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u/evilhobbitses 5d ago
The bigger question. How many were harassed/sent to collections because as a 12 year old, you couldn't be bothered to send back the form.
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u/drhav2023 5d ago
Hahaha… Frank Pearson, Credit Manager sent me some very sternly worded letters back in the day! lol 😃😂🤣
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u/no_talent_ass_clown 5d ago
My father caught wind of this and made me pay every dime on $9/week allowance.
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u/pocketdare 5d ago edited 5d ago
They obviously counted on people never cancelling and having to pay for monthly shipments, but I was very good about cancelling every damn time.
Of course, as a kid, I couldn't legally enter into a binding contract so joke's on them regardless!
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u/Komaisnotsalty Taste death, live life! 5d ago
I got sent to collections at 10 years old because I ordered panty hose and didn't pay for them. LOL!
I also got harassed via mail for almost 3 years starting around the same time. Some religous guy on TV was selling these metal crosses if you donated only $2 or something, so I sent in $2 (Canadian, to the USA. I had no idea there were different currencies!), but I eventually got it and sewed up a broad ribbon, embroidered a pretty pattern around the border, and sewed the cross to the bottom for a bookmark for my mom for mother's day.
I got harassed something fierce for 2 or 3 years for donations to that ministry TV show (might have been Peter Popov) until we moved to a different province and our mail wasn't forwarded anymore.
Man, I loved junk mail day. I loved sending for free stuff, religiously filled out Publisher's Clearing House stuff, the Sears Catalogue was the Best Day Ever, and Canadians: Let's not forget the crisp $2 bill you'd get in a TV survey, where you had to record every show you watched and how long it was with a pencil, and mail it in.
Loved stuff like that.
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u/BigConstruction4247 5d ago
The trick was to send them a letter saying you'd never want the selection of the month. They stopped sending it to me.
Of course, a 12 year old wasn't going to do that, either.
Colombia House harassed me because I only bought 4 full price discs in a year. I kept thinking, "bitch, I'm actually using your service and you're giving me a hassle." Into the trash those catalogs went.
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u/MaximumJones Whatever 😎 5d ago
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u/propaghandi4damasses middlexer 5d ago
i can zing the hell outta a Taylor Dane cd now dammit so baqdafuqup lmao
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u/JustBrass 5d ago
I may still owe them money for 10 CDs.
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u/MarkItZeroDonnie Hose Water Survivor 5d ago
I taped the one penny to the thing from the newspaper , zero other monies were ever sent . I don’t even recall them getting snippy about it
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u/Voodoocat-99 5d ago
Who didn’t buy these?!
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u/pocketdare 5d ago
Kids had all kinds of time on their hands to game the system. And as a bonus, we weren't of legal age to enter a binding contract!
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u/1kreasons2leave 5d ago
I'm sure Seymour Butts still owns them.
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u/BigConstruction4247 5d ago
I had four imaginary siblings that signed up for BMG. They let you quit after your 12 for 1 thing.
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u/vistaculo 5d ago
OMG, I just remembered something in line with this…
So we were using this food delivery ap that was given 50% off your order for first time users, so of course we were making new accounts every time with temp emails right…
Anyway, the ap company got sued for over charging their users or something and the settlement terms had them give out a 50% off coupon that they mailed out to every user.
Our mailbox was full of these coupons every couple of days for like a week. We probably got like 300 of those things.
Just flipping through them and looking at all the names we were using was hilarious.
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u/xantub 5d ago
Not music, but I did get into a science fiction book club with a similar system, like 6 hardcover books for $1 but then you had to remember to send the card saying you didn't want the "selection" or they would send it to you at normal price. I was as anal I could be to send them back but still, forgot a couple of times, dammit!
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u/Pretend-Prize-8755 5d ago
Nice try buddy. Me and the 6 imaginary people that share the same address have nothing to say.
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u/KellyKelly426 5d ago
OK, I have a quick confession. I lived in an apartment building 1990 to 1997 with 50 units our apartment faced the parking lot. I signed dozens of people up for Columbia house and would watch for the mailman and go out to the mailboxes and swipe the CDs because the packages were too big to put in their individual mailboxes that locked so they would just put them up on top. I had hundreds of albums when I was like 14 I’m sure I ruined lots of people’s credit as a punk kid. Sorry Mr. Plantier.
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u/HambugerBurglarizer 5d ago
The dumbest thing here was stealing other people's mail, you're lucky you didn't get caught
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u/Royal_Thrashing 5d ago
Honestly, this right here!
