Plaintiffs v Redbox
Class Action Claims Redbox Charges Illegal Late Fees
A St. Clair County woman has filed a putative class action lawsuit against Redbox, alleging the company illegally charges excessive late fees despite its promises against such a practice.
In a complaint filed in St. Clair County Circuit Court, lead class plaintiff Laurie Piechur claims Redbox Automated Retail charges customers who return DVDs after 9 p.m. late fees. However, the company wrongly boasts that it will never charge late fees, Piechur claims. "From January 1, 2002 up to present, the class period at issue in this case, Redbox has, on information and belief, collected more than $100 million dollars in illegal and punitive late fees from its customers," according to the complaint.
Thomas G. Maag and Peter J. Maag of Wendler Law in Edwardsville and James F. Kelly and Jeffrey A.J. Millar of Brent Coon and Associates in St. Louis represent the plaintiff.
Redbox, a kind of DVD vending machine, began as a trial in Washington, D.C., in 2002, then expanded its test run to Las Vegas in 2003, according to the complaint. Now, the company has expanded its services across the United States and offers 17,000 self-service kiosks, the complaint says.
Many of the Redbox kiosks can be found in grocery stores and consist of a touch screen and sign with a web-linked electronic communications system that allows consumers to rent DVDs directly from the kiosk. Kiosks can store up to 700 DVDs at a time.
Redbox charges customers $1 for each DVD they rent. For each additional day patrons keep the DVD, they are billed another $1, Peichur claims.
As part of its advertising campaign, Redbox claims its customers are never exposed to late fees. However, Peichur says the company's allegation is a sham.
"Specifically, it imposes the fiction that, if the customer does not return the movie by the 9:00 p.m. deadline, then the customer must have wished to enter into a second rental whereby he would re-rent the movie for an additional rental period for another $1 a night," the suit states. "The customer never actually entered into a contract for a re-rental, nor signed an agreement that contains this re-rental fiction. Instead, the fiction was unilaterally imposed by Redbox upon its customers to covertly impose this $1 late fee."
The suit also challenges excessive fees related to the sale of certain DVDs.
Allegations in the seven-count suit include statutory fraud, unfair practice, unlawful penalties, unjust enrichment, violation of the Illinois Rental-Purchase Agreement, violation of the Automatic Contract Renewal Act and violation of the Deceptive Business Practices Act.
At the site www.RedboxLateFees.com, people can figure out if they are eligible to join the suit. There also will be regularly posted updates about the case and other related news items relating to Redbox.
For more information please contact:
Wendler Law
900 Hillsboro Ave
Edwardsville, IL
(618) 692-0011
or
Brent Coon and Associates
12201 Big Bend, Suite #200
St. Louis, Missouri 63122
Local: 314-822-0732
Fax: 314-822-0943
Toll Free: 866-421-0644
