Royal Ripoff! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!

[moviemuffin]

Friday I went to see three premieres at the local Regal Cinema in the Independence Mall in Kingston. Ironically, I spend my hard earned cash there rather than driving into the city, where I could use free movie passes. I bought three movie tickets for the night (so I would only have to stand in line once).

15 minutes into THE HULK we lose electricity. The entire town had a power outage. They evacuated the theater and the mall. Apparently the generators weren't able to take care of business. No word on when power would come back on.

So no big deal. I approached the manager (who knows I am a movie reviewer and knows I spend large amounts of money in his theater). I realized he was probably having lots of annoying questions so I kept it brief. If I came back tomorrow with all my ticket stubs would I have a problem getting my money back seeing as I didn't hang around the same day? In order to make my deadline for the reviews I needed to go to another theater.

No refund. No discussion. Tough. When I tried to appeal to his reason, figuring maybe he misunderstood me, he turned his back on me and walked away.

I'm taking the motherf*cker to small claims court. Seriously. I know it's only 23 bucks but it was so RUDE and DISHONEST and UNNECESSARY!!! I was POLITE to the sonofabitch!!!!!!! HE gets PAID to be POLITE to ME!

Sorry... had to vent. This just sucks. It isn't the money, either, I drove all the way to another theater (AMC in Braintree) and spent the money all over again. But it was very inconvenient because I had plans for one of the midnight signings for the new Harry Potter and couldn't disappoint the kids, so I ended up not reviewing one of the three movies.

I was mad enough I went to their webiste and complained, put up a nasty link on my own site, and really DO plan to file a complaint in small claims court just so that shithead has to show up.

:mad:

[FeverDog420]

How can an entire town have a blackout?

Anyway, it's not management's fault you couldn't stick around to be refunded.

Your experience, proved, if nothing else, that AMC should always be your number one choice.

[moviemuffin]

I never got an answer about why the entire town lost power but none of the surrounding towns did, nor why the generators failed.

It's not the managements fault that I can't stay. But it's their responsibility to give refunds when they can't provide the purchased service. They could not provide me with the purchased services, and were not sure when they would be able to do so.

I paid. I didn't get what I paid for.

The irony? They are known for refunding money to underage kids they boot out of R films, and refunding money when the picture quality has problems (even if you see the whole show). But the manager also has a short temper. Basically he refuses to deal with people.

Which is what he gets paid for.

Apparently (I called the mall) there is a huge uproar from a huge number of people. I was told a police officer is looking into it. I hope that's true.

[BorderEevilIII]

MM I assume you have your ticket stub? And why didnt the guy of the theatre offer patrons return passes as good faith?!?
And whoever this a-hole who un-called went off on ya include his name in ur complaint and if the head folks at Regal should favor you as the customer or if NOT a word of mouth can put a dent of Regals business.

[Lynn7]

I but discount movie tickets at triple A (car agency) and I went to the movies last summer - there were 5 in our group. I gave the tickets to the guy at Hoyt's and he refused them and said that they were out of dat eand they were not good any more, I had spent 30 dollars on these tickets and not they were no good?!!!It's not like it was a discount coupon- I bought these tickets. They ahd expired a few weeks earlier. The y guy wouldn't bend. There was someone else behind me who had the samwe thing happen to him. I wrote to Hoyts twice and never even got the courtesy of a reply.

Meanwhile, showcase cinema never pays attention to expiration dates. I called them when this happened and told them I had some expired tickets (I didn;t really) and they told me to just use them when I came in- no problem. Who do you think I now do my business with? Hoyt's must have lost 250 dollars by now cause I am the one of my family and friends who decides which theatre we are all going to go to- they weren't very smart about this. They would not hvve lost money cause I had prepaid the tickets- the money was in their account already. But they are losing big time now casue I won't go back again- no tickets, no popcorn, no soda, no candy...,.

[DareDevil]

ok i work at a theatre so let me see if i can help..

yah the manager was an A-hole but he can only refund you that day, he could give u an interuption pass, but after the day is over you cant refund movies. And if you take that to court he's going to tell him thats the company policy and that you had the option to stay and get a refund, and that will be the end of the court case, so u should just call and tell them you had to rush out and ask for an interuption pass and i am sure he'll give you one that will let you and a friend in

Good Luck :)

[moviemuffin]

He can't very well quote "policy" when the registers were closed due to the power outage.

I have talked to my lawyer (he's on retainer and a friend) and he says they haven't got a leg to stand on.

First off, "policy" doesn't supercede law. Legally if they are unable to offer the service promised they have to refund money, not service exchange (such another showing).

They can't reasonably ask people to stay at a mall that was evacuated (ie, hanging out in a parking lot) until the power returns.

At this point it's not about 25 bucks. I don't care about the money. I can afford it. It's about his attitude.

For ages I have been going to this mall and I'm always nice. I say hello to this fathead, smile at him, tell him to have a nice night when I leave. He never does more than grunt. It never bothered me, really, since I'm just that way. But he was so damned rude about it.

