They're engaging in some fishy behavior that is either nefarious and existentially evil (if they're secretly identity-thieving)...or clumsy and poorly-executed (if they are, in fact, trying to reduce fraud).
The FIRST STRIKE? Misuse fees. I'll explain how those happen.
After you use the Sinemia app to load your card with funds and then purchase your ticket (or after you arrive at the theater with your advance ticket), you are required to check in on the app. It's pretty easy, just tap the green "Check-In" button on the home screen. And then it looks like this:
If you forget? That's on you. Tough luck.
But the app is down for maintenance at random, unpredictable times. And when it's down, you can't check in.
This actually happened to me at one of my first movies seen with Sinemia, but luckily they have a two-hour window before and after the movie showtime for checking in, so I lucked out and found the app was back up by the time my shorter-than-two-hour movie ended and I was able to check in then.
But if you're not as lucky as I was, this is where misuse fees happen. They apparently allow ONE missed check-in without any penalty fees. But if it happens twice, you're toast. Sinemia charges you the price of the ticket(s) you purchased along with a "misuse fee" of $10-$30 that you have to pay before you can use your Sinemia account again. Essentially holding your account hostage for ransom.
Now they claim to be doing this as a "fraud prevention measure." They want to make sure you're actually physically going to the movies to see the movie you bought a ticket for and not just racking up rewards points or sending your friend in with your ticket.
Fair enough. But they're not showing any mercy for the people that arrived and tried to check in but were unable due to the app being down. This is not okay.
Sinemia has been responsive to fixing their messed-up processes in the past once they are publicly shamed for it. Hopefully they will fix this one.
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And if you thought that was bad, check out STRIKE TWO: ID verification.
I mentioned this last week, but it was only an abstraction then.
This week, it actually happened to ME.
And they ambush you with this request when you're trying to use the app to buy a ticket at the theater, or trying to check in for your movie at the theater. Not cool.
I thought fast and took both photos and then carefully blacked-out my driver's license number on both photos using my phone's image manipulation tools. I advise you to do the same. Even if this IS another innocent "fraud prevention measure," you don't want a Turkish company with Turkish laws and Turkish servers accessible to Turkish hackers to have an unaltered scan of your driver's license with your number visible. ID theft is a thing and you need to be vigilant.
I was able to get my ticket and check in as soon as I submitted the photos at sinemia.com/member.
And two days later, they sent me an email saying my documents were approved. So, confirmed: it's okay to black-out your driver's license number. All they really need is your name, birth date, and photo. You could probably black out even more info, if you want to be extra-safe.
Best to take the pics NOW if you're a member so you don't feel that scatterbrained last-minute pressure to do so at the theater. Go ahead and upload them at the site two paragraphs back, as well. You'll thank me later.
But this allegedly-fraud-preventing measure was a terrible idea and is creating massive radioactive PR fallout.
Sinemia: one more strike and YOU OUT!
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Back to good ol' MoviePass.
I tried to repeat last month's stunt and get three tickets during my first three days of the month again.
No dice.
Even if you check the online schedule in advance at moviepass.com/movies to ensure they have a movie playing at a local theater AND you jump on the app at the crack of dawn before they get a chance to shut it down...
You STILL get hit with "No more screenings."
My early-bird workaround to outsmart the kamikaze MoviePass app? It no longer works.
I actually hit up customer service chat in the MoviePass app about this and they basically said, "Yeah. That's how it is now. Just because a movie's listed as available on the schedule don't mean nothing. Instead of shutting down the app early in the day, we now just sometimes never offer anything at any time of day. Deal with it."
I pointed out to the rep that Sinemia offers a better, cheaper deal on three movies per month with no restrictions on showtimes or theaters.
They kept insisting these glitches are temporary, same boilerplate line they've been feeding us customers for the past seven months.
News flash: NONE of the glitches are temporary.
But it's cute that the customer service rep still thinks anyone will believe that.
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And writers are still writing super-generic anti-MoviePass articles.
Nothing new there. That could have been written in August 2018.
And the headline to this stinker of an article has a faulty premise:
"Theaters Won't Need MoviePass Much Longer."
