DVD Rental returned to Red Box Customer Care agent Brandon I rented a DVD from DVD Play but thought it was RedBox. Internet

I have never ever heard of DVD Play before. I was at the supermarket when i saw the Red dvd box and i thought "Wouldn't it be great to watch some movies tonight" which i did. After i was done, i looked up on the redbox website and found that there was redbox by me so i returned my dvds there. Imagine my surprise when 2 months later i get a charge from DVD play twice for the amount of $27.80 each...i was like..??? What? Who are they? I've never rented a dvd from them before. I went online did some research and found that no, im not the only person who gets affected like this. Apparently DVD play don't over advertise themselves but keep looking like Redbox so that they get to charge people who make the similar mistakes for each DVD they mistakenly returned to redbox instead of their VERY VERY similar looking boxes. It was so ridiculous. This is the first time i have ever rented DVDs from those boxes and it will absolutely be the last. And i am definitely advising everyone i know not to use Dvdplay and be aware of this. And i want my DVD's if im going to pay full price for them. This is absolutely ridiculous. You would think that as many times as people accidently doing this, DVDplay would put a warning on the dvd to say something like DO NOT RETURN TO REDBOX or something. Its annoying. DVD play need to be more original and get their own freaking look instead of looking exactly like redbox.

As a former employee, and supervisor for Redbox, I can tell you that you were lied to.  It is NOT Redbox policy to return competitors DVD's.  Redbox truly doesn't care that you have to pay another company for the movies returned in their box.  Nor do they make any attempts to collect DVD's that were rented from Redbox and returned to a competitor and will charge you the $25 per DVD 25 days after rental.  Now there are SOME supervisors, and employees who will go out of their way to return competitor DVD's but that is up to them.  I even had a Regional Manager ask me why I bothered to collect competitor DVD's and return them.  I was informed I couldn't ask my hourly staff to do so because it would cost Redbox $$ in salary and mileage so if I wanted to do it I could but he frowned on it.  Where once Redbox was a good place to work, once it was taken over by Coinstar it became big business.  Remember $1 DVD's are on the back of their employees which are required to make unreasonable goals in all types of weather.  

Yes it is the fault of DvdPlay for designing their moronic bright red kiosks to deliberately resemble RedBox kiosks! Anyway RedBox kiosks should eject the disks from the competing company. Anyone would make the mistake of renting from DVDPlay and returning to RedBox. It's as if they planned this. The kiosks are almost identical and RedBox came out on the market first, a novel idea, and imprinted their Red kiosk images on people's brains. Those "Red Boxes" were synonymous with the brand RedBox and only RedBox! Why the hell would a company make an almost identical vending display as their competitors?! Make it a Blue box or some other color for goodness sakes. Once again, anyone would make this "mistake". Well, both companies are liable in this and the charge of $27 for an "unreturned" $5 used DVD is outrageous. I was a victim of this nonsense and both companies will get a heap of bad PR from me if they don't resolve the issue with me.

"Why would their software except DVD Plays movie? Thats the question. Why didnt it reject it?"

Their engineers would be in a better position to answer that question but I would assume that it is because both companies use similar hardware and software. This really isn't any different than the old days if somebody were to accidentally deposit movies belonging to Blockbuster into Hollywood Video's drop box.

"I never knew there was another company out there that had kiosks. I thought there was only Red Box. Not until I saw the charges was I made aware there was 2 different companies"

Now you know. By the way, a lot of DVD Play machines are being phased out and replaced with Blockbuster Express kiosks. These are blue so people who do not wish to look at the company name on top of the kiosk or on the screen should notice the difference in color. No word at this point if Blockbuster Express kiosks will accept Redbox movies or vice versa. Best to be cautious.

"Be it that DVD Play doesnt have the marketing that Red Box does or what ever the reasoning, doesnt change the fact that they now have 2 extra movies in their inventory that will not add up to their books."

Are they going to send the movies back to DVD Play at the end of the month?

"According to my research I am 1 of MANY people with this problem."

A lot of people are sticking movies in the wrong machines?

"So what are they doing with this high volume of movies they didnt pay for in their inventory? If they got audited how would they explain their inventory versus their books?"

According to your first post, they get shipped back to the other company at the end of the month. I am certain that they have a ledger for product that isn't theirs. It is my understanding that these companies often ship movies back to each other quite frequently. You're angry at Redbox but there are also people who stick Redbox movies in DVD Play kiosks. They think that DVD Play is the bad company. In fact, there is one report on this site written by a person who thinks that the two companies are conspiring to confuse people so that both companies can profit.

"Was it consumer error..yes. "

I'm glad you see that as you seemed offended when Redbox pointed that out.

"Does not mean they keep it though and add it to their inventory. Notice they never asked me what movies they are to be looking for? While talking to their CS on the phone I told her I thought that was weird they didnt even ask. How do they know what they are looking for if they dont ask?"

My understanding is that they will just set aside any movies that do not belong to them. The DVDs get boxed up and shipped to the owner. In your case, DVD Play will sort out which discs came from you.

"Its bad business...flat out!"

If they ship the movies back to DVD Play then I'd say they are practicing good business.

Why would their software except DVD Plays movie? Thats the question. Why didnt it reject it? I never knew there was another company out there that had kiosks. I thought there was only Red Box. Not until I saw the charges was I made aware there was 2 different companies. Be it that DVD Play doesnt have the marketing that Red Box does or what ever the reasoning, doesnt change the fact that they now have 2 extra movies in their inventory that will not add up to their books. According to my research I am 1 of MANY people with this problem. So what are they doing with this high volume of movies they didnt pay for in their inventory? If they got audited how would they explain their inventory versus their books? Was it consumer error..yes. Does not mean they keep it though and add it to their inventory. Notice they never asked me what movies they are to be looking for? While talking to their CS on the phone I told her I thought that was weird they didnt even ask. How do they know what they are looking for if they dont ask?

Its bad business...flat out!

Redbox should certainly send the movies back to DVD Play at the end of the month. That would be ethical even if Redbox isn't technically obligated to do so.

That said, it isn't the fault of either Redbox or DVD Play that you stuck the movies in the wrong kiosk. Legally speaking, the items were in your care and thus they were your responsibility.

The early Redbox kiosks actually were DVD Play machines, that's one reason for the similarities. DVD Play has been throwing stones at Redbox because the former company has been failing. It's not difficult to tell Redbox and DVD Play kiosks apart. All you have to do is look at the names on top of the machines and on the screen.