Posted Wed Oct 28, 2009 at 01:00 PM PDT by Tom Landy
Redbox is in court again, but this time it’s consumers that are suing. A class action lawsuit filed in an Illinois circuit court alleges that Redbox illegally collected over $100 million in rental fees for discs that were returned after the 24 hour rental period.
Customers upset with the fees they paid for rentals have taken Redbox to court. Based on the advertising slogan that promised “$1 a night DVD Rentals” with “no late fees… ever”, customers are accusing the company of misrepresenting the actual fees of using the service.
The court document states that two classes of Redbox customers are represented. The first are customers that returned their DVDs after the designated 24 hour time and were made to pay for an additional day. These customers claim that the fee charged for an additional rental day are excessive.
The second class of customers represented is made of people that were charged the maximum amount of $25. This fee is charged only when a DVD is severely late or missing. The customers claim that $25 for a missing DVD is far above what a retail DVD would cost and three times the amount of a used DVD from Redbox, and that this fee too is excessive.
The suit involves counts of statutory fraud by omission, unfair practice, unlawful penalties, and violations of Illinois rental and contract laws.
Source: Courthouse News (PDF)
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