Columbia House. A child's 1st exposer to buying on credit. Join for a penny, existence not required.

[Ar9Jim 6,503]

Must have joined at 8-10 years old. 

 

[RPA-1 Man 613]

I fell for that scam.

[stereo_dog 861]

Yep, lots of records and tapes from Columbia House. My parents were ready to wring my neck. 

[Kurt 2,413]

I once got 12 albums for a penny using my cat's name.   (For years afterward we got junk mail addressed to "Ginger" Schieding.)  Once the time came for me to make the subsequently required purchases and I did not do so... the warning mails started coming....then phone calls.  Finally, my mom answered one of the calls and asked them "did you know you made a contract with a 14 year old boy and his cat?".  We never heard from them again. LOL.

Edited March 7, 2024 by Kurt

[4krow 6,023]

Yes, and the stamps. Attach the ones that you want to the card! 

[Dadvw 2,862]

I did that a couple of times......until we got a real record store.......grin

[Will Meyer 2,350]

I liked them. Also BMG. 
 

I used to get their CD of the month; it broadened my exposure to different bands.  
 

I even did he reel to reel format. 

[davidc 346]

My dad and I signed up quite a few times. It was fine as long as you purchased the expensive album and then canceled. It was still worth it.

[Receiver2000 3,356]

Yeah I remember Columbia House. Haven't thought about that in a long time. The first 10 albums for cheap was sweat. Then they started to shaft you on future purchases. I wonder how they ever made it.

[4krow 6,023]

Why does this remind me of drug dealers. C'mon kid, the first one is free.

[3M_Audio 1,726]

I did Columbia house as a 12 or 13 year old. I was actually OK with it as I carefully looked at (and usually rejected) the next month's full price album. I think eventually they dropped me as I wasn't a profitable customer, lol

[Receiver2000 3,356]

But wasn't the deal that once you accepted the cheap albums, you agreed to buy a minimum number over the course of a year or something?

[Receiver2000 3,356]

And I wonder how many actually did that.

[davidc 346]

1 hour ago, Receiver2000 said:

But wasn't the deal that once you accepted the cheap albums, you agreed to buy a minimum number over the course of a year or something?

 

Yes, the two problems were that the rest of the albums were really expensive, and the choice wasn't that great. If I remember, you had to choose the full priced monthly albums from a small list.

 

Between Columbia House and BMG, I probably signed up 3-4 times over the years. Several times I just ignored the followup letters. I'm pretty sure CH dinged my credit back in the 80's.

[Cring08 206]

When I was a minor, I must have ordered a dozen times or more, and never paid!

 

 

 

 

[Zenith4me 1,447]

When I was in high school many of my friends did the Columbia House/BMG thing. We would trade records between us.  I got to listen to artists I wouldn’t have chosen. It worked for us.