Anybody ever join Columbia House?

[-X-]

This might be an age-specific question, but does anyone remember that flyer that would come in the mail offering like 11 albums for a penny if you ordered 3 more in a year or something like that? And then they'd bombard you with shit you didn't want if you didn't send back their mailer declining the next monthly album 'special offer'? I remember getting an ABBA album in the mail, and I was like, "Shit. I forgot to send back the card." And then I was stuck with it.

With ABBA.

I don't know why I thought of that just now, but I remember loving the hell out of that when I was like 13 years old. Looking through all the selections and penciling in the numbers of the ones I wanted (for FREE!) and sending it back so I could get all those of those sweet, sweet smelling vinyls in the mail. KISS, Aerosmith, Doobie Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Styx, Steve Miller band ... whatever you wanted.

Ahhhhhh.

Nostalgia.

 

[Dodgersrf]

Very well.
The early subscriptions had stamps that you would stick to your choice card.
I also was burned by their "record of the month" a few times.

I was too easy to get suckered into the 13 tapes for almost nothing.

 

[-X-]

Very well.
The early subscriptions had stamps that you would stick to your choice card.
I also was burned by their "record of the month" a few times.

I was too easy to get suckered into the 13 tapes for almost nothing.

Yeah ..... I remember those stamps now! It's all coming back to me. I'm pretty sure I joined it twice too. I just stopped answering their mails until I didn't hear from them again, and then joined again. I didn't think they'd send me a bunch of albums once I re-joined, but lo and behold ... there they were again. It's like you were on the honor system or something with them, and there aren't very many honorable 13 year olds high on vinyl fumes and the exhilaration of free stuff.

 

[Dodgersrf]

Lol.
Spot on. I did the same thing.
I was just a teenager and they would send me the tapes. Sometimes I would buy one here and there with lawn mowing money. Usually they would just send collection letters for a few months before giving up.
I always said I wouldn't do it again, but used them about half a dozen times.

The covers were also different than you would have gotten at a record store. The selections were also lacking. Sometimes I had a hard time finding 13 decent tapes from their bs list.

Anyway, it served a purpose for a young kid who's life was all about music and sports.

 

[-X-]

Yeah, true. You had to go to your second tier of favorite bands at times. lol.
I think I bought a Boston album and then nothing else.

 

[Dodgersrf]

Are they still around?

 

[-X-]

I'll be damned.

http://www.columbiahouse.com/

No free stuff anymore, it looks like.

 

[cracengl]

Ah, the source of a good chunk of my cc collection. I remember forgetting to send back their crap all the time. Then they would send collection notices and I'd write back to them to suck it because I was only 13. There was another club just like them I joined too, but I can't remember the name. I remember getting Everclear, Spacehog, and Nada Surf from them for some reason.

 

[Force16X]

Ah, the source of a good chunk of my cc collection. I remember forgetting to send back their crap all the time. Then they would send collection notices and I'd write back to them to suck it because I was only 13. There was another club just like them I joined too, but I can't remember the name. I remember getting Everclear, Spacehog, and Nada Surf from them for some reason.

wasnt it RCA Music Club? after further googling, i found a Capitol Record Club as well. i somewhat remember that if the album / cd was by rca , capitol, columbia, it was what you could buy in the store. but if you bought say, a columbia made record thru RCA, it wouldnt look or usually sound the same. the article also states that this all started from the "book of the month club" businesses.

 

[Force16X]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/28036/its-steal-how-columbia-house-made-money-giving-away-music For your reading entertainment.

 

[Thordaddy]

Yeah I joined and quickly had an account I couldn't pay , they started sending me collection notices so I asked my dad what to do , he wrote them a letter telling them to send a postage paid mailer for the albums ,failing that he would sue them for perpetrating an illegal contract with a minor.
NEVER HEARD from them again

 

[Selassie I]

I joined at least 5 or 6 different times. Maybe I'm the reason they no longer offer the "freebies" Hahahahahahaha

That is a blast from the past.

 

[RhodyRams]

wife and I were just talking about CH the other day...we were out tag saleing and saw a huge box of cassettes and I made the comment of "somebody took advantage of Columbia House back in the day"

my brother signed up using a fake name and the address of an empty apartment a few times..they never caught up to him LOL

 

[LazyWinker]

Nada Surf

For some reason the song Popular reminds me of Johnny Football.


I'm kind of sad that digital music has taken over because the sound quality is not near as good as CD or records.

 

[LesBaker]

I joined BMG in the late 80's early 90's and they had a loophole which lots of people used. Same type of sign up thing but you could cancel......well they didn't have a system in place to track who had already taken them up on the free offers so you could do it over and over. Plus you could call to ask about a certain album if it wasn't on the list they sent you.

I scored big, really big.

 

[Sum1]

I remember doing that in the 90's and early 2000's for both CDs and DVDs.

The CDs was great...a neighbor friend and I in the early/mid 90s would sign up using neighbors addresses in the summer that we knew were at work and go check the mailbox before they got home. Got lot's of free CDs that way. We'd sign up with bogus names so I doubt that our neighbors were ever really on the hook. Pretty immoral now that I think about it but when I was 10-12 it seemed genius.

When I signed up for the DVDs it was legit...by the time you fulfill your commitment it really isn't that great of a deal considering you are paying about 20% higher for the movies you have to purchase.

 

[RamsJunkie]

I did in the late 90s but I did it with CDs

 

[CodeMonkey]

Yes! How can you resist 13 cool 8-Track tapes for a penny! (oh there's a catch?...I didn't even notice that your regular price of which I'm now obligated to buy 8 at are double the price.)

The problem I had was they were copies and didn't look/feel totally legit. They had a cheaper cheesy cover and paper that was a copy made by them. It was something like those stand-in covers you get on video games at game stop.

Looking at the ads was like a stroll through the record shop and the stickers were fun. We had to get our chuckles where we could since we lived in the stone ages practically with no internet.

 

[LazyWinker]

I remember doing that in the 90's and early 2000's for both CDs and DVDs.

The CDs was great...a neighbor friend and I in the early/mid 90s would sign up using neighbors addresses in the summer that we knew were at work and go check the mailbox before they got home. Got lot's of free CDs that way. We'd sign up with bogus names so I doubt that our neighbors were ever really on the hook. Pretty immoral now that I think about it but when I was 10-12 it seemed genius.

When I signed up for the DVDs it was legit...by the time you fulfill your commitment it really isn't that great of a deal considering you are paying about 20% higher for the movies you have to purchase.

Somehow they managed to make millions of dollars. Check out @Force16X link. Don't feel bad @Sum1

http://mentalfloss.com/article/28036/its-steal-how-columbia-house-made-money-giving-away-music For your reading entertainment.

 

[bluecoconuts]

I have legitimately never heard of that until just now. Before opening the thread I thought it was some fraternity or club or something.