The First 12 Cost a Penny, But...: In the 1980s and 1990s, Columbia House could do no wrong—as a way to get music, the mail-order service was cheap and easy at first. Then, the bills came.
I got tons of "free" records in the Columbia House days. You think I woulda learned my lesson, but I got suckered in to BMG Music Club and got tons of CDs.
Teenagers would get the penny introductory bargain and then ignore the ensuing bills for the crap that was foisted on them for not sending a reply card. When Columbia got nasty the kids would say, "Hey, I'm only sixteen. I didn't understand the deal" and they they'd get away with it because minors can't enter into contracts.
This article reveals the age of its author by not acknowledging that Columbia House existed long before CDs existed. My parents were members when Columbia House sold record albums, and I was the beneficiary of my parents' membership. By purchasing a certain number of records, members earned free records. My parents would save up their free credits and, on appropriate holidays, I was allowed to use them to purchase the music I enjoyed.
The club scam. Though, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I was very happy to be a (subsidiaries of both Dobuleday and BOMC) book club member in Hawaii, where they didn't choose to send the books by default...and, by the time I joined, minors needed a parental/guardian co-signatory, just to get Someone on the hook.
A True Confession: Long, long ago, my future brother-in-law used the "I'm not 18" scam on some record club or other. A good many years after that, I was visiting my sister, and she was about to get rid of some LPs and other things after her husband's death. Among those LPs were the ones he'd gotten from the record club. I couldn't resist. I asked her for them, and they're in a closet in my house right now.
6 comments:
We belonged to Columbia House a couple of times. There were definitely issues, but I liked picking out the "free" choices.
I got tons of "free" records in the Columbia House days. You think I woulda learned my lesson, but I got suckered in to BMG Music Club and got tons of CDs.
Teenagers would get the penny introductory bargain and then ignore the ensuing bills for the crap that was foisted on them for not sending a reply card. When Columbia got nasty the kids would say, "Hey, I'm only sixteen. I didn't understand the deal" and they they'd get away with it because minors can't enter into contracts.
This article reveals the age of its author by not acknowledging that Columbia House existed long before CDs existed. My parents were members when Columbia House sold record albums, and I was the beneficiary of my parents' membership. By purchasing a certain number of records, members earned free records. My parents would save up their free credits and, on appropriate holidays, I was allowed to use them to purchase the music I enjoyed.
The club scam. Though, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I was very happy to be a (subsidiaries of both Dobuleday and BOMC) book club member in Hawaii, where they didn't choose to send the books by default...and, by the time I joined, minors needed a parental/guardian co-signatory, just to get Someone on the hook.
A True Confession: Long, long ago, my future brother-in-law used the "I'm not 18" scam on some record club or other. A good many years after that, I was visiting my sister, and she was about to get rid of some LPs and other things after her husband's death. Among those LPs were the ones he'd gotten from the record club. I couldn't resist. I asked her for them, and they're in a closet in my house right now.
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