MoviePass has had a rough go of it lately. No surprise when your business model is too good to be true. However, their latest move is stirring up controversy among their users — or former users in some cases — who have been auto re-enrolled in a new program.
According to Business Insider, former MoviePass holders recently discovered they had been re-enrolled in the service, which is expected to roll out a new plan Wednesday. Now users can see any three movies (within their new draconian limits of what is “available”) for $9.95 per month.
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Heads up to anyone who canceled MoviePass.
SURPRISE: You didn’t cancel MoviePass, and now you’re automatically enrolled in the “new” plan. 🎉 @MoviePass is that even legal?? Y’all shady af now. pic.twitter.com/kPMETe8xdw
— Courtney Guth (@Courtney_Guth) August 13, 2018
MoviePass users have until Thursday, October 4th to opt-out of the plan they were re-enrolled in.
Bottom Line: if you’re using MoviePass, be sure to keep an eye on your account and make sure you’re getting what you expect. Some users who tried to cancel their account ended up being auto re-enrolled, and charged for it.
Opinion:
I don’t envy anyone working for MoviePass customer support this week. I’m sure those employees are going to have some sort of contest to see who gets the worst abuse from a disgruntled user. I can empathize with them, because I’ve had to deal with my own share of unhappy users after adding Peecoins to RunPee. All of that aside, what MoviePass is doing shouldn’t be legal, and it’s a travesty that the politicians (both Dems and Reps) are too gutless to pass any sort of legislation to keep companies from doing this sort of thing.
For the vast majority of users, I don’t think there’s anything worth getting worked up about. They’ll either say, Yeah, this new deal is worth it, and stick with the auto-enrollment, or they’ll spend a few minutes and go back into the MoviePass app and opt out, again. But a small percentage of users won’t notice. The emails may get filtered out; they won’t notice the charges on their banking account; whatever — and they’ll end up paying for a service they thought they had dropped, month after month. And if they don’t know that they’re enrolled, they won’t be using the benefits. This is where I think MoviePass is doing nothing short of stealing.
What do you think?
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Creator and developer of the RunPee app. When something doesn’t work right in the app it’s pretty much his fault. 🙂
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Jill Florio Administrator
I agree with everything here, but I guess I am more annoyed with them. The limits on the good movies are really strict, and apparently you have to use different theaters on different days, and it all sounds like it won’t be useful for anyone. I’ve read that, for example, the only newer movies some people can see right now are specifically 4:45 showings of Small Foot. Way too complicated and limited to be useful at all, if that’s the case.
The new AMC A-List membership is already superior, for the same price.