Blockbuster spent lots of money promoting its new “end of late fees” policy in January. Sure, it sounds great, but there’s a catch. If you’re more than 8 days late, they charge your credit card full price as if you purchased the movie. If you return your rental within 30 days, they’ll refund your money, less a small surcharge to restock it.

Campaigns like this only set out to prove that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Not long after the ad campaign launched, The New Jersey attorney general filed a lawsuit for deceptive advertising, with 30 other states launching an investigation.

In this age of transparency, it’s never a good idea to deceive your customers - or at least hide your policies in fine print and technicalities. Blockbuster disagrees it is doing just that

“If someone, a customer, feels he or she was not aware of the sale, we’ll work with them on the first time. We’ll waive that fee,” said Randy Hargrove, senior director of corporate communications for Blockbuster. “Customers are keeping the product out less than a day longer.”

Regardless of what happens with the lawsuit, encouraging your customers to keep the dvds as long as they like and then coming back and charging them isn’t a good way to build trust. Particularly when main competitor, Netflix.com doesn’t have such red tape.

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