WTF Columbia House...

[preslove]

I used bmg and columbia a lot when I was in early highschool. If you strictly followed the rules you could get cd's for 3 or 4 bucks a pop, averaged out. Sometimes I would forget to send in the "don't send me that crappy cd" note, but would just write refuse to sender on it.

I was young and sometimes didn't pay for the stuff (I know it's wrong), but they never sent any of that info to a debt collector or ever threatened me. Thing is, about a year after they gave up sending me bills, they would send ads to me saying "we want you back, here's a great deal for free cds."

I think that these "clubs" are basically liquitation operations of large music/entertainment conglomerates. BMG is a huge music company and its "music service" bascially gets rid of whatever cds haven't sold. ANY money that they extract from these discs is found money because they think that the cds wouldn't have sold otherwise. It gets rid of excess stock, and if they show a loss on the cd then careful accounting can get even more money out of it for the big parent corporation.

Therefore, they aren't totally upset when you don't pay. They would rather get you to spend more money in the future bysigning you up again than forcing you to pay what their books say you owe.

Don't pay them. They won't go after you and you aren't morally responsible for it either.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: preslove
I used bmg and columbia a lot when I was in early highschool. If you strictly followed the rules you could get cd's for 3 or 4 bucks a pop, averaged out. Sometimes I would forget to send in the "don't send me that crappy cd" note, but would just write refuse to sender on it.

I was young and sometimes didn't pay for the stuff (I know it's wrong), but they never sent any of that info to a debt collector or ever threatened me. Thing is, about a year after they gave up sending me bills, they would send ads to me saying "we want you back, here's a great deal for free cds."

I think that these "clubs" are basically liquitation operations of large music/entertainment conglomerates. BMG is a huge music company and its "music service" bascially gets rid of whatever cds haven't sold. ANY money that they extract from these discs is found money because they think that the cds wouldn't have sold otherwise. It gets rid of excess stock, and if they show a loss on the cd then careful accounting can get even more money out of it for the big parent corporation.

Therefore, they aren't totally upset when you don't pay. They would rather get you to spend more money in the future bysigning you up again than forcing you to pay what their books say you owe.

Don't pay them. They won't go after you and you aren't morally responsible for it either.

heh my SIL does that.

every 6-8 months she gets an offer for buy 3 get 11 or some other such stupid deal. she pays for the 3 and refuses to pay for the res.t
she been doing it for years. it has NEVER showed up on her credit report (helped her file for Bankruptcy...twice).

but i think you are right on it being a liquadation outlet. they usually only have 3-5 new cd's and a bunch of older odd stuff.