Vudu and Fandango

It didn't used to be this way...

In spite of my well-documented love for physical media, I have been a regular customer of Vudu — the digital movie and TV retailer — for over a decade. I jumped on early because of their association with Warner Bros., whose DC products I buy pretty regularly, and it remains my go-to site to buy digital movies and TV shows. I also redeem codes through Vudu, rather than other retailers like Movies Anywhere, because all things being equal, why not stick with what works?

The problem is…I kind of feel like it doesn’t work as well anymore. And that’s a problem for people like me, because Movies Anywhere and other reciprocating video platforms like Amazon and Apple only carry over your feature film collection (and even then, only the ones where the studios are on board). For TV, you’re stuck using it where you bought it. So if I am unhappy with Vudu…well, tough shit. You’ve got 150 TV purchases there. What are you going to do, abandon them?

…And, yes, before you ask: most or all of the really important things, I also own physically. I can leave anytime I want. Nobody is really holding me hostage. But given the transient nature of digital rights, it’s entirely possible if I did decide to fully relocate, I could find that some of the things in my collection are simply no longer available for purchase digitally.

I’m just putting this up top: this post might feel petty and personal, but I liken it to this wonderful video by SuperEyepatchWolf on YouTube. It is, objectively, petty and personal, but it still feels like I need to get it out of my system.

I don’t remember when, exactly, I became a customer of Vudu’s. I suppose I could check, but the point is…it’s been a long time. I have emails in my inbox that go at least back to 2013, but it’s very likely I had been a member for a while before that, and only kept the 2013 emails because they were about a customer service issue. I had purchased a Man of Steel digital movie ticket at Walmart, which also gave you a digital copy as well as a digital comic book, and was having trouble making it load.

In the at-least-ten, probably more, years that I have been a customer, those kinds of issues have periodically come up — but it’s fewer than ten total. Given that I have 1,100 movies in my collection (a combination of things I bought at full price, Disc-to-Digital transfers, and review copies I redeemed for free), 10 or so redemption issues is actually a pretty solid track record. We’ll come back to that point in a moment.

Vudu was founded in 2004, a partnership between Warner Bros. and NBCUniversal. In the early days of digital video, cost-sharing partnerships like this were apparently all the rage; if you remember, Hulu was similarly a partnership of different networks. I guess that’s what you do when you see massive upside for new tech, but have no clear vision for whether your particular version of that tech will prove viable.

Anyway, in 2010, WB and NBCU sold Vudu to Walmart. Given that company’s reputation, one would think that was the source of my concerns — but it wasn’t until 2020, when Walmart sold Vudu off to Fandango, that I started to have problems on the consumer side.

Remember how I said I had only ever had a handful of redemption issues with Vudu? One of them came in late 2021. I redeemed a box set I was sent to review for my day job, but it never appeared in my account. Turns out, it was my fault: while the title was an catalog reissue, and not a new release, the particular code I had was one day before its street date. So the code redeemed to my account, but did not fulfill. It sat there, “redeemed but not used.” Vudu, apparently, has a ticking clock on this kind of thing, which is designed to zero out coupon codes and cash-value credits if they aren’t used in time. Again, we’ll come back to that.

This was the first time I had needed to use Vudu support following the Fandango acquisition. Worryingly, the site’s real-time chat-help widget appeared to be down. Looking at the “help” listings at the bottom of the page, I couldn’t help but notice that there were still references to “your Walmart account,” suggesting that the migration had…maybe not been totally streamlined.

So, I tweeted about it. Back then, I had a blue check and organic reach, so [@]VuduSupport on Twitter saw it, and reached out. I gave them all my information, and they said they would escalate it to the proper people. Then…crickets. I forgot all about it.

A few months later, I was cleaning my office, and found the slip with the digital code on it. I tried it, and it gave me an error, saying it was already redeemed. I emailed support, and they replied, asking for details, and a photo of the slip. I provided them that, and…crickets.

Another month passes. I find it while cleaning. I email. I send photos. Rinse. Repeat. Crickets.

I got busy. I moved my office. Everything was boxed up, and recently, I rediscovered the code slip. I put it on my desk, waiting for a time when I had enough energy to deal with trying one more time. To be clear, this is one of those “The Complete Series” codes, so it isn’t just one movie…but it’s also not super expensive. I kind of felt like I had already put more effort into getting this code to redeem, than it was really worth in dollars.

I had another, unrelated issue today, and Fandango flatly refused to help me resolve it.

(To be fair, this one was an actual Fandango issue, not Vudu, and was probably 20% my fault, 80% Fandango's, so I guess it's a "buyer beware" situation. I will resolve it by purchasing movie tickets directly from retailers, rather than Fandango, in the future.)

Still, the frustration that came out of that, led me to follow up yet again on the Vudu issue. If they were going to give me a flat “no” on my other issue, I would circle back on an issue that, objectively, they should have fixed by now. It’s petty, but it made me feel better.

…I mean, right up until it didn’t, of course. The web support chat applet is still not working. The similar applet on the Fandango site, also trash. I called the 800 number for Fandango that I had called earlier today with the other issue. After a 10 minute wait, I finally reached a person, who gave me a number for Vudu. I called it. After a 12-minute wait, someone answers, but cannot hear me. They disconnect immediately. I call back. 10-minute wait. Answer. “We will escalate this to the people who can help you, and they will email you back soon.”

Perhaps more aggressively than I should have, I pointed out that I’ve been told the same thing on at least four previous, provable occasions. I have emails, which I shared with the representative — who, of course, was emailing me from the same support address that had previously bailed on me. Nobody has their own extension or email. The representative refuses to transfer me to his supervisor, and hangs up. I call back. 10-minute wait. Explain myself again. Get the supervisor. Explain myself again. Send all the same emails to the same email address a second time. “We are escalating your issue.” At least this time, he acknowledges that I’ve been told as much many times, and there is no good reason I should trust him. That doesn’t change much, but at least I feel heard. I ask him to send the audio of our call to whoever he is “escalating” my concern to.

Along the way, I tried to redeem the code, assuming I would get the error message that provided me with the original redemption date. Nope. Now, it says that the code is expired, because after sitting "redeemed but unused" in my account for a full year (despite my best efforts), it died on the vine. I have no option left, except to hope against hope that someone at Vudu or Fandango finally, actually replies to me more than one time. 

Just so it's said, my comments here do not reflect the opinions of my employer. The fact that this was a screener is important only in that it provides a direct explanation for how and why it was redeemed a day early.

I cannot stress enough that this was not an issue prior to the Fandango takeover. Walmart is Walmart. They’re…awful. In a lot of ways. But they also provided excellent service when it came to this kind of issue. Every single time these issues happened under Walmart management, they were resolved within an hour of my reaching out. It literally took me longer than that tonight, after several previous attempts to resolve it. We have long since passed the point where all of this stress and frustration is worth the retail cost of the item, but at this point it's a matter of principle.

Honestly, the impression I get is that Vudu is not a key part of Fandango's strategy, and its customers are not considered worth the time and frustration of working with. At this point, at least for movies, I should start redeeming through Movies Anywhere instead, because really the only thing keeping me using the Vudu button is brand loyalty…and it seems like that loyalty is a one-way street.

So, is this a long, ranting post about a single, incredibly specific redemption issue? Yes (…ish -- after all, the reason I'm blowing up tonight is related to something else). But as someone who went for ten years without ever having a catastrophic failure of customer service at Vudu, it feels like this situation is worth talking about.

It feels like, as streaming rights are getting increasingly fractious and unreliable, my go-to digital retailer is becoming unreliable. That’s…not great.