Banned By Disney: A Disney Movie Club Story

Banned By Disney Movie ClubA few years back I wrote a review for Disney Movie Club. I had always wanted to own all the Disney classics and my favorite films, but buying them at the store was way too expensive. Luckily, I found the Disney Movie Club which enabled me to get them for a discounted price.

No need to go over all of the perks, bells and whistles from the club, you can read that in the review.

Update: as of August 9th, 2019 I’m still banned from the site.

Let’s rewind to about a year ago, the first time my account was disabled. I contacted the club via e-mail about the issue and a few days later I was given this response: “All applications to join the Disney Movie Club are subject to review. We reserve the right to request additional information, to reject any application, or to cancel any membership. We reserve the right to alter or end this offer at any time.Banned By Disney Movie Club

I looked over the Terms and Conditions and they are 100% within the right to do so. I was slightly upset because I still had movies to redeem, since I had quite a few people signed up with my Refer-A-Friend (RAF) link. Pushing that aside, I had wanted to cancel and re-enroll to get the initial deal again. Canceling your membership and re-enrolling is normal and something people do all the time — so I did just that.

About a year went by again with no problems, no hiccups or nothing until….. about about two weeks ago when:

My account was removed again!

I go to login to my account and this is the notice I get: “It looks like your web account has been disabled and you no longer have access to Disney Movie Club. To resolve this issue, please give us a call at 1-800-362-4587 from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern time, Monday – Friday to speak with a Cast Member.”

This time I wanted to follow up on the phone — not through email because it was clearly not an accident. Instead of getting a scripted email, I went right to the phone to talk to a representative. Leaving names out of it, the first time I called I was told to call back the following day. The representative couldn’t help with my situation — and the only person that could, wasn’t in office.

On to the phone call.

I go through a representative and I’m transferred to this particular individual, so now I’m speaking to some kind of authority. This individual (who was nice) looks at my account and tells me that over 400 people have signed up with my referral and that’s the problem. She then tells me that the “Disney Movie Club is supposed to be cute, something you mention to your friends and family at dinner or something. Maybe you get a few people to sign up, but this many people shouldn’t be using your referral.” On top of that she lets me know that corporate looks at “flagged” accounts and makes the ultimate decision — and their decision was to remove me… again.Banned By Disney Movie Club

Even more than that, she had some kind of data telling me that a lot of people clicked my referral link, went through the sign up process, but ultimately didn’t sign up. (This had some kind of affect on their system.) I guess people can check out the site, see what it’s all about, but not complete an enrollment order?

After that business, I followed up asking if there is anything I can do to stay on with my current VIP status: she denies me. I ask if there’s anyone else I can talk to about it: denied yet again. At this point, the conversation started to go nowhere. I was the only one speaking and I wasn’t receiving any help, advice, next steps… nothing. I was out of luck. The vibe was something along the lines of ‘you’re out, go away, I can’t help you.’

After completely giving up on current or past memberships, I ask if I can scratch everything and just start a new membership. Guess what? She tells me “You can try, but I can’t guarantee you will be accepted.” I assumed there had never been any kind of rule stating there was a limit to getting people to sign up, so I went in and looked over rules to see if I had broken any — I didn’t.

So in conclusion…

Since too many people signed up with my referral, I have not only lost my account, but all the free movies I’ve yet to redeem + VIP perks. To top it all off, (as if that wasn’t enough) it seems that I have also been banned from the website because it’s not allowing me to make a new account, disabling whatever email I try to sign up with. I’ve been dropped! 

Let’s get corny for a second. As a person who visits Disneyland every year and even has a Disney Visa Credit Card, I’m irritated that I’ve been shut out by Disney because I wrote a review boasting about a place where families can get their children movies for cheap — and people liked it! It wasn’t a gimmick, I wasn’t taking advantage of people or even making any money on it. It was a review to push people into a membership because of the benefits.

Your review is too popular, so you’re out!

I don’t even know where to go from here — or if it even matters. Is there someone at Disney corporate that I can contact? Should I write a letter to notify someone? Part of me wants to let it go, but this seems so personal the way this was handled. Disney is a multi-billion dollar company and I can’t have a popular referral link?

Cheers,

Matt.

(Pictures from Thomas Kinkade Disney Collection)

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