Gather 'round, children; I'd like to tell you about a chain of video rental stores called U-View, which employs some rather questionable practices.
U-View is the country's largest video rental store, with over 15,000 locations nationwide. In fact, U-View is so popular that if you were to visit a store when you wanted to rent a movie, you would be rather disappointed. Most likely, the store would be empty; all of the tapes are currently being rented. But fear not! You can reserve your favorite movie by calling ahead (usually at least a week ahead of time, just to be sure).
Now, there are two ways to rent a video; they are called "in-town" and "one-way" rentals. "In-town" rentals mean you have to return the video to the same store which you rented it from, while "one-way" rentals allow you to return it to a different location. Mind you, you cannot return to any location, you must specify which location you wish to return the video to when you are making the reservation.
Now, here's the problem. When you make a reservation, U-View checks availability based on what titles they expect to have on that date. For example, you are in Chicago, you want to rent Titanic, and you want to return it in Denver 4 days later (again, this is a "one-way" rental). They reserve you, but what they don't tell you is that this rental is dependant on the person who wants to rent Titanic in Dallas and return it in Chicago one day before you begin your rental. Many things can happen, and it's possible that your video tape is just not available when you go to pick it up. This happens to a lot of people, and can be very hard on people who have been planning for weeks or months to watch that video.
Of course, if this happens (it happens more often than you think), U-View may try to find you a replacement copy of Titanic, but most likely will just shrug and tell you to read the fine print, where they mention that they don't guarantee any reservations.
Every time you see U-View advertisements, they mention "Video rentals for $1.99/day". What they don't make clear is that the advertised rate is just the base rate. In addition to the base rate, U-View also charges you for every inch of tape you view. How do they do this? Each U-View tape has an odometer on it, which they check before and after you view the movie. The usage charge is quite substantial, usually at least twice the base rate, for only a single viewing! (Heaven help you if an emergency comes up and you have to view the movie a second time.) U-View says this is to prevent unscrupulous people from viewing the tape many times and wearing down the tape ahead of schedule, but why is U-View the only video rental chain to do this?
Also, with most video rentals, U-View gives you a VCR. However, there is a seal across the mouth of the VCR. If you break this seal, you are charged another $5 for using it. If you don't break the seal, you aren't charged for anything, but you still must return it with the video. It's rather disconcerning to know that it's costing U-View the same amount to rent this VCR to you whether you use it or not (IE, nothing: these VCRs have paid for themselves years ago, as they are old and scuffed), but it will still cost you money to use it.
(Actually, the VCR policy has been changed for a few years now. Now, you must ask for a VCR, but they charge you $7 instead of $5.)
U-View requires you to rewind the tape before you return it. That makes sense, as nobody wants a video that's in the middle or at the end of the movie. If you do not rewind the tape, U-View charges you a hefty fee for every inch they have to rewind. However, they do not rewind the tape before the next rental. Instead, they pocket the fee and tell the next renter that they must rewind it to the point where the previous renter left it.
Despite these oddities, U-View is popular. Very popular. So popular that the demand far outweighs the supply of video tapes available on a typical weekend.
Once again, U-View advertises "Video rentals for $1.99/day", which is true, but only on Monday through Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, you can only keep your movie for 3-4 hours, but you pay the same rate as the person who rents the same movie on Tuesday and gets to keep it for the full day. U-View says this is to be fair to the other families who wish to rent movies. Yet they are still popular enough that renters accept this with little more than a grumble.