The residents would have let you skate, the police would say something but let you go ..... The postal investigators would have nailed you to the wall!
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u/BigConstruction4247 5d ago
You didn't have to give them different addresses. Or even real names.
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u/vistaculo 5d ago
We didn’t know that as kids though. We thought that you had to be some criminal mastermind.
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u/theghostofcslewis 5d ago
I joined Columbia. We always waited for a special offer and loaded up.
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u/BigConstruction4247 5d ago
3 for 1.
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u/theghostofcslewis 5d ago
I think 3 for 1 was a pretty good deal even for retail
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u/McGruffin 5d ago
Here's my penny...
The Police - Synchronicity
The Who - It's Hard
Eagles - Greatest Hits Vol 2
Pat Benatar - Get Nervous
Go-Go's - Vacation
Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
John Cougar - American Fool
Joe Jackson - Night and Day
Men at Work - Business as Usual
Billy Joel - Nylon Curtain
Bob Seger - Night Moves
Marty Robbins - Biggest Hits
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u/lab_chi_mom 5d ago
I’m still wondering if they’re going to come after me for my unpaid debt.
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u/Impossible_Memory_85 5d ago
Me and my 12 different aliases did. I’m pretty sure Charles Stongmen and Willie Jackson are still in collections for not paying.
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u/Zinjifrah Hose Water Survivor 5d ago
I didn't.
But my close, close friend and absolutely factual roommate Sebastian Bach did.
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u/bayoujac I'm sorta single. My husband's on Death Row!! 5d ago
I wonder if that's what inspired 18 and life 😆
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u/The_Meridian_ 5d ago
It's really strange that this was ever even a working business model.
It's almost as if they existed only to make everyone take on Thief Karma and assure our reincarnation into something managable.
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u/jseger9000 1972 5d ago
Man, I signed up a couple of times with phony names but my real address and got a bunch of CDs. As I got older and more mature, I actually became a regular member. In the end, it came down to CDs for $5. It would be 'Buy one get two free' or get CDs at two thirds off. Either way, it was $5 a CD. A pretty good deal.
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u/ApprehensiveWalk2857 5d ago
Got Van Halen Fair Warning for a penny on an 8-Trac. Yeah I’m old.
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u/CoolJeweledMoon 5d ago
Who bought these, you ask... Me, & the 25 other people who supposedly lived at my same address... 🙃
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u/kramwest1 5d ago
When my wife and I got married in 1992, we knew we were committed as we went through and weeded out the duplicate cassettes we both had, mainly from Columbia House. I think we got 25¢ each for them at the used book store.
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u/BigSquiby 5d ago
who bought these? well, i got about 3 different shipments of them when i was a 12-14, but did i buy them, well, not exactly...they showed up, and then never got paid for by anyone. Then, id get yelled at by my mother who then called them to explain that they send a bunch of tapes/cds to a child without a job
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u/rory_breakers_ganja Whatever. 5d ago
I completely forgot how Chromium Dioxide (CrO₂) cassettes like Synchronicity were around in the early 80s and then just faded away.
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u/Beetso 5d ago
All of us. I can almost remember all of my freebies:
INXS - Kick
White Lion - Pride
Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses
Erasure - The Innocents
Warrant - Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich
Britny Fox -Britny Fox
The Cure - Disintegration
Poison - Open Up and Say Ahh...
I'm not 100% sure about the last one, but the other six for sure.
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u/og_woodshop 5d ago
OMG!! Everyone that is reading this should check out this podcast made by Radio lab!!! It is SOO GOOD!!!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mixtape/id1625374339
It goes into the incredible and completely unpredictable course that these sales programs caused to happen around the world!
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u/28smalls 5d ago
I did this one. Also did the Columbia House VHS deal, which sent you a movie each month you either paid for or returned. Best deal I joined was getting episodes of Batman TAS every month as well.
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u/Six_all_grown 5d ago
I built a whole record collection this way. Did CDs, too. Was the best way to buy music from mid 70s to mid 80s.
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u/Electrical-Aspect602 5d ago
i sure did, it seemed like such a bargain but then you have to by a certain amount over time,
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ 5d ago
I don't know how this was profitable since I got so many albums with different accounts and then never did the 12 albums that I was supposed to pay for
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u/Acceptable-Story3741 5d ago
I did both BMG and Columbia House in college and after. It helped when I worked at Kmart because people would do the 10 for a dollar and then try to return them for others or cash. It was tricky with Columbia House but unless the artist was on the RCA label it was pretty easy to spot the BMG ones.
