Now that was the absolute worst. I joined as a 16 year old back in 1978. It was the old "8 cassettes/LPs for a penny" ruse. So I taped a penny to the return envelope, wrote the codes down for my eight albums (i.e. LLP-443789 for the "Some Girls" album by The Rolling Stones) and made perhaps the biggest mistake in my entire life.
From that point on, Columbia House would automatically send me the "selection of the month" every month unless I responded within 7 days that I did not want it. But that was harder then it sounds because mail moved slow in those days.
So more times than not, I ended up getting something like Slim Whitman's Greatest Hits or something from Pablo Cruise or Captain & Tennille. I was stuck with it at the list price of $16.98. Plus tax. Plus shipping and handling. Total bill was around $20 which was big money at the time. I was making $2.65 an hour bagging groceries so that full priced album I didn't want and would never listen to was almost two part time shifts at the grocery store.
You had to purchase something like fifteen full priced albums over two years to get out of the club. But even after that, any efforts to cancel your membership were resisted. I got on the phone with them and they told me they would ship me six additional albums at no charge if I gave them another chance. Like a sucker, I accepted and I was reset back to the 15 full-priced albums to get out of the club.
Then I went to boot camp for the Marines in 1981 and I gave my mother explicit instructions to watch the mail and return any Columbia House mailings right away so they would not send me album of the month.
So I graduate from boot camp and come home to albums from Air Supply, Englebert Humperdinck and Spyro Gyra.
I was so pissed.
I joined as a 16 year old back in 1978.
***************
That was a right of passage for our generation.
“By this act, ye shall learn the Law of Repercussions!”
You used your real name?
Now that was the absolute worst. I joined as a 16 year old back in 1978. It was the old “8 cassettes/LPs for a penny” ruse. So I taped a penny to the return envelope, wrote the codes down for my eight albums (i.e. LLP-443789 for the “Some Girls” album by The Rolling Stones) and made perhaps the biggest mistake in my entire life.
From that point on, Columbia House would automatically send me the “selection of the month” every month unless I responded within 7 days that I did not want it. But that was harder then it sounds because mail moved slow in those days.
So more times than not, I ended up getting something like Slim Whitman’s Greatest Hits or something from Pablo Cruise or Captain & Tennille. I was stuck with it at the list price of $16.98. Plus tax. Plus shipping and handling. Total bill was around $20 which was big money at the time. I was making $2.65 an hour bagging groceries so that full priced album I didn’t want and would never listen to was almost two part time shifts at the grocery store.
You had to purchase something like fifteen full priced albums over two years to get out of the club. But even after that, any efforts to cancel your membership were resisted. I got on the phone with them and they told me they would ship me six additional albums at no charge if I gave them another chance. Like a sucker, I accepted and I was reset back to the 15 full-priced albums to get out of the club.
Then I went to boot camp for the Marines in 1981 and I gave my mother explicit instructions to watch the mail and return any Columbia House mailings right away so they would not send me album of the month.
So I graduate from boot camp and come home to albums from Air Supply, Englebert Humperdinck and Spyro Gyra.
I was so pissed.
You should turn this into a short story or novel. Pretty close to Catcher in the Rye level.
Air Supply? You lucky guy. ;-)