So on Saturday afternoon, my wife and I bought three Sony bluray movies at Best Buy, and all of them contained UV codes. The movies were Looper, Total Recall (the 2012 version,) and Ghostbusters (containing Ghostbusters 1 and 2.)
I go home, log in to my Vudu account, and enter the digital codes as I normally have done over 100 times for digital movie purchases. All three codes are accepted by Vudu, and I don't think anything more of it . . . until about two hours later. Total Recall and the Ghostbusters films show up on Vudu just fine, but Looper does not.
I went back on Vudo on my computer and tried to re-enter the code, but was promptly told the code was no longer valid. So it definitely took the code.
I sent an email to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment about the problem, and provided them with the code. They replied pretty quickly that their records showed the movie was redeemed on Vudu on Saturday, which is correct. They provided me a phone number for Vudu customer service, and I called the number.
I explained the issue to the person on the phone, who confirmed that Vudu's records also show that the Looper UV code was redeemed. But he is at a loss for why the movie doesn't show up in my Vudu movie catalog, or any other UV provider. After pondering it a bit, he tells me that I "must have accidentally registered Looper on another account." I told him that was extremely unlikely, if not impossible, because I have no other account and I also registered two other movies within minutes of redeeming Looper the other two films appear correctly on my account.
He's adamant, and keeps telling me I must have made a mistake. So at that point, I asked politely to speak to a supervisor. A young woman gets on and she also tells me that I "must have" registered the movie to another account. So I asked her to track the UV code to see what account the movie registered under. She says she can't, because the code "can't be tracked" in that way. I tell her that I find it rather unbelievable that a 16-character unique identifier code can't be located in their system.
So Vudu's (Walmart's) official response is:
1. The code was redeemed, but the company doesn't know to what account, if any;
2. The company says it can't track the code in any way to determine what happened to it or which mysterious account it was supposedly credited to;
3. The representative kept telling me to call Sony and "ask for another code," which I find disingenuous, since Sony did nothing wrong and Vudu has already accepted the code supplied by Sony;
4. The representative told me that since I bought the movie at a "third party" (Best Buy and not Walmart), there was nothing they could do to help me;
I was told all this after explaining that I have been a loyal Walmart customer for over 20 years and have been using the Vudu service for several years.
Bottom line: Vudu (Walmart) accepted the code, and they are the ones who maintain the records of what codes are used and when, not me. To tell a good-faith customer that it is basically on me to prove that I didn't make a mistake . . . well, that's just not fair. I'm sure they have a way to track that code and find out what happened to it, but they refuse to do it. That is just wrong. I also think it is very slimy of Walmart representatives to tell me that since I bought the movie at Best Buy there is nothing they can do. Codes are codes, they are supposed to honor them when they are redeemed.
I go home, log in to my Vudu account, and enter the digital codes as I normally have done over 100 times for digital movie purchases. All three codes are accepted by Vudu, and I don't think anything more of it . . . until about two hours later. Total Recall and the Ghostbusters films show up on Vudu just fine, but Looper does not.
I went back on Vudo on my computer and tried to re-enter the code, but was promptly told the code was no longer valid. So it definitely took the code.
I sent an email to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment about the problem, and provided them with the code. They replied pretty quickly that their records showed the movie was redeemed on Vudu on Saturday, which is correct. They provided me a phone number for Vudu customer service, and I called the number.
I explained the issue to the person on the phone, who confirmed that Vudu's records also show that the Looper UV code was redeemed. But he is at a loss for why the movie doesn't show up in my Vudu movie catalog, or any other UV provider. After pondering it a bit, he tells me that I "must have accidentally registered Looper on another account." I told him that was extremely unlikely, if not impossible, because I have no other account and I also registered two other movies within minutes of redeeming Looper the other two films appear correctly on my account.
He's adamant, and keeps telling me I must have made a mistake. So at that point, I asked politely to speak to a supervisor. A young woman gets on and she also tells me that I "must have" registered the movie to another account. So I asked her to track the UV code to see what account the movie registered under. She says she can't, because the code "can't be tracked" in that way. I tell her that I find it rather unbelievable that a 16-character unique identifier code can't be located in their system.
So Vudu's (Walmart's) official response is:
1. The code was redeemed, but the company doesn't know to what account, if any;
2. The company says it can't track the code in any way to determine what happened to it or which mysterious account it was supposedly credited to;
3. The representative kept telling me to call Sony and "ask for another code," which I find disingenuous, since Sony did nothing wrong and Vudu has already accepted the code supplied by Sony;
4. The representative told me that since I bought the movie at a "third party" (Best Buy and not Walmart), there was nothing they could do to help me;
I was told all this after explaining that I have been a loyal Walmart customer for over 20 years and have been using the Vudu service for several years.
Bottom line: Vudu (Walmart) accepted the code, and they are the ones who maintain the records of what codes are used and when, not me. To tell a good-faith customer that it is basically on me to prove that I didn't make a mistake . . . well, that's just not fair. I'm sure they have a way to track that code and find out what happened to it, but they refuse to do it. That is just wrong. I also think it is very slimy of Walmart representatives to tell me that since I bought the movie at Best Buy there is nothing they can do. Codes are codes, they are supposed to honor them when they are redeemed.
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