As it was in life, so also is it in death; MoviePass is not going gently into that good night. The moviegoing subscription service finally shut down last month, and while MoviePass’ impact on the exhibition industry has outlived it, so too apparently have its issues. That’s because MoviePass is reportedly still charging customers despite shutting down.
After looking dead for some time, MoviePass finally gave up the ghost and officially shut down on September 14 at 8 a.m. Despite the shutdown, MoviePass allegedly still charged customers in September. That’s according to former MoviePass subscribers who told The New York Post about a variety of mysterious charges from the service appearing on their credit cards.
According to one former MoviePass subscriber, she was charged twice in September after service was terminated. One of those charges was for the $9.95 membership fee and there was another unknown charge in the amount of $5.64.
Another former customer who cancelled her MoviePass subscription in January, prior to the service’s shutdown, says that she was also charged twice in September, nine months after her cancellation. That customer says she cancelled at the beginning of the year due to what she saw as MoviePass’ broken promises reducing the value of having the service. She has since moved on to AMC’s alternative.
It’s unclear exactly how many MoviePass subscribers believe they have been charged in error following the subscription service’s shutdown. In addition to those two accounts The New York Post also cites former subscribers who have taken to Twitter over this past month to express frustration over allegedly being charged following the shutdown, waiting for refunds and being unable to contact customer service. MoviePass, however, rejects the claim that it is still charging customers.
In a statement, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe says that the reports that customers were charged following the September 14 shutdown are false. He says that only one subscriber out of all the thousands MoviePass was charged; that happened on September 15 and that amount was subsequently refunded. According to Lowe, former MoviePass subscribers are misreading their bank accounts and mistaking refunds for charges.
Whether customers are misreading their statements or MoviePass is indeed still charging former subscribers in error, it is a bad look for a service whose reputation is in tatters and will need some serious rehabilitation should it ever be rebuilt, as former Helios and Matheson head Ted Farnsworth hopes to do one day.
MoviePass achieved overnight success and popularity with its $10 unlimited service, which proved to be an ultimately unsustainable business model. Combined with a series of mistakes, including plan changes, service interruptions, poor communication and seemingly shady behavior that eroded its reputation with its subscribers and the public, MoviePass was never able to recover.
Fortunately, although MoviePass is gone, its impact lives on. We can learn a lot from MoviePass’s failed experiment, and there are now multiple theater-specific subscription ticket services for the most avid movie fans.
No matter how you buy your movie tickets, there are plenty of worthwhile titles headed to theaters the rest of this year. Check them out in our 2019 Release Schedule.
