Columbia House mail-order music service files for bankruptcy

[shenmue]

CBC story here

A lot of folks who answered ads for "Eleven albums for a penny!" will remember this one.

[magicmama]

1. About time. I did that once.

And those neverending bills of $49.95..... PER titles...

[exboyfil]

17. Columbia House was not as good as BMG Music

but I basically built up my album, cassette, and CD collections by joining, quitting, and rejoining these two clubs. At one point I think I was at like $4/CD (including shipping). They had some sales buy one and get three free which they opened to box set. I scored that twice. I found with the right manipulation it was a heck of a deal. Did the same with book clubs especially Engineering book clubs. Built my library for pennies on the dollar. Was it ethical? Well I never lied and never saw any disclaimers about preventing rejoining.

Of course a good part of my CD collection can now be had for free on Amazon Prime. Still it was great at the time.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. how the fuck could they possibly still be in business in 2015?

[PoliticAverse]

4. The same way AOL is?... n/t

[SwankyXomb]

22. Maybe Verizon can buy them too!

[Initech]

7. I was wondering the same thing!

Blockbuster imploded, and VHS doesn't exist anymore, and iTunes and Google Play have pretty much cornered the music market, so what the fuck could they possibly still be selling?

[Initech]

3. They're still around? Who knew?

[onehandle]

5. I admit it. I did that once.

Now I have Apple Music streaming millions of albums on demand on my iPhone for more than a penny, but less than a penny an album.

Oh, the time they are a changin'

Includes Bob Dylan's entire catalog, btw.

[lpbk2713]

6. I thought they went the way of the eight track tape.

I subcribed to Columbia House decades ago. I thought they were long gone.

[NV Whino]

8. I had no idea they were still around

I think 95% of my music collection came from them.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. Are they the ones who would mail you 'this month's default title' if you didn't either order or...

...or tell them you didn't want anything that month? (But somehow it was hard to respond in time)

[RKP5637]

11. LOL! Yep, never could get that slip back in time. I dumped them a long long

time ago (decades ago) after I caught onto their scheming.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

12. I think I wound up with "Ferrante & Teicher Play the Pat Boone Songbook" that way.

[magicmama]

20. OMG! I hope you called the Hazmat Team

to properly dispose of *THAT*..

*erk*

[Hoyt]

26. LMAO. Yep, it sucked, but wasn't too big of a ripoff if you ordered some

albums you really wanted up front.

[RKP5637]

10. I thought they were probably gone a long time ago. Amazing they hung on this long. n/t

[jberryhill]

30. I'm sending my broker an urgent telegram about this

[Dawson Leery]

13. How did they survive this long with Itunes/Amazon/Spotify around?

[lpbk2713]

15. Maybe because it was so difficult to cancel a membership?

It took me several tries over a couple of months IIRC.

[jberryhill]

27. FOR THE WIN!

[DawgHouse]

14. Man, I used to love this company!

[1939]

16. Still a member of History Book Club

Since 1964. They gave me respite from automatic sending 30 years ago and now i have to order to get a book.

[exboyfil]

18. My status with History

Library of Science, and Quality Paperback book. In the past I bought a lot of titles through the Science Fiction Book Club. Still have a partial bookshelf of unread books (working through Heroditus now but it is slow going since I do much more audiobooks while jogging or streaming video while rowing.

[fishwax]

19. i remember it well--never would've guessed they were still around

[meow2u3]

21. The digital music revolution made Columbia House irrelevant

Most people get their music from Itunes and mp3 downloads now, so Columbia House has outlived its usefulness.

[jberryhill]

29. Long before now

It's not a matter of surprise they are going out of business, so much as surprise they were still IN business.

I'm surprised we didn't receive this news by telegram.

[Brother Buzz]

23. Beaver Joins A Record Club ...

[Octafish]

24. I thought they were great.

When I was young, I got Hendrix, Cream, Santana albums...

When I was middle-aged, I got 3 Kings, Mayall, Davis tapes...

When I got old, I got Bach, Beethoven and Sibelius CDs...

Always I bought the required number of recordings at full discounted club price -- and I still came out ahead.

Shame others won't get to enjoy high-if the same way.

[Nye Bevan]

25. Wow, I got a lot of CDs from them in 1994-1995!

RIP.

[jberryhill]

28. Would you believe you can get lots of their remaining assets all for $1?

[Jamastiene]

31. In a way, this feels like that nice cold dish called revenge.

Couldn'ta happened to a better company....

With Columbia House, it was almost impossible to keep them from sending stuff. The mailbox was always full of "offers" and they made it almost impossible not to have to buy everything they sent later. It was almost impossible to cancel after buying the required number of cassettes or albums you ended up signing up for. I'm surprised the BBB didn't put them out of business decades ago.

BMG was so much better. You paid a little more for the initial lower priced cassettes, but you only had to buy one later, iirc. You really COULD cancel at any time after that.

[olddots]

32. wait for what the "digital music revolution" has in store for you