Comments

1
I took FULL ADVANTAGE of this scam when I was a young tyke. I used to join every few months under one fake name or another, and jumped with joy when my box of Meat Loaf or Boston records arrived in the mail. I'm sure I got 200-odd records and cassettes over the years. I always assumed that because I used a fake name (and was only 11 years old) I would never be found liable. Who knows if my logic was accurate, but I have never once seen Columbia House on my credit report.
2
Meh, I always just marked "REFUSED" in felt pen on the unopened cardboard case & put it back in the mailbox. Sure, they kept sending me "friendly reminders" of my obligation to buy X number of full-priced CD's or cassettes (yeah, it was that long ago), but you move a couple of times, and eventually they just either lost track of you or figured the cost-benefit ratio was going against them and gave up.
3
I got suckered into this club. I was pissed, too, when a lot of the records had identifying marks to show they were Columbia House printed on them. How uncool is that? Well, they generally didn't have cool records anyways. I seem to recall Cat Stevens and Steely Dan and a bunch more I've mercifully forgotten.
4
No one has mentioned that all the clubs sent out postcards before the albums shipped, where you could say NO THANKS to that month's dreck. It was easy to miss the postcards, though. Rather than completely ripping them off, I used to sign up for BMG and actually fulfill the agreement - theirs was really easy and a much better deal than Columbia House, like they'd send you five free, you'd have to buy one at regular price and then get three more free after that. So even with postage you were getting like 10 for $18 total or something like that, as long as you immediately quit. I had a bunch coming to my house but to various fictional apartments there. They all made it to my mailbox. Postal carrier must have thought I was a goofball.
5
I've never felt right scamming something like this. I used these services, but I'd generally buy a couple albums per the rules and be done with them. I'm no saint, but don't really go in for malice aforethought.
6
I never signed up, but all of my pets did.
7
It wasn't hard to buy a few records at the full price to fulfill your commitment and then quit. You still came out ahead of the game.

Also, as @4 pointed out, you always had the choice of rejecting that months' selection. But no doubt their business model counted on a lot of people neglecting to do that.
8
I never dared test it. I was a quivering twerp who had a few Elton John records I listened to over and over and that was all I needed, thankyouverymuch. But as a passionate reader of TV Guide each week, how I loved a good centerfold of Columbia House album art. I would get out the magnifying glass to catch all the detail.

Never would have dreamed this path would some day lead me to appear regularly in the comment threads of some local blog.
9
I have no regrets about joining BMG since like @4 and @7 I was diligent with the required forms to reject, then would order 4 for the price of 1 - EXCEPT that just last week I looked through my old vinyl collection: The Thompson Twins and 'til Tuesday?! Yikes - where was I in the mid-80's?
10
@9:
Aimee Mann is not an artist you should be ashamed of having in your vinyl collection!
11
I signed up as a kid, and got many cool soundtracks by forgetting to send back the cards. As a 10-year-old, who wants Nino Rota's Waterloo score, or John Barry's score for The Last Valley. Now I'm super happy to have these things! Joined again in my late teens so I could get cheesy pop music without shame (the local headshop/recordstore would've given me hell for buying the Barry Manilow album with Copacabana on it). I don't remember buying anything else at full price, but in the back of the catalog they had lots of bargain priced older material for $3 - $6. I loaded up on Tull, Steely Dan, Genesis, etc., and do feel like I got a bargain, except for the part where I still have all the Barry Manilow albums.

I'm really sorry to hear they were ripping off the artists, though, even Barry.
12
Oh Fnarf, never be ashamed of the 'Dan!
13
I always wondered what they did with all the freaking pennies. Were there actually people whose job it was to roll them for eventual deposit? (banks would never accept unrolled pennies to my knowledge, though maybe corporate accounts operated differently?) Gosh, the 80's were fucked up.
14
I joined once and chose 8-tracks, WAY after the decline of 8-tracks, because I was a goofy college student who'd found a deck at a thrift store. It seemed fun to have stuff on 8-track that had no business being on that format.
15
I belonged to the Columbia Classical club until they folded. They had a decent classical collection --- it was all mainstream, major labels only, but much cheaper than store prices. This was especially great since Spokane never had a decent record store. (Classical lovers celebrated when Borders came to town, for crying out loud.)

Then Amazon got big, and that was the end of that.
16
My top haul was 80 cds at once in 1990/91. I used names like Ahku Pentz & R.E. Zidents (seriously "occupants & residents") before getting lazy & using John Johnson, Mike Michaels, Bob Roberts, etc. I knew the person doing the data entry didn't care & I knew I'd be moving in 6-12 months as people in their 20's do. I also figured it didn't hurt the artist because Columbia House had already "bought" the cd from the label.
At one point, I had 500 cds & I doubt I paid for more than 100 of them. Most got lost, pawned or stolen but I still have a few lurking in my stacks. BMG was another good one to rip-off but they edited their cds. Electric Ladyland was a single disc. WTF???

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.