As always, they're doing it in the name of "fraud prevention."
Now I don't know any of the individuals who got canceled, but my gut reaction? Well...there's a strong, natural temptation to abuse the privilege Sinemia provides. Not to be a shill for the company, but I would be VERY surprised if NONE of these canceled folks did ANY iffy stuff.
Me? I'm on the straight and narrow, so if they end up canceling me, then there's proof positive that the company is a scam. And I'll let you know all about my adventures in getting a refund. I'll be using this as a guide, feel free to do the same if you're one of the unjustly canceled.
Here's the most-probable conspiracy theory for the wave of cancellations I found on the Sinemia reddit page (which is ALWAYS lively with raging chatter and helpful hints)...
They're cancelling annual accounts as soon as the value of the tickets purchased exceeds the amount the individual initially paid for the annual account.
Which is a brilliantly evil idea on their part. It means they're taking the money you give them, putting it in an account for you to use, and then shutting it down when you start costing them more than you contributed. This would explain why they're offering a "refund" of the amount you spent on your plan minus the amount of tickets purchased with your plan. And this would explain why they're not giving any particular reason for the cancellations. It's a classic bait-and-switch!
Hypothetically. If this theory is correct.
Then again...maybe people really DID violate the terms of service and got caught. (Buying tickets and giving them to someone else, buying tickets and going to a different movie, buying tickets and refunding them to a different card, etc.)
As a rule, most humans think they're smooth criminals. But they're not.
*
Much hay was made of this week's announcement that MoviePass closed its Los Angeles office.
But if you actually read the article, it says they closed one of their two L.A. offices.
That business development team they laid off last week? The closed-down office was where they worked, so it makes sense to shutter it. The only other employees there were their Moviefone staff, and they just got relocated to their other L.A. office.
Faux news. Don't bite on that clickbait.
*
And the previous story got me curious, as I've never really looked into MoviePass' sister company, Moviefone.
I looked it up and thus JUST realized that Moviefone is the VERY SAME COMPANY that was made fun of on Seinfeld in 1995!
Dug deeper and learned via Wikipedia that Moviefone has been around since 1989 and has been owned by AOL and movietickets.com and affiliated with Fandango before MoviePass' parent company snagged them.
Bonus fun fact: this brokedown company which now has an employee count in the single digits? Guess how much AOL paid for them in 1999?
$388 million.
Extra bonus fun fact: when MoviePass' parent company bought them in 2018, guess how much they paid for it?
$1 million in cash and $8 million in stock.
I wonder how much that stock is currently worth...
*
And nevermind on my previously-mentioned quest to jack up my wife's Alamo Victory Rewards account to 50 visits to earn Top Brass status.
The reason why...and this is a more precise realization of something I learned during the unlimited MoviePass era...is because even if tickets are practically free...there are additional costs.
I used a fuel calculator and found that it costs $1.14 in gas (plus 25 minutes of my life) for the round-trip Alamo visit.
So that means that 18 more visits--which is what it would take to get the rewards account up to 50--would cost about $20 on top of the marginal ticket prices. (AND it would take 450 minutes of my life. That's seven-and-a-half hours.)
And the only real tangible reward you get for hitting 50 visits? A free burger or pizza worth maybe $10.
The math on that does not check out.
Quest canceled.
Heck, I could just drive there ONCE and BUY myself a burger or pizza for $10 and I'd be saving myself a net total of $10, plus 425 minutes of life spent behind the wheel.
It's good to look at the big picture, people.
-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
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