Talk:Columbia House/Archives/2012

Neutrality / Complete Rewrite boxes

Do we still need the Neutrality and Complete Rewrite boxes at the top of the page? Nothing in this article has changed in a while. I would like to get rid of the boxes. If anyone has a problem with the article fix it or talk about it here. If no one responds in a week or so two I will remove the boxes. --Jon in California —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.73.82 (talk) 12:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

No objection to removing this. I spent well over a year selling this service and all the complaints are justified. In fact, I have heard FAR WORSE from the customers I called on. This article is very tame compared against the reality I know. --Achim (talk) 01:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC) I made 200-300 calls per day on that campaign, for well over a year, in an outsourced call centre. This article is letting this company off easy. I know that for a fact. --Achim (talk) 01:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone still think despite the cited references that the tags still need to be there? If so, please state your case so we can have a consensus?--Achim (talk) 06:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Scam

Columbia House is a scam and everyone who has ever joined figures this out with the first bill.

The company offers new members CDs and DVDs well below cost to join, while the customer agrees to buy a few more at 'regular club price'. The 'regular club price' is not published in the advertisement contract. The customer only finds the price after they have joined and received their first bill, which are generally higher than at other competing non-club retailers. Shipping costs are also above the standard USPS rates. --Jon in California 13 June 2007 208.127.73.181 09:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is my experience

After buying far more than the required number of DVD's for the Membership My wife is being billed for $47.06.

They say she has to buy 2 more DVD's, I say OK let me pick a couple and we will be done, but they wont let her go online and they say she has to pick the 2 movies from this little flyer that has such Titles as: Imitation of life (1959), The Warriors (1979), and most of the other movies I could find at Wall Mart for $1 or $5.50.

I ask them to let me see the website so I can make a choice from a larger selection, and they say they have canceled the membership please send the $47.06.

I ask for help, the automated customer service has no connection to real people.(I will try the number on the article page tomorrow) I send email and they have asked for the customer number 3 times now the address twice and the Name on the account 3 times in the same email chain. Now they say the account number is invalid. This is after 7 emails now they still won't address the issue. I wouldn't recommend this service to anyone!!!

Notes added by a victim of Columbia House on 03-13-07: I am currently fighting Columbia House for ripping me off. It is impossible to get a live person on the phone and I have made 3 attempts to change billing information on my account but they keep changing it back to the card I don't want to use. I signed up for an offer where I would be required to buy 2 DVDs and they changed my settings to 5 DVDs. I am reporting them to the better business bureau and my local news station that offers consumer protection assistance. I also opted to cancel the credit card they refused to stop billing. It will cost me more than all their fraudulent charges but I am definitely going to make this a legal battle and it will be worth it when I win.

I just want to say that there are legitimate problems with columbia house as a consumer they charged my card for the directors selection. Yes I know that I should have not had it sent so I figured no problem I will just wait to mail it back when I get it and the charges will return to my card. The problem is I have never received the movie and while I am waiting for it all of a sudden a charge creeps in for 107 dollars I have not ordered anything from them and am just lucky the money was in my account or unlucky because that was my money for my electric bill and food. The customer service people are rude and refuse to help you in anyway. Do yourself a favor and find your movies somewhere else there are way better deals out there that will save you money anyway and avoid fradulent charges!

Telemarketer's Perspective

I know people who have worked on an inbound call centre campaign at Inteleservices. This tells you right away that even if you Do manage to reach a carbon-based lifeform with a pulse, this person does not in fact actually work for Columbia House. Both Telespectrum and Intel have done years' worth of outbound campaigns for Columbia House. After the BMG takeover, call centres attached to BMG were given preference. Nobody in an outbound campaign actually has access to customer information systems with Columbia House. All the agent sees who calls you is your name and address and phone number. Key performance indicators include not just sales per hour (sph) and wasted time, but also the percentage of calls where the agent captures credit card numbers, including expiry dates AND the security code on the back of the card, top right hand side next to the signature. That percentage is quantified per agent and it can be tied to incentives... I spoke to many CH customers who ran into financial difficulties when CH automatically charges Director's Selection movies and backordered movies to those cards. People have bounced rent checks as a result of these practices. Inbound campaigns by all accounts are a form of martyrdom for the agents who take the calls. With foreign-owned call centres, one must also realise that this information is then on data bases that are internationally accessible. So if you DO speak to someone, whether the person calls you or you are calling in, you might want to ask who the employer is of the person you are in fact speaking to and whether or not there is any foreign ownership of the call centre. If the call centre is foreign owned, you may wish to enquire how your local privacy laws are intended to be enforced in the foreign country where the data base is located that your credit card information is now on. You may also want to be aware that you can be put on a DO NOT CALL list for the call centre company itself, which may have a bunch of campaigns apart from CH. --Achim (talk) 20:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The article correctly states that CH was taken over by BMG, which is owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. A quick online search also revealed that Bertelsmann's customers in Germany are not all entirely impressed with the mother company over there. See this example, or this example. --Achim (talk) 17:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Not a Scam

This entire page seems to be written by an angry customer. It needs a SERIOUS rewrite to make it NPOV. I personally am a telemarketer for BMG/Columbia House and several things the original author(s) have said are just plain false (i.e. CH finding a new card number from a credit card institute to charge a customer). --Hazillow 06:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

complete fact,not POV at all

If you think that's a single costumers POV,you're so dead wrong.In case you didnt know the company you work for has ripped off and cheated countless individuals.You visit the consumer complaints page and see the countless people I speak of.

Columbia house has attempted to rip me off too,but luckily I dont have a credit card account.