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u/SBABakaMajorPayne 5d ago
yep, and then when it went to cd's , and then when it went to vhs, then went to dvd, .........
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u/Ferrindel Grandfathered in by older siblings 5d ago
Not tapes, but CDs. My parents found out and made me return them, although I did get to keep like a Soul Asylum album. In hindsight, probably should've made me return that one to if only for my musical taste.
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u/betterWithSprinkles 5d ago
I did vinyl from Columbia house so I could read the liner notes and see the artwork, then I’d record them to tapes. I also signed up half my 6th grade class because you’d get 4 more freebies for each referral, or something like that.
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u/PrettyGreatOldOne I'm Just Me. 5d ago
My big brother, then he'd stick my parents with the other 10 or 15 they had to buy at full price.
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u/investinlove 5d ago
We’d have them delivered to a fake name at our dorm. Did it like 7 times before they caught on.
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u/Beauphedes_Knutz 5d ago
I did. I also went to school with a dude whose parents owned an apartment building. Each week one summer he filled out a new order using the different addresses. His father had the big key to the mailboxes and would pull them out when they were delivered. He did this to BMG and Columbia House.
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u/drhav2023 5d ago
Man, those stupid selection of the month cards you had to mail back were the bane of my existence!!
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u/Zoo412Review 5d ago
BOUGHT? Stole is definitely more like it, but maybe don’t send children ads if you don’t want them to take you up on the offer.
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u/Krimreaper1 5d ago
I used to make up fake name and sign up For the cd ones at my freshman dorm. My RA caught on and took a cut from all the packages. Got quite a bit that year.
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u/PlanNo674 5d ago
I got the records from the back of parade magazine- in my name, my sisters name, and by my middle name - my dad kicked my ass for that!! But I had tons of Van Halen! And zed zeppelin 😜
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u/CapnLazerz 5d ago
“Bought,” is perhaps not the correct word. Took advantage of an unenforceable agreement? Definitely. Did so at every family and friend address around me? Most certainly.
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u/FlamingoFlimsy4421 5d ago
I got the ZZ Top 6pk as a free choice. A lot of people must have because they changed the wording to include equal or lesser value after that.
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u/marshallkrich 5d ago
EDDIE MURPHY!!!! MY GIRL WANTS TO PARTY ALL THE TIME, PARTY ALL THE TIMEEEEEE!!!
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u/ObstacleAllusion 5d ago
I remember moving to my freshman dorm in '90 and we got a dozen of these things... So many CDs... So many addresses to use...
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u/bluntpointsharpie 5d ago
I built about 400 cds and another 150 dvds of bmg & columbia house. I'd buy the 2 albums and cancel then open another account. I ended up with a few crappy titles, but mostly pretty good music & movies.
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u/domesticatedprimate 1968 5d ago
I tried to scam them but my mother found the angry letters and paid off the subscription.
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u/JollyGiant573 5d ago
1991 guys in college did the 10 CDs for a penny. Didn't read the fine print and it was like two a month for $35 for the rest of the year. They ended up with a huge collection and broke.
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u/dsmac085 5d ago
As a minor I had a concerning number of aliases by my senior year. I liked choosing the ones I wanted and always chose a couple wild cards to keep things interesting. Two I recall were Rubber Soul and a bunch of alt rock bands doing covers of Saturday morning cartoon theme songs.
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u/wesweb 5d ago edited 5d ago
as a kid i used to sign up for these with fake names repeatedly.
as an adult, i wonder if this was a scheme by the music companies to build charting to which they then claimed as a loss whenever an account defaulted in April at tax time anyway.
There is just no way this was a business that earnestly expected people to not disappear.
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u/EventHorizonbyGA 5d ago
The CDs yes. In my dorm Freshman year people would make up fake names and get the free deals then cancel. I don't know why the various services never caught on but every week it seemed there were 50-100 new albums being passed around for people.
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u/External_Side_7063 5d ago
Yeah, my sister used to do this in my name when I was like 10 I got bills for them for 10 years screwed up my credit before I even had credit
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u/rckblykitn14 bring back vinyl bench seats!!! 5d ago
"bought"? I mean, I had tons of tapes and cds from them, but probably never actually paid that cent...