This implies movie theaters ever DID need--or even volunteer to work with--MoviePass.
It's another article by someone who never used MoviePass and has no idea how it works.
Clickbait! All of it! Bah!
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We haven't talked about Alamo in a while. Probably because I haven't gone there in a while.
But I must alert you, as something has changed since then...
For behold! Alamo has a new process!
I always wait until the movie starts to sit down at the Alamo because it lowers the statistical likelihood of a server bothering me. But servers still bother me, talking over the movie with their spiel about how Alamo works even after I ask them to please stop and please leave. It's a major reason why I stopped going there with any regularity.
But now? I arrived right on time at the movie and then, five minutes in, saw a server approach from the left. I put up my dukes, ready to slug this sucka.
But instead of bothering me, he just dropped the card you see above and went on his merry way!
I loved it!
Now, Alamo: how about you utilize these cards instead of bothering people BEFORE the movie starts, as well?
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Philosophical answer from me: Everything in that article is wrong.
You know why the movie theater is dying?
ASSIGNED SEATING!
I HATE IT!
Everyone with any sense of decency also hates it.
And I raging extra-hard about this because 2/3 of my local theaters have always had assigned seating and last week...
The last remaining free theater--the Regal--became a prisoner of assigned seating.
I take great pleasure in walking into a theater, getting a feel for the place, smelling the air, checking the wind-chill factor, and selecting just the right seat just the right distance away from annoying or chatty people. It’s a fine art. An art RUINED by assigned seating.
Bonus: These Regal geniuses made this change on Lego Movie 2's opening weekend and did it without any advance notice. I only knew because I check the Regal app with some regularity. I asked a couple employees there about it the day before the changeover and neither one of them knew it was coming.
I repeat: THE DAY BEFORE the switchover, TWO EMPLOYEES had NO IDEA this was happening!
I cannot possible throw enough ALL-CAPS shade at this!
Their box office staff was already plenty incompetent at their previous level of service, so adding the step of seat-selection to every transaction is easily going to double the time it takes for each transaction.
Now to their credit, they keep the screen behind a window and ask the patron to verbally select their seat, unlike the Alamo, which makes the (usually drunk, always disoriented) patron use the never-functional touchscreen to select their own seat. So it's not QUITE as bad as the Alamo box office experience, but it's doing its best to be bad.
Not to mention the box staff having to explain the concept of assigned seating to every single customer, regular and irregular, drunk and sober.
I normally get all my tickets at the automated kiosk, so you'd think this wouldn't chafe me. But it does. Because I accumulate mad rewards points at this place and in order to redeem those for tickets, you have to do so at the box office. If they'd just let you use rewards points to get tickets at the automated kiosks, I'd have no dog in this fight. I'd just let the people suffer and wail with the extra-long box office lines, looking down upon them as they cry up to me, saying, "Save me." And me responding with, "Nope."
I saw a couple movies there on the day of the switchover to test it out and observe customers and chat with the employees there. Full report: I absolutely hate it, but I ended up switching seats at both theaters and no one cared. They only care if it's like a crowded theater and you're sitting in a seat assigned to someone else. And the ushers at the theater said it was a miserable day, with more than half of customers complaining about the change.
It's all screaming into the void, though. Stupid corporate people make stupid corporate decisions and ours is not to reason why. Once a theater goes assigned-seating, it doesn't go back.
The world is now a worse place. Thanks, Regal.
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But on the bright side, this terrible tragedy prompted me to take a quest: Cranking my wife's Alamo Victory Rewards account up to Top Brass.
Top Brass means 50 visits within a year. I already got my own Alamo account up to that and was well on my way to doing the same for hers when the unlimited MoviePass era ended.
Have only gone there a few times since, as Regal's rewards program is much better. But now Regal has assigned seating, so screw them.
I now have until May 22 to get 20 visits in. I believe I can do it.
Especially since I can now arrive late without being bothered.
Good improvement there, Alamo. Keep improving!
-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
Assigned seating at the cinema is THE WORST. More worst even than Sinemia's horribly spelled name.
ReplyDeleteAmen! Assigned seating should exist in only one place, the place where it belongs: HELL.
ReplyDelete