I rent movies from Redbox.  It’s a great value and it doesn’t encourage me to watch movies every day in order to get value from a subscription.  Recently, we rented two movies, one for the family and another for the misses and I.  We were going for a special Valentine promotion to get a free rental.  That promo code never came in the mail so I dutifully let Redbox know via an online form.  A couple days later this was the response:

Hello Wesly,

Thank you for your e-mail. In order to receive the offer for the “Rent 2 Get 1 Free” promotion, you will need to rent 2 discs in the same transaction to get 1 FREE promo code emailed to you; this promotion is valid from 2/1/2011 through 2/14/2011. Online reservations do not apply.

Your code for qualifying rentals will be sent via email, and you can expect to receive it within about 72 hours and will expire 1 week after you receive it. Please remember Promotional Codes are valued at $1 and are good for a free one night DVD rental or you can use it towards $1 off your first night’s rental of a Blu-ray Disc or Video Game. If you have not received your promo code within the 72hrs, be sure to check your spam filters. In order to qualify, you must enter your email address at the kiosk at the time of the rentals. Rentals must be all at once, and they must be in the qualified time period.

Please be advised that the limit for the free rentals is 1 free promotional code per customer per day. Also remember that rentals with promo codes do not qualify and only one promotional code can be redeemed per transaction.

If you have any additional questions, comments regarding this issue please contact us at 866-redbox3 (866-733-2693) to avoid any further delay in resolving your matter.

Thank you for your valued business,

redbox Customer Care
1.866.REDBOX3
www.redbox.com

Did you know? You can rent Blu-ray™ Discs at all 24,900 redbox locations, & they’re just $1.50 a night! See what’s new: http://www.redbox.com/bluray

Now normally, I despise canned responses, and actually this time was no different.  I don’t really expect any more from a place that rents movies for a buck; I mean you have to make cuts somewhere.  Truth be told, I actually did feel a bit inspired by their response and since imitation is the highest form of flattery, here was my response:

Hello redbox Customer Care,

Thank you for your e-mail. In order to receive the offer for the “Rent 2 Get 1 Free” promotion, I did rent 2 discs in the same transaction yet did not get 1 FREE promo code emailed to me; doing this on 2/4/2011, which is within the promotion’s valid time period from 2/1/2011 through 2/14/2011. This was not an online reservation.

I am aware that my code for qualifying rentals will be sent via email, and that I could expect to receive it within about 72 hours and will expire 1 week after I receive it. I do remember that Promotional Codes are valued at $1 and are good for a free one night DVD rental or I can use it towards $1 off my first night’s rental of a Blu-ray Disc or Video Game. After not receiving my promo code within the 72hrs, I was sure to check my spam filters. I did enter my email address at the kiosk at the time of the rentals in order to qualify. The rentals were all at once, and as I mentioned earlier, they were in the qualified time period.

Thank you for advising me that the limit for the free rentals is 1 free promotional code per customer per day. Also thank you for reminding me that rentals with promo codes do not qualify and only one promotional code can be redeemed per transaction.

I do have additional questions, comments regarding this issue, however I am hoping to resolve this without having to contact you at 866-redbox3 (866-733-2693) to avoid any further delay in resolving this matter.

Thank you for reading my question well enough to find the appropriate canned response,

Wesly Smith

Did you know? I can rent Blu-ray™ Discs at many non-redbox locations?

They got back to me with a promo code—affectionately embedded within a canned response.

Today is my 12th prime number birthday.  I’m pretty cool with the number 37 too. As a convenient coincidence, it is a good number to be when your kids have just had their third and seventh birthdays.