan78

Same thing happened with me, OP, though in my case, I never knew who was using my name and account in the store. Because the account is in my hometown down the country and I live in Dublin, I hardly ever used it. But when I was home for the bank holiday weekend in June, I went into this particular DVD store, picked up 2 DVDs and went to the counter, where the assistant informed me that there was a €70 fine on the account from some PS2 game that was rented in January and never returned.

To cut a long story short, the assistant agreed to put a note on the account stating that the matter was being disputed by the account holder (me) and that in future, no future rentals could take place unless the membership card was produced.

I was well pissed off that this store had allowed such a thing to happen. At the end of the day though, the blame lies solely with them. If they had tighter rules in place, then it wouldn't have happened. But I found the whole situation to be quite distressing. Haven't been back to the store since and certainly not intending to do so in the near future

flutegirl

BrianD wrote:

I take it that the kid has run up a few arrears?

They hadn't to my surprise coz i think they only used it a few times, but if I hadn't have found out now it could've been a different story. Am heading in there tomorrow to cancel membership, can see this 'system' being open to alot of abuse.

snickerpuss

Well this is handy when you are using your parent's accounts or my brother using mine cos hes too young for one.
People not related to you / you don't know doing it is a totally different story though, but most of the time its useful and not dodgey.

TerrorFirmer

I haven't seen my Xtra Vision card in about 2 years. As long as I have the card number they give it to me - I've seen several instances in the past of people I know renting out games on other peoples numbers and not returning them.

Saruman

Best thing to do for everyone who has a membership is to get them to put a note on the account not to rent anything without the card. Even knowing the number and just quoting it is dangerous... some skanger behind you could overhear it and use it next time.

I should do that myself... member of xtravision palmerstown but i do not live there any more and so do not use them... anyone could get lucky.. or my family might use my account. This happened before.. brother rented something and was late returning it so next time i got a DVD i was asked to pay.. i refused i think... said i did not rent it and payed for the DVD i had and walked out.. should have told them not to issue without card from now on.

antoinolachtnai

Are the membership numbers sequential, i.e, could you guess one?

flutegirl

[QUOTE=some skanger behind you could overhear it and use it next time.[/QUOTE]

Exactly! All someone has to do is overhear your name and address.

AdrianR

It's a bit pathetic in this day and age that you even have to have a membership card for video rental. About 8 years ago when living in England the local video shop had a web cam attached to their PC, when you joined they took your mugshot, when renting you just gave your name, If you don't match the mugshot that pops up then you couldn't rent.

jjbrien

I used to work for one of the big video stores in Dublin and in Mullingar down the country the renting rules seem to be more easy. In the store where i worked in Dublin you needed to have the membership card if you didnt have that you needed photo id or you were not renting anything that night. Down the country the store just asked for name and address and that was it.

If a kid came in with a membership card I would give them the movie only if the move was sutible for their age if it was not then I told them they would have to bring their parent in. Sometimes there would come in with a note from their parents. I would not accept the note because it was normally fake.