Caron McBride, a former Norman, Oklahoma resident, found a surprise left for her from the Movie Place. For anybody over the age of 18, the idea of renting movies is not a foreign concept. Companies like Blockbuster, Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video offered a service exclusively to their members. Once somebody became a member – typically, only involved showing your ID and voila, instant membership – they were eligible to rent movies.
Of course, one of the rules was the movie must be returned. Most times, the rental was for one or two days. New released movies were almost always due back the next day to keep up with supply and demand.
What happens if a movie did not get returned?
The answer to that is simple, late fees. If the movie was not returned within a certain amount of time, the member would be charged to replace the movie – usually, almost double the amount to purchase said movie.
One rental company went one step too far when it came to McBride’s rental account. McBride, who now resides in Texas, was trying to change her name after recently getting married. That was when the unsuspecting surprise was sprung on her.
"I went to change my driver's license, during this COVID thing you had to make an appointment, and so, I sent them an email [and] they sent me an email and they told me... that I had an issue in Oklahoma and this was the reference number for me to call this number and I did," McBride said in an interview with OKCFox.
Apparently, McBride had felony Embezzlement of Rented Property charges hanging over her, and she thought the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office was mistaken.
"She told me it was over the VHS tape and I had to make her repeat it because I thought, this is insane. This girl is kidding me, right? She wasn't kidding," McBride said in her interview.
The charges stem from a VHS tape that was rented with her account in March of 2000; over 21 years ago. McBride does not even recall renting a “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” movie. She assumes that it was a man who lived with her at the time that rented it for his two young daughters under McBride’s name.
Even though the company went out of business in 2008, McBride might still be forced to answer to the charges. This would be because charges were filed in Cleveland County and a warrant was issued for McBride.
The Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office said they reviewed the case and decided to dismiss the charges. Unfortunately, it does not undo the damage to McBride. She said that she has been let go from several jobs in the past without and explanation and assumes it is because they saw two words that made them no longer wish to employee McBride – Felony Embezzlement.
Not everybody finds out they owe for a rental like McBride, some just happen across the item. Howard Simon lives in California but lived in Ohio in the 70s. As he was going through some things, he happened across a Bob Dylan album that he checked out from the University Heights Library. The interesting fact about his finding, was he checked out the album in 1973, almost 48 years later.
Simon placed the album in an envelope, along with an apology letter and sent the album back to the library. In the letter, Simon apologized for not returning the album by the due date, and a check for $175.
Sara Philips, the branch manager of the library told WGN9 that the check was unnecessary because they no longer charge late fees.
“The funny thing about this is that we don’t charge overdue fines anymore — as long as we get the item back, we see no need to penalize people,” Philips said. “We’re grateful that Mr. Simon returned the record. I’d say we can now call it even.”
Simon said the check was because the album “isn’t in great shape.” He also sent a second donation, a copy of his own album, “Western Reserve.”
Very few movie rentals still exist because the streaming services have made brick and mortar movie rental places obsolete. Blockbuster was a movie rental giant back in the 90s and early 2000s. It seems greed was one of the reasons for the downfall of the company.
In 2001, Blockbuster had a class action lawsuit against them from customers who complained their late fees were high and their return policy was confusing. For example, a movie that was checked out on Monday was due back Wednesday at noon. However, if a customer turned it in at 12:01 on Wednesday, they were charged two extra days of late fees. That meant the late fees were retroactive.
The company issued $460 million worth of movie rental coupons to attempt to appease the litigants of the suit. This move made Blockbuster shares fall two cents to $21.79 by close of the stock market that day of the announcement, beginning the fall of the movie rental empire.