Comments on: Anyone Remember Columbia House?

By: Georga

Georga — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:14:07 +0000

@ JLP: I did that but was sent to a collections agency. Hardnosed Indian guy trying to force me to give him my credit card info over the phone. I called BMG and they took care of it.

By: MoneyDummy

MoneyDummy — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:56:21 +0000

We LOVE BMG! Their current offer is buy one CD, get eleven more free, with no further obligation.

Mr. MoneyDummy has been a member for years, and he holds out for their once-yearly buy-one-at-full-price, get unlimited for .99/ea. Then he orders enough to hit the bottom of the “curve,” which is about 5.25/CD. It wouldn’t be a good deal for me, since I’m not much of a music fan, but for someone like Mr. MD, who’s CRAZY about music but doesn’t believe in copying or downloading songs for free, and can tell the quality difference in the .88/per song WalMart downloads, it’s great!

By: JLP

JLP — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 03:32:42 +0000

I have been a member of BMG since January 1994 and have actually done quite well with them. The run buy 1 get 4 free fairly often and that works out to about $7.50 per disc, which is reasonable.

FYI – If you receive a disc that you forgot to decline, all you have to do is write “rejected” on the box and stick it back in the mail. BMG doesn’t like it, but it’s okay if you only do it every once in a while.

I never was a fan of Columbia House.

By: Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:40:12 +0000

Hey productive spam, very nice. Compared to the $16 I used to pay for a CD at Tower Records, this was a great deal back then. If you worked it out just right, you could stack it so you could by one, get two free and have that one count towards your obligation. By the time I was done, I think my average was $6 – quite a bit better than Tower Records.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:42:52 +0000

Columbia House, BMG, etc. just buy a master copy license of a CD or DVD and then create their own – so the cost is only the penny price of blank CDs or DVDs plus the license fee. That’s why all the CDs and DVDs they sell have their little logo on the front – they actually create them.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:20:36 +0000

Gosh – I haven’t thought about Columbia House in years. However, I do remember being 14 and BEGGING my parents to let me order some of those new CD thingys! They obviously said “No”…

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:13:12 +0000

About 10 years ago I belonged to BMG. I got the ‘12 for the price of one’ deal and had to buy 3 more within 2 years. It averaged out well for me, but they make their money off people who neglect to decline the CD of the Month. If you don’t decline – they automatically ship it at full price (close to $20 bucks).

I recently got a coupon from a class action lawsuit because they overcharged for shipping. The coupon is 3 CDs at 80% off regular price and no shipping. It’s a decent deal, but I don’t know if I will do it. I have a ton of CDs already.

By: jim

jim — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:51:36 +0000

Hahaha, I only thought of it because I was checking my spam folders in Gmail and saw it, I was surprised to see CH even still existed… let alone was spamming me.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:10:15 +0000

Funny you should say all this, I got one of these in the mail a few weeks back and thought I was on the way-back machine.

By: KMC

KMC — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 01:00:31 +0000

I think Columbia House is a great example of a marketer that uses ‘inertia’ to sell product. Once you get someone to take an action and begin something, it’s not hard to keep the action going. It takes another conscious action by the person to stop. Any kind of subscription is a good example (be it magazines or a housekeeper).

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:59:29 +0000

After BMG bought them they opened up again as YourMusic.com which is a subscription service that for $6.99 you automatically get one cd a month with the option to buy more if you want for $6.99 each. I’m sorta over the whole cd thing, not that I just buy mp3s or anything I just….don’t care anymore about owning music.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:11:10 +0000

All very good points.

I think many of us (the “fine print” readers) knew this shenenagans right when we saw it.