Ashley and her husband were visiting her in-laws in a small town in Michigan when she spotted this old-school wall of public humiliation in the local pizzeria/video store.
Says Ashley: “What amazes me is that a town with a population under 1600 has this many people who owe significant amounts of money to a video store.” (Also amazing? That this video store is actually still in business.)
related: Roadside intervention
54 responses so far ↓
#1
Tesstarosa
I wonder how long the list of people who owe less than $50 is.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:06 pm rating: 29
#2
Ashley
I wonder how much late fees are.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:07 pm rating: 14
#3
Danny
Too bad the photographer didn’t have a higher resolution camera. I want to read the names. And to make out what the numbers are on the “$200-???” chart.
Either way, /my/ hypothetical video store would stop renting to people before they got up to $50. It’d also have the porn right up by the front door, just to keep parents from bringing their kids in. Darned kids, always doing kid things.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:13 pm rating: 38
#4
Matt
Looks like the town could use a Redbox. Or even one of those stand alone off-brand Redbox-like kiosks. Hmm… investment opportunity.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:14 pm rating: 4
#5
Jon
That’s not hard to hit $50. Rental stores get their tapes/dvds about a month or so before the home video release. Knowing that they’ll be rented, the studios charge $80-$100 easily per copy. Loss of one copy is enough to get you on the list.
(FYI: Blockbuster/Hollywood Video chains have a special deal with studios in which they pay a per-rental royalty instead)
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:27 pm rating: 4
#6
Melinda
Whenever I see stuff like this, or bad checks posted in restaurants, I think, that can’t be legal under the FDCPA rules…but maybe that’s just me.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:33 pm rating: 11
#7
zenvelo
Isn’t this why the whole “credit card on file” deal started? This store should start processing charges.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:38 pm rating: 6
#8
eric
everyone on that list now uses netflix.
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:42 pm rating: 24
#9
Justin
Too bad this is also probably illegal in Michigan, which bars “Publishing, causing to be published, or threatening to publish lists of debtors,” and “Using a shame card, shame automobile, or otherwise bring to public notice that the consumer is a debtor, except with respect to a legal proceeding which is instituted.”
Feb 28, 2012 at 7:55 pm rating: 6
#10
danke
is it just me or does the handwriting look like Thank You Terry handwriting?
Feb 28, 2012 at 8:52 pm rating: 0
#11
bluebunny27
Once I rented 8 dvd’s, all at once … I could keep ‘em all for a whole week. Then I bring ‘em all back and the next week I get a call from the video store asking me to return all the dvd’s or else I would have to pay late fees, well .. I had already brought ‘em all back on time, sorry, I was explaining this to ‘em over and over for days in a row, several conversations. I was 100% sure the whole time I had brought ‘em back all at once and gave them to their employee there. They kept insisting I was guilty. I had to argue a lot, they were asking me to pay hundreds of dollars, I think they were saying it was 75$ per dvd, so … around 600$ … My name would have be at the top of their list with big arrows pointed at my name there with such a debt !
Getting a huge debt with a video store is definitely possible … long story short they finally found the dvd’s right there in the store, they had put ‘em back on the shelves without scanning them as returned so they were sitting there in the store but in the computers all of ‘em were still at my house, doh … The moral of the story, never pay with a credit card at the store, they would definitely have charged the 600$ on my card if I had used it there, those places are usually not very reliable so you can get stuck with a huge bill because an employee made a mistake.
Feb 28, 2012 at 11:40 pm rating: 19
#12
Nahhh
Back when my kid was in middle school, her backpack was stolen with a rented video in it. We reported it immediately to the store owner (a small indy, not one of the big chains), with a copy of the police report; she promptly informed us we now owed her $118, the replacement cost of the video. So, yeah…it’s really easy to run up an alleged $50 debt with a video rental store.
In most cases, it’s probably not legal debt, though…which is why a store owner like this one would put up a “Window of Shame” instead of taking people to small claims court.
Feb 29, 2012 at 12:24 am rating: 4
#13
The White Clouds of Opium
At a certain point, laziness crosses the threshold into simple defiance. So in that sense, I wish these people godspeed. May they enjoy that copy of Taboo II for another 25 years.
Feb 29, 2012 at 4:43 am rating: 8
#14
Lori
I was driving through Arkansas once and there was a small town with a combination gas station/convenience store/video store. They had a posterboard sign up with people who were barred from the store. There were about 10 people on the list, including “John Smith Sr.” and “John Smith Jr.” I would love to know what got them all barred.
