Redbox Scam Ripoff

Earlier in the year, my sister was raving about Redbox and how much they liked it. It's a box in the grocery store with DVD's that you can rent for $1+tax per day.

So my wife started renting them soon after. So about a month ago I was checking on her bank account and noticed 4 charges of $1.05 for 2 movies they had rented. I asked my wife if she forgot to return them and she said no.

So she called Redbox and they said this is normal procedure (like renting a car). They charge you for 2 nights and then at some point the second night is refunded. So I asked my wife to go back to the previous times she rented and see how long it took to remove the extra charge. My wife found that they HAD NEVER REMOVED IT. They had charged $2.10 each time.

So today she is calling again and here's what they said:
"They are saying they put a 'freeze' on my acct for 1.05 and then when I return the dvd they then charge their rental fee of 1.05"
"She said it's up to my credit card co to unlock the freeze and put the 1.05 back."
"She said something is written about it on the kiosk box where you pick up the movie."

My wife asks:
"So redbox takes the money but they are not on the hook to put it back and i can't find ANYTHING under terms of conditions regarding this."

To me, what's fishy is I've never heard of a case where the bank has to know to remove the charge.

So we are having to dispute the charges each time of rental. You might be asking yourself why we are still using the service. It's so convenient!

So now she spoke to the boss and he says:
"When you pick up the DVD you are actually charged 2 days and each bank is different in the way they handle freezes. His personally is 2-3 bus. days and then they credit back. He told me to call back on Friday w/my bank on the line."

So they say it's a bank problem, not a redbox problem. But I personally never heard of this issue with credit card charges. I'm able to make charges and remove them. I never had a company say it's my bank's responsibility to remove an overcharge and by the way, the bank has no incentive while redbox is keeping the extra charge.

I see no discussion on the front of the box about being charged for 2 days:

I never heard back from Etrade

So just canceled the bill payment in question and going to re-enable the 2 payments and just hope this time it works.

You can't help but wonder if the banking crisis is affecting customer service.