Jazz at Columbia House ...the hell?

elizabethbrion · October-8th-2003, 02:23 PM

Having not used my CH membership for anything useful in a while, I decided to check their site. For one thing, they seem to have cut down their selection drastically; for another thing, they seem to have a ton of stuff at the sale price of "free." I put a free item in my cart to see what happened, and it said I could now get two more free items. So I put a 2.99 title in there, and that entitled me to two more. I thought maybe they were just closing out their jazz stuff, but a quick run around the rest of the site shows even current Billboard top pop sellers marked "free."

So I checked out my shopping cart to see what was up, and all the member prices were "****", as was the total, with an assurance that my order would be billed correctly. But you know what? I'm scared.

Was wondering if any other club members have either taken advantage of this incredible sale or been misled by the giant website malfunction, whichever may be the case.

Pete C · October-8th-2003, 02:30 PM

Did you print out the screens? If they try to charge you, dispute it, first with them, then with your credit card company if that fails.

shrugs · October-8th-2003, 02:36 PM

Offer Details

Get 3 FREE CDs or Tapes with every 1 you buy at regular Club price!
Selections without a red sale price are not part of this offer*. You will be charged regular club price for the highest-priced selection you order. Sale albums must be ordered at the same time as your regular club price purchase. Shipping and processing charges, plus any applicable tax, will be added to each item. We reserve the right to limit quantities of sale albums.

*Please note: Box Sets and Collections (3 or more CDs) are always offered well below the suggested retail price. Because of these built in savings, they cannot be further discounted and are not available as Free, Bonus or Sale items. However, each Box Set purchase counts towards fulfilling your enrollment agreement.

elizabethbrion · October-8th-2003, 03:45 PM

Printing the pages out is a good idea... I'm on my laptop and not hooked up at the moment, though. But I'll wait until I am to order.

I did see the offer (actually, for me it's just 2 free with 1) but it didn't seem to explain the results I was getting; it would just let me order a free one by itself, for example. They've also never been marked like this in previous buy-1-get-x-free offers. The fact that their shopping cart has been unable to show pricing information makes me concerned that there's some kind of database freakout on the whole site.

I suppose a customer-service question is in order; was just wondering if anyone else had gotten there first!

shrugs · October-8th-2003, 04:35 PM

The cd's are listed as "Sale FREE". It is really rather obvious once you read the Sale details.

GoodSpeak · October-9th-2003, 02:35 PM

I'll have to check out the Columbia House site...but the shipping charge per CD is what I worry about. The "free" CD ends up costing more like $3.50 per. Besides this, if you pay regular club price even with the "free" CDs and if you buy as many as I do, it gets to be pretty pricey after a while when you factor in the shipping costs.

I haven't been buying much from them either, but I did snag a few Jazz titles a couple months ago on what appeared to me to be a close-out of some sort.

I prefer Amazon.com or Half.com. There they charge shipping for the entire order, not per CD. On top of that, if you purchase $25 bucks worth or more, you can get a reduced or even free shipping rate.

BMG isn't any better in the shipping fees.

My two cents...

Paul B · October-9th-2003, 04:06 PM

Quote:

The "free" CD ends up costing more like $3.50 per.

Well, $3.50 isn't bad for a CD!

Quote:

BMG isn't any better in the shipping fees.

Yeah, but if you play your cards right with BMG--I've been a member for several years--you come out ahead. For example, they just e-mailed me an offer for 60% off with no shipping (except for boxed sets); pretty good. And even for the 10-CD Claudio Arrau box I ordered, for which I had to pay shipping, I came out $10-$15 ahead of what Tower or online dealers could offer for that item. The main thing with BMG is to never order its monthly disc unless it's coupled with a really good deal (like three freebies, or whatever), because those regular selections are what they screw you on. Also, if you let music points add up, you get a freebie now and again. All in all, a good deal.

That said, I don't know anything about Columbia House, which may or may not operate the same way.

Bye-ya.

GoodSpeak · October-9th-2003, 05:00 PM

True, $3.50 isn't much for a CD, but the costs add up quick for regular priced CDs.

I'm a member of both Columbia House and BMG and maybe it's ticky-tack, I don't know, but it's just the whole idea of paying a per CD shipping charge. I mean, does it REALLY cost that much to ship one CD? Add to that, the same fee applies no matter how many CDs you purchase. The more you get, the higher the cost.

It gets to be rather punitive after a while since the per CD shipping charge isn't really a shipping charge, but a kind of "user fee" and, TBH, I object to those hidden costs.

shrugs · October-9th-2003, 05:20 PM

It's a lot more than 3.50 a cd.
To get the free cd's they have to be 16.98 or above. If you put 4 cd's that cost 16.98 in your basket, the first one will be 16.98 and the other three are listed as free. Tax is 1.70 and Shipping and Processing is 11.16 for a total of 29.84.

GoodSpeak · October-9th-2003, 10:05 PM

Exactly.

Free doesn't mean free...plus the shipping costs are abitrary and costly.

Dennis Gonzalez · October-9th-2003, 11:00 PM

They're going to get you somewhere, somehow, when you are least expecting it...you all know that! It's a dangerous game.

Aggie87 · October-10th-2003, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by shrugs
It's a lot more than 3.50 a cd.
To get the free cd's they have to be 16.98 or above. If you put 4 cd's that cost 16.98 in your basket, the first one will be 16.98 and the other three are listed as free. Tax is 1.70 and Shipping and Processing is 11.16 for a total of 29.84.

I'm not a Columbia House member (though I am with BMG), but I'm not really sure why this is a bad thing. A total of $29.84 for four cds equates to $7.46 per cd, delivered to your door. This is definitely cheaper than retail, which is what you have to compare it to. How is this not a good deal?

For me, I just tend to ignore the relatively expensive S/H charges, and look at the overall cost of the order, divided by the number of discs I'm receiving. For me this is the best way to decide whether I'm getting a good deal or not.

GoodSpeak · October-10th-2003, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aggie87
I'm not a Columbia House member (though I am with BMG), but I'm not really sure why this is a bad thing. A total of $29.84 for four cds equates to $7.46 per cd, delivered to your door. This is definitely cheaper than retail, which is what you have to compare it to. How is this not a good deal?

For me, I just tend to ignore the relatively expensive S/H charges, and look at the overall cost of the order, divided by the number of discs I'm receiving. For me this is the best way to decide whether I'm getting a good deal or not.

I dunno...maybe it's just the idea that you know they aren't being straight with you about the so-called "shipping cost." And you're right, the total cost is cheaper than the $18 bucks you could spend at a retail store.

Perhaps if they change the name of the fee to something else...?

shrugs · October-10th-2003, 04:24 PM

I wasn't saying it was a bad deal. I was just proving that Goody's 3.50 price was wrong. I have gotten some great deals through Columbia House. I have a ton of bonus points from ordering Plugged Nickel sets for nonmembers and ordering some to sell on e-bay.

GoodSpeak · October-10th-2003, 05:01 PM

Disclaimer: For the record [no pun intended], I was guessing at the actual dollar amount, but objecting to the indication of it.