Xtravision Phantom Outstanding Rental Issue

kmurph

I know there's a few people that have worked for Xtravision on boards so just wanted to pick their brains a bit.

Went into my local Xtravision yesterday, as I usually do on a Saturday, to see what new movies were out to rent. Picked up a couple and went to the counter. The sales guy swiped my membership card as usual, went off to get the disks and came back with them. He then told me that there was an X-Box game rental outstanding on my account since the middle of April which hadn't been returned. This was the first time that I'd been told anything about it.

Now I don't have an X-Box so renting X-Box games would be pretty pointless for me. I can also say with 100% certainty that my membership card wouldn't have been used by anyone else. It's always in my wallet which is either in my back pocket or my desk drawer at home. Don't have any kids or siblings at home. Only my parents who still haven't got the hang of using the EPG on their Sky digibox so don't think they've got an X-Box hidden anywhere.

The sales guy said that they'd look into it, but in the meantime what I'm interested in knowing is two things:

1. Does the Xtravision rental system not flag an account when there is a rental outstanding?

As I said earlier, I rent movies there almost on a weekly basis so I've rented movies there plenty of times since April and nothing was ever mentioned to me. In fact, I only rented there last Wednesday and the Saturday before that too. Seems a bit odd that nothing was mentioned until now. I would assume that if an outstanding rental is marked on an account that it would be suspended after a certain amount of time.

2. Is there any "official" means of appeal with Xtravision if they insist that a fine has to be paid? I'm certainly not going to pay out €50 or €60 to replace a game that I never rented in the first place.

Ken.

I once had xtravision try sting me for something similar a long time ago. It was for a playstation 1 game. I did not at the time nor have not since ever owned any games console.

Turn's out there was another member at the store had the same name as me and the staff member had put the game on my account cause the other guy when renting a game had forgotten his card.

He returned the game in time and the guy taking it off him mentioned to him that the game wasn't on his account. Luckily this staff member was there the day i went in cause they wanted £4.50 per day for 6 weeks and £65 to replace the game.

Anyway the crux of what i'm saying is check that there's noone else at the branch with the same name as you who may have borrowed a game and didn't have there card at the time of renting and it ended up on your account by mistake.

kmurph

Never thought of getting them to check that lucyfur09. I'll remember that the next time I'm in there.

The main thing that's puzzling me is why if this has been on my account for over 3 months, why was it not mentioned before now? Anyone know what Xtravision's policy for that is?

Del2005

I got hit for a phantom rental years ago. I didn't rent it and similar to you I knew no one else you'd use my account.

I told them I didn't rent it and the person behind the counter just cleared my account. If they won't clear the account just get another one.

foggy_lad

Del2005 wrote: »

I got hit for a phantom rental years ago. I didn't rent it and similar to you I knew no one else you'd use my account.

I told them I didn't rent it and the person behind the counter just cleared my account. If they won't clear the account just get another one.

Sounds like they know from your rental history that you don't rent games and know this is one that was stuck on your account by mistake/illegally which is why you were never asked about it before.

From time to time the staff will be under pressure from managers to get outstanding amounts cleared so they are now trying to recoup a loss from you when someone else has the game which staff rented to them using your account which is a serious breach of data protection rules.

Ask for a printout of your rental history to check for other breaches and you should also make a complaint to their head office about your account being used without your knowledge or consent.

Del2005

foggy_lad wrote: »

Sounds like they know from your rental history that you don't rent games and know this is one that was stuck on your account by mistake/illegally which is why you were never asked about it before.

From time to time the staff will be under pressure from managers to get outstanding amounts cleared so they are now trying to recoup a loss from you when someone else has the game which staff rented to them using your account which is a serious breach of data protection rules.

Ask for a printout of your rental history to check for other breaches and you should also make a complaint to their head office about your account being used without your knowledge or consent.

It was a movie and I haven't darken the door of a video rental shop in a long time.

foggy_lad

Del2005 wrote: »

It was a movie and I haven't darken the door of a video rental shop in a long time.

sorry my reply was meant for the OP

John Mason

something similar happened to me, i was late bring back DVD due a family death.

I brought them back and paid the fine there and then. about 12 months later, i went back and was told that the fine was outstanding.

i told the guy in the shop that whoever i paid the fine too must have pocketed the money and point out, it was himself i had the fine too.

they cleared my account eventually. i hand him my card to cut up in front of me and never went back

Tusky

There is probably a note on your account saying something like 'games debt not owed, error on system - do not ask' or something like that. The guy who asked you probably missed the note. To remove a debt they need managers approval so its probably been sitting there for ages for that reason.

fifth

Don't worry, they won't make you pay it.

I used to work there a few years ago, they're supposed to run a report every night called the '2 day late' report. It gives them a list of all rentals more than 2 days outstanding. So they go into the vault, check to make sure they haven't received this rental and filed it mistakenly with out checking it in and they phone you.

Not sure if they still do this. If they persist with you just refuse, we never made anyone pay for games missing, it just gets written off.

Most likely they entered the wrong membership, or someone has a name like yours, they don't put too much care on checking whether the account is yours or not. Don't believe the crap about managers 'putting pressure on staff to recover losses from someone elses rental' they can't do that.

arrianalexander

call in and speak to a manager. just explain you never rented this game and said no one has said it to you until now. just be straight up and ask maybe for your account to be card only so it doesn't happen in the future.

it does happen from time to time but they should have mentioned it to you a long long time again...

as for the post about setting up a new account it won't work any more the new system will flag similar details and to stop people setting up a number of accounts and having fines etc on each of them. don't do this as this will then make you look like you robbed the game. most managers will sort it out for no problem but may put on restrictions on your account so you have to have the card from now on etc just to make sure no one else can use your account.