Feb 29, 2012 at 6:25 am rating: 8
#15
Dane Zeller
I have a list posted on the window of my living room that shows all video stores that owe me $35 or more. There is just one on it: Blockbuster. I have a gift card from them before they sold to another company. They refused to honor it, before or after they changed hands.
Feb 29, 2012 at 8:05 am rating: 12
#16
vstorevigilante
As a video store clerk, I can’t be mad at this note. I get yelled at daily by people complaining about their late charges. Hell, I’m here 5 days a week and even I have late movies all the time, and am expected to pay up. And I do, because it’s my own fault. We would never get away with posting such a list, although we ARE the only game in town… so… perhaps.
Feb 29, 2012 at 10:02 am rating: 2
#17
mama2tnt
I always used to be indignant when the local (small, independently owned) video store around the corner said I still had a movie out – but wouldn’t you know it, it turned out they were ALWAYS right; the movies turned up under the couch, etc. And yet, even when it was completely my fault (“Oops! I finally got around to watching this movie that’s a week late, here ya go”), they would chop the late fee in half, even when I protested (“No, that’s not right, it was my fault, charge me the whole thing, thank you anyway, nice people”). They really knew their movies, too – while I recovered at home from surgery (and was on some rather strong pain medication), they bent over backward to help me choose movies my addled brain could watch. And yes, they were finally driven out of business by Netflix, et al. Sigh.
Feb 29, 2012 at 10:50 am rating: 24
#18
hiptobesquare
I’m really concerned that this is my college town and my name is on that list.
Feb 29, 2012 at 2:31 pm rating: 2
#19
People Person
¡I think this is in Mexico!
Feb 29, 2012 at 5:59 pm rating: 0
#20
Nunavut Guy
I think Charlton Heston used to rent videos.
“Oh the humanity”
Feb 29, 2012 at 7:45 pm rating: 0
#21
DrChalkwitheringlicktacklefeff
This is probably one of those video stores where if you lose or accidentally damage the $10 video you’ve borrowed from them and offer to replace it they insist it be purchased from a particular supplier who charge $50+ for it. Video stores are always running those kinds of scams.
The other thing about this ‘Wall of Shame’ is that with things like this you inevitably reach a point where it no longer shames the people involved because once there are more than like a dozen names on the list, nobody is going to bother reading it.
Mar 1, 2012 at 7:41 am rating: 6
#22
Team Cassandra
Oooh, lots of new names! Somebody FaceBooked me this and I remembered howmuch I missed this place. I’m thinking death MIGHT be more effective than shame;p: http://imgur.com/r/pics/IcweS
Mar 1, 2012 at 8:36 am rating: 0
#23
sj
I would feel comforted knowing I was not the only flake in town.
Mar 1, 2012 at 10:21 am rating: 5
#24
Redheadwglasses
I once owed about $25 in late fees, which I had to pay the next time I wanted to rent something (which was rare). They also were doing a charity thing where you could contribute to a movie rental fund for children in the hospital. I mentioned wanting to contribute to this prior to them telling me about my late fees, so when the late fee thing came up, he waived them because I”d given a similar amount to the charity. Cool beans!
Mar 1, 2012 at 12:51 pm rating: 5
#25
What century is this?
Why is that list HAND WRITTEN? Its ridiculously LONG.
Mar 1, 2012 at 12:57 pm rating: 1
#26
Pingy
I own a video store (very small, independant. Lots of documentary foreign, arthouse etc) and I don’t know about in other countries but here we pretty much pay *around* the same price that the normal consumer would pay for a DVD, we might get bulk deals if we get a certain amount of product but generally the purchase price that WE pay is not much different than if you had bought it from a major chain. I don’t think they’ve done that thing where you pays hundreds of dollars for a new copy of a movie – since we also rarely get films before the retail sector anymore.
If we ask someone to replace a damaged or lost item, we will generally only charge what it would cost for US to get that movie back in. We do send non payers and people who don’t return things (ie: thieves) to our debt collectors to deal with and they sort of charge flat fees that cover ‘late fees’ and then replacement. (So $60 for a movie – 1/2 late fees, 1/2 replacement cost)
We also do the late fees are half price if you pay on return.
In regards to the ‘scam’ where video stores charge $50+ for a replacement from their certain supplier I can still see this as legit.
I need a new copy of Underworld (1) At the moment, it’s $40 (rrp) from my supplier. If a customer wanted to rent that ASAP then I’d be paying that, plus the freight cost for delivery. It could easily be around the $50 depending on supplier.
Mar 16, 2012 at 9:07 pm rating: 1
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