Columbia House - Review

OK now, most of us have heard of Columbia House. They are a company that sells music CD's and DVD's. You become part of their club by sending for their introductory package. There introductory package for music CD's usually consist of something like getting seven CD's free now (you get charged the shipping though), buy one at regular price within a year and get four more free. The DVD club works very similar, you get a bunch of DVD's at the beginning for real cheap, buy at regular price and then get more for free.

Anyways, the reason for this review is not because I'm a member of this music/dvd club but for the unwelcomed package I received from them. In my mailbox the other day I received an introductory package from them with seven or eight DVD's in the box. There was a bill in there for like $27 or $28 dollars which is their shipping charge (By the way the shipping charge they charge is way over priced as they use Media Mail - I know because I ship packages myself all the time). The problem here? I never joined their club and have never had any interest in joining their club. On the outside of the box there was no name of who it was from so I neatly opened the box, if there had been a Columbia House return address on the outside I would have never opened it. You might ask why I opened it but I receive packages all the time since I run a small home based business and always receive packages.

I then call the customer service number on their invoice but realize that you cannot talk to a live person. They give you recorded options of buying more CD's and so on. You can only contact them by regular mail or e-mail. In my opinion in this day of age, a company needs to have a phone line where customers can talk to a live person, especially a company as big as Columbia House that has been around forever. Anyways, I just taped up the little section of the box up where I opened it and wrote on it "Refused - Return To Sender". I'm hoping they don't send it back to me saying "If you refused it then why did you open the box".

I recently did a Google research on Columbia House and most of what I've read is not too good. Seems they have a habit of sending members of their club CD's/DVD's that they don't want and billing people's credit cards when they want. This is even after people cancel their memberships. OK, that's a customer relationship though, but in my case, I am no member of their club. I will have to say that I really hate them sending me this and me having to spend my time dealing with it. I will have to give their company a GRADE D for their tactics here in trying to get new customers.