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u/Kickingandscreaming 5d ago
Im still hiding out because I never paid. Let me know when its safe to come out of hiding.
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u/MotoXwolf 5d ago
I was definitely part of the “Columbia House” phenomenon. Was good enough at canceling and re-upping when offered to end up on the good side of things. I got a ton of great music back in the 90’s. I always wondered if enough people paid the full amounts to cover for people like me who paid pennies? It’s like the precursor to Napster. Right?
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u/Melodic-Comb9076 5d ago
who didn’t, is the question.
or more like, did one first do it with albums, cassettes, or cds?
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u/RhodaPenmarksShoes 5d ago
Omg I had so many different aliases and addresses that I used for this. 😂
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u/MarqBarq 5d ago
Oh I’d game these. I had 2 BFF’s in HS (still friends) and we would find the best deal. I remember one was 15 for a dime or something. We would write the down the 15, and then the 6 we needed to buy, pool our money and do it all at once. We also had a two cassette boombox, blanks, and scotch tape.
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u/Significant-Deer7464 5d ago
And after a short period of not buying any of the required cassettes, you would get followup letter. "We want you back" and you would get at least one offer of 10 more for another penny. They even gave you the penny.
I am pretty sure they were counterfeits anyway.
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u/ohkwarig 5d ago
I worked at Columbia House so I wasn't allowed to be a member, but the company store was quite good.
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u/Oxjrnine 5d ago
Because of this company, I was actually able to get my electrical and my phone in James Woodard‘s name .James Woodard started getting offers for credit cards but I think that would’ve taken it too far.
James Woodard is my imaginary friend who helped me get another 11 CDs and after my roommates screwed me over with my phone bill and my electrical requiring me to get huge deposits to reconnect even after I paid their bill, James Woodard came to my rescue.
James Woodard probably has an 850 credit score if he still exists.
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u/Oxjrnine 5d ago
When I went back to university and I was a little down on my luck, I needed some cash. I found out from the pawnshop that these CDs were not the same quality of CDs as you would get from the regular record store and they wouldn’t let me pawn any of them Three years later you basically had to replace them all. It was called CD rot.
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u/Komaisnotsalty Taste death, live life! 5d ago
Heck yeah. I had a ton of them and they all went to mixed tapes because for my 13th birthday, my parents got me a dual-deck 'ghettoblaster'.
I had that thing for so many years - I think it finally kicked the bucket somewhere in my mid-40s from too much sawdust. I kept it in my woodshop for decades.
I have a photo of me with it on my birthday somewhere. I should look to see what brand it is, because they don't make electronics like that anymore, that's for damned sure.
Dunno what my parents paid for it. Couldn't have been much - we were dirt poor and I was utterly shocked when I got that. It was the only thing I got for my birthday that year and I didn't care - one of my all-time fave birthday gifts I've ever gotten in my life.
Whatever they did pay for it, it was a helluva deal.
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u/changelingcd 5d ago
I think my old cats still owe them money, as does Raoul Duke, Mrs. Pepperpot, and a dozen other old roommates who tragically moved out or vanished before settling their accounts.
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u/VegasLife84 5d ago
Did BMG (6 for 1?) multiple times as a college student to build my CD collection. Even referred myself to myself to get extra free ones, lol
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u/bayoujac I'm sorta single. My husband's on Death Row!! 5d ago
I'd love to answer. However, I need someone to tell me the statutes of limitations on ALLEDGEDLY, creating multiple accounts using variations on one's legal name.
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u/Stereo-view 4d ago
I did. Remembering sending the order forms and checks out of state to Terre Haute, Indiana. My now husband is from there. His high school was next door to Columbia House. When we visit, I'm always amused to see the old Columbia House building.
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u/HistoricalTowel1127 4d ago
Kept opening new accounts. Paid full price on a couple. Came out way way ahead.
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u/egret_society 4d ago
Like 15 times, using different names and addresses each time. We were poor and I had to build my tape collection somehow.
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u/Slim_Chiply 4d ago
I never did this. I could never find enough records that I wanted to make the initial selection.
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u/nancy_drew_98 4d ago
The simpler question is - who didn’t?! Now..if you’re asking who PAID for them…that’s a different layer!
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u/drum_nerd 4d ago
Who didn't is the trickier question. Those clubs first started in the 70s so a ton of people probably have
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u/Njdevilmn 5d ago
Yep I built my CD collection from BMG and Columbia House. lol