Yup, my personal finance teacher taught us this when explaining contracts and signing things. Mailed my request to steal from Columbia house that very same night.
I do believe the contract covered age with a check box, but it would be hard for them to claim fraud when I legally can’t/didn’t sign the contract to be fraudulent over.
I remember lusting after that first batch of cds.
Melancholy and the infinite sadness! Oh, high school
When all my problems were real problems
There was a more-interesting video about Columbia House a year or two back, because I don’t think Columbia House was necessarily getting permission from the other labels to manufacture the tapes/CDs/records? I think the artists still received royalties, but the finances were kind of wonky for the other labels.
EDIT: Might have been this article. It's a Steal! How Columbia House Made Money Giving Away Music | Mental Floss
Seems like Columbia House only paid partial royalties to the publishers, and nothing on the free disks, but they had such a big market share the publishers couldn’t really fight back.
My teenage son just bought an LP from our local used record store and was semi-horrified to see when he brought it home at that is was an old record club edition. He was convinced there was something “different” about it. There isn’t. It’s fine.
Wow – from that article:
Joseph Parvin of Lawrenceville, NJ, was undoubtedly the patron saint of anyone who ever wanted to stick it to a music club for receiving an unwanted record.
IN MARCH 2000, THE 60-YEAR-OLD PARVIN ADMITTED THAT HE HAD USED 16 POST OFFICE BOXES AND HIS OWN HOME ADDRESS TO FLEECE COLUMBIA HOUSE AND BMG OUT OF 26,554 DISCS DURING A FIVE-YEAR SPAN IN THE '90S. HE PLEADED GUILTY TO A SINGLE COUNT OF MAIL FRAUD.
Oddly, the New York Times story on Parvin’s plea included a story of another scammer who was nearly as prolific. Just five months earlier, David Russo pleaded guilty to stockpiling 22,000 CDs using a similar scheme. He then sold the booty at flea markets.
Sorry about the all-caps, it’s that way in the article for some reason…
No way! BL and Lou are my cousins. I’ll tell them I saw you online.
Still have it in a moving box somewhere. (along with a slew of AC/DC and Billy Joel LPs from the same era).
I thought the first rule of Columbia House Music Club was that you do not talk about Columbia House Music Club.
And the second rule was that YOU DO NOT TALK about Columbia House Music Club.
I seem to remember similar schemes some years back here in the UK with books and CD’s, although I can’t remember the companies involved. A loss leader, followed up with more expensive items (“pick of the week/month”, etc.) sent without asking, if you had joined “the club”. Always thought they were a bit of a scam.
I remember hearing once that second hand retailers wouldn’t buy record club discs. I still have all mine though so I never tried to find out.
Yup, I did it in the 90s and you could look up their full catalog online for your freebies. I think my average price per cd was around 8 bucks.
I still have all of the CDs that I got through them back in the day, which are among the first discs in my collection. I didn’t stay for very long after the initial period, though.
I ripped all of my CDs to FLAC a while back and the only disc that failed to rip wasn’t a Columbia House release. It had visible damage to the reflective layer.
An oddly garbage move, since one could calculate they are selling 3 albums at 33% each.
Circa 1977. I was 14 or 15, living in Aurora, Colorado, with a younger brother and alcoholic dad who was never around. Of COURSE I sent them 99 cents or whatever it was for 11 vinyl records. How else was I going to get Frampton Comes Alive!? (Also: I picked All The World’s A Stage by some band named Rush, because the picture made it look like they might totally rawk.) Aerosmith: Rocks and Toys In The Attic: SCORE!
Maybe there was an Elton John in there. I forget what else I got. But I had no money, and there was no way I was buying each month’s “feature” record they sent you unless you told 'em naw.
Now the painful confession: every month a boxed record would show up. My friend(s) would open it - stoned, no doubt - and see, I dunno - Kenny Loggins’s Greatest Hits or The Carpenters. If there was no promise of loud, snotty, distorted guitars, if the musical act looked like they didn’t entertain more groupies than they could possibly handle…well, let me just say that a vinyl LP can sail pretty damned far into a large undeveloped field amid a growing housing tract. Overhand toss: easily 75 yards. We never heard 'em land.
I kept expecting the cops to show up and demand the dough on behalf of Columbia House, but they never did.
Finally, one day, my dad was home and intercepted the mail. He said “What’s this about owing a record company money? Do you know anything about this?”
“What? What is it? I don’t know. Must be a mistake.”
I don’t remember what ensued, but I got away with it.
So far.
Years later, as a young scholar, I read about the idea of “The Tragedy of the Commons” and it reminded me of me and Columbia House. Oddly, it didn’t FEEL tragic to me.
I remember taping my penny to that card…
Remember it?!?!
I never figured out how to cancel! 
I joined them a couple of different times. Was a quick way to build a CD collection as a broke college student in the day, but was always annoyed at how they forced you into a single genre of music.
The local music shops that bought used CDs for cash knew to look for the fine print that showed the club-manufactured discs, and would refuse to buy them.
Must have been on principal, as if people buying used CDs give a rat about the original source of the CD!
Maybe not a huge coincidence, but those exact two artists were among that first “free for a penny” order that I made. I did some trial version (maybe 6? or 8? for a penny) that didn’t require as many purchases to fulfill the deal, but I ended up finishing it out pretty early.
I can remember a few years before I signed up (in early '84), the magazine ads allowed one to choose from LPs, cassettes, 8-track and reel-to-reel.
Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of “Tide”.
Man then where’s mine? I got my free razor from Gillette when I turned 18. Never mind that they were about 6 years late. But now you tell me I somehow got screwed outta my right to free frampton? I want my money back.