If so many people are complaining about the same thing then its a common thing.Nadirali 23:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)Nadirali

I have worked as a telemarketer for CH as well, for a long time, and have heard those exact complaints from customers, and worse. You can find worse ones, when you click on the links below and go to the consumer advocate websites and see what people have written. I know that these things are not discussed by the supervisors and team leaders of telemarketers who are soliciting on behalf of BMG and CH, but it is a fact. The longer you work on that campaign, the more of those horror stories you will hear, regardless of which list you're dialing, whether it's RTC, SLB or CC. Sure, there are some, who are happy, but what you see on those advicate sites is the reasons why you get all the hang-ups that you do get. Even if you're way above goal, clocking in at an sph of 3.0, most of your calls go nowhere and this is the reason why that is so. After the buyout by BMG, many in my team used THAT name, just so that people who would ordinarily be turned off by CH would hear something new. My favourite list was BMG customers who had not yet signed up for CH. I did really well and made lots of bonus. Ironically, those people were often glad to hear from someone other than BMG. Go figure. I know, I was way above goal when I dialed that campaign and I have personally spoken to many many thousands of these customers. If the issues in there were not real, I would personally have removed them. By the same token, if you do it right, as a customer, and you know the parameters, you can get a good deal, but the opposite often occurs and it gets nasty at times. It's good to inform people of how to avoid the pitfalls, so they can enjoy the good parts. Where else can you buy as many movies that nobody else has?--Achim 22:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I have extensive experience with this company and know how to get a good bargain from them. It is not for everybody. Some find the system too complex. But if you know how it works, and you're into collecting movies, by the time you've rented a movie twice, you can have your money back buying it from CH instead. The selection is also quite impressive, for all sorts of tastes, from contemporary to really far out.--Achim 01:42, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Revert war

Terms of Membership Agreement

The company offers new members CDs and DVDs below cost to join (5 DVDs for US$5 with free shipping), while the customer agrees to buy a few more at 'regular club price'. The 'regular club price' is not published in the advertisement contract (The cheapest DVDs are US$19.95 plus shipping, others cost even more). The customer only learns the price after they have joined. Furthermore, club members will automatically receive a DVD (known as Director's Choice) and be required to pay for it plus postage every 3 weeks unless they send back a card declining the selection (21 times a year).

The above section belongs in the article. It is a summary of the membership agreement found on the Columbia House website. There is no opinion or unverified claims. Maurong threatens to brand me as a vandal because of this statement. Others here agree it belongs in the article so please do not delete it. I personally believe Columbia House is a scam but that is just my opinion so I will not include it in the article. But the facts speak for themselves: This is an offer that is too good to be true. -Jon in California 208.127.73.82 02:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why people think this is a scam... I've gotten so many cheap dvds from them it's ridiculous! Pvegeta 16:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you read [1]? Maurog 05:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, most of those complaints seem specious (signing up for Columbia House for a "one time deal", for instance, sounds like he didn't read what he signed), and the vast majority seem to be based on poor customer service, as opposed to an actual planned scam.

Complete Rewrite

I came in here to see who currently owned Columbia House and was horrified to find this article. It needs a complete re-write, removing POV views (especially at the beginning). I unfortunately know very little about Columbia House but I do know that this entry is not very good. The-bus 19:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The beginning section is repeatedly added by a frustrated customer, and as such is removed on sight. However, it's very hard to write npov stuff about the company once you check the references, this one in particular. I agree that the article is a complete mess and emphasizes unimportant stuff while completely lacking information in very important areas. Let's hope people with more knowledge about the subject can fill the gaps. Maurog 09:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This article is terrible!

There's nothing about what a record club is/was, no history, etc.

As for accusitions of scam, it's obvious that the business model makes money off of high-priced releases and inflated shipping costs, but in exchange offerers a number of freebies or low priced releases in exchange for buying one at full price.

If the consumer takes advantage of it properly, there are some great bargains to be had, with the average item cost being lower than it would be from the store. If the consumer plays his/her cards wrong, he can get ripped off.

While not a scam, Columbia House is a ripoff.

No, I do not believe that Columbia House is a scam. However, until they were bought out by BMG, they had the worst Customer Service in the world. When you did get through to a live person, they acted like petulent teenagers. They will frequently bait existing customers who have completed their enrollment, but have not bought anything in a while with "A special offer only for existing customers." After canceling your old account, taking a number of DVD's for free and being required to purchase four more DVD's, this same offer will appear in newspapers and magazines all over the country. So much for a "special offer only for existing customers." Their shipping and handling costs are outrageous and I am annoyed that they charge me NYS Sales Tax when they are shipping from Indiana. The experience of the person who was told to buy 2 more DVD's and then it was changed 5 more is not uncommon. They told me in January 2007 that I had 4 more to buy before November. I bought three up until July and now (10/2007) they are saying that one of the purchases is not eligible. Basically, I would never recommend Columbia House and I would suggest people buy DVD's from eBay, Alibris and other sources. --The Original Grunge 13:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Do not change this article

I understand everything that's being said about POV, but this article actually provides an accurate depiction of this company (even the sources verify that). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.85.179 (talk) 13:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Basic Standards

This is an encyclopedia. It is not a personal blog, a consumer complaint forum or any other form of blowing off steam. Authors need to have the self-control expected of grown-ups and either not write anything here, or follow basic standards of objectivity and sourcing. To wit, the following unsourced line in the article clearly needs to be removed or supported by specific citation: "It is well known that the old Columbia House was much better than this new one they've constructed which is a complete rip off and makes everyone angry." 76.23.157.102 (talk) 23:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)