You want to hear IRONY??? That night we went to AMC Braintree and I witnessed a hit and run in the parking lot. I took down the license number and reported it. They busted the guy, all because I was there on a night I shouldn't have been.

Then later, at midnight, when a riot was on the verge of breaking out at several book stores who failed to stock enough Order of the Pheonix copies, we trotted down the road to a Borders near the theater. Just so happens I knew a manager there and got not only a HUGE discount, but pushed to the head of lines that were lingering well after the 2 am deadline.

See? I'm nice. People do me favors. The manager at Regal Cinemas is a prick. He'll be fired before this is all over. I've already had phone calls from four other customers I gave my business card to. They are all filing small claims, too. And they wrote to Regal Cinemas.

:D

[DareDevil]

like i said Good Luck bro

[SkyNet]

haha, man, GO GET THE SON BITCH!

i am the sae way as you man. If someone is kind and curtious when things go wrong or in other situations, i am kind and if i lose out because of the situation, but the people in charge are polite, its no problem.

But when we have a shit head, who makes a bad sitaution worse, than its time that we show that shit head that we wont take it, and start to fuck with him or her. Not because of what happened, but just to be as big a shit head to him as he was to me!

More power to ya!

[inglourious basterd]

You are obviously putting a lot of time into it. Hopefully you will find more people to join along with you.

I am very interested in whether or not you beat the system. Let us know how it goes.

[moviemuffin]

UPDATE:

My lawyer has advised me to wait at least 6 weeks before filing in small claims to see if the parent company will act. He believes the manager should be fired. I guess there have been a few emails from my readers/listeners, so it could happen.

Ironic twist:

Wednesday I went to Hingham, MA to the Historic Loring Hall Theater (awesome restored antique playhouse with old wrought iron gas lamps) to see Legally Blonde II for review.

Their projector broke. They asked everyone to wait. After 15 minutes it became clear they would not be able to show the movie, so they JUST GAVE EVERYONE THEIR MONEY BACK... and not only did they not bother to do it through the cash register, but they didn't even ask for ticket stubs. Just handed everyone cash as they passed out, apologized, and thanked everyone for being understanding.

THAT is how it's done. I bought three packets of their gift tickets and I've been giving them away all over the South Shore.

[bowieee]

First off that mananger is a complete cock.

I have never been to a movie thatre with that sort of policy. Pacific theatres the movie thetre I frequent even gives you a readd if you think a movie is shitty and leave before the half way mark.

Let alone a huge ass power outage. I think he was just having a bad day and now he is going to lose his job over it, deservedly so.



Hopefully next time you see the bastard he wonm't mess up the cheeseburger he's serving you.


God theres is nothing I hate more in life than bad customer service. Well maybe some other things as well but that is definetly on my list.

[moviemuffin]

I agree, but there is a certain satisfaction in getting even.

I was at the same mall and talked to a guy at Best Buy. He said they reopened pretty quickly but that they had a good backup generator and the theater didn't, which was interesting. I was buying a new computer for my daughter. I guess sales skyrocketed for them after the big outage from all the idiots with no surge protectors. :p

At this point I'm finding the whole thing rather amusing. I guess a bunch of people went to the mall administrative offices to complain, etc. If nothing else he killed a LOT of business, and there are other theaters close by, so that was pretty stupid.

[inglourious basterd]

Originally posted by moviemuffin
movie, so they JUST GAVE EVERYONE THEIR MONEY BACK... and not only did they not bother to do it through the cash register, but they didn't even ask for ticket stubs. Just handed everyone cash as they passed out, apologized, and thanked everyone for being understanding.

THAT is how it's done.

Wow...I haven't seen that done before.

It certainly isn't the smart way to do it (they gave money back to the moviehoppers as well), but it seems pretty damn courteous.

Great theater..

[Nate6]

Go get the sum'bitch, moviemuffin! I cannot stand when these high-on-themselves managers think they can push around the paying public and not expect to get their ass bit back in return. They can't expect people to pay for something then not give them their money back after they don't go through on what they promise. They should have been able to refund you at any time, not just at that time, and this shows you how much of a shit they give about the people nice enough to pay them. Trust me, the manager where I work is a total ass to the public and to the staff, I'd love to get him fired. I bet the staff at the theater would love to see him fired too, if he's like that all the time, which I bet he is.

[moviemuffin]

LOL! Thanks Nate, I will keep at it til I at least have no more resources.

RE: The Loring Hall Theater. It's nearly impossible to sneak into that theater. It's tiny, there's only one set of doors into the front of the building, there are two large arched entrances that abut the front in and the exits in the back can be seen from there. It's a single-movie theater. I can't imagine anyone managing to get in without paying.

If you are ever in Hingham, MA or the area it's a great place to check out a movie. You feel like you've gone back in time. No cup holders, though, so beware! But old people love it because it takes them back and kids love it because it's totally different.

I have a "thing" about old, restored theaters.