It is difficult to escape from AOL these days. If you call them and tell them you want to drop their services, you will be presented to a person whose job it is to offer you concession after concession to make you stay. If you ever joined a record club in the 70's, you are already familiar with how difficult it can be to escape from a corporation that wants to keep you as a customer.
I joined the Columbia Record Club in 1977. I was able to obtain twelve cassettes for a dime, if I recall. After that, I needed to buy eight more at regular club prices. Cassette tapes ran about six-eight bucks at the discount store. That's about what Columbia charged, plus shipping and handling. You spent around 80 bucks to get 20 tapes. Overall, not a bad deal.
But THEN, you had to quit. And that wasn't so easy.
You would get a punch card statement every month that you had to return to Columbia, or you would automatically get that month's offering (and have to pay for it). The card had a box you could check if you had met your obligation and wanted to quit.
Yeah, right. Check that box, and, just like clockwork, the next month you would receive another notification that you had BETTER mail back!
I was too smart for that. I had heard the stories from friends about how that box was ignored. So I took my punch card, wadded it up into a ball, wrote C A N C E L ! over and over in the little boxes where you would type the numbers of the albums you wanted, then tore the card in half, and taped it back together crookedly. Try running THAT through your card reader!
I never got another notification.
You almost felt sorry for the record clubs sometimes. After all, ripping them off was rampant. All it took was a fake name and a PO box. The perpetrator would get his twelve records or tapes, cancel the PO box, and leave them high and dry. A fellow I work with knew a guy in the 70's who got nearly a hundred albums that way!
Those ads were a ubiquitous part of every magazine on the shelves in those years. I guess they still are. Some offered discount prices on records and tapes with no obligation. However, they would still send that monthly notification that you'd have to send back to avoid getting a Debby Boone album. And they were also difficult to quit.
If today finds you a record club member wanting to get out, remember my trick. They don't send punch cards any more, but what they do send in intended to be scanned by a computer. Fold, spindle, and mutilate to get your wishes across.
And AOL'ers trying to quit? When they put you on the phone with the persuader, just keep repeating over and over "The internet is a tool of Satan!" You should be processed out within minutes.
Comments (4)
Good one! Same story for the Science Fiction Book Club.
Posted by Mike Ransom | April 26, 2007 11:58 AM
Posted on April 26, 2007 11:58
I didn't feel sorry for them! The record clubs were Satan! Lol! I to did the same and order the 8 track tapes. After it was said and done. More came along including Deby Boone! Now granted, she had a lovely voice, but just wasn't cool to have a Deby Boone Tape??? It was a nightmare for awhile until I learned you didn't have to keep anything that was sent to you that you didn't order. Part of my decaying 8 track collection was from Columbia. I still have a lot of the old TV Guides with the ads in them!
Posted by Rivers End | June 12, 2009 1:54 PM
Posted on June 12, 2009 13:54
I joined Columbia a couple of times. It worked out good enough. But today, the entire music industry is quite different. Even CDs have been forsaken by many in favor of downloads and mp3s which are often played only on iPods or computers. Stereos are much less common now.
The new way might be good or might not. But the industry was more stable when I was in the 60s and 70s and even early 80s. We don’t know where the industry will be in another 10 years. I wish I could count on something or anything.
Posted by Scott Irv | June 13, 2009 12:55 AM
Posted on June 13, 2009 00:55
Scott, the industry as we knew it is on its way out. Some of the most nefarious shenanigans ever foisted on the public and the artists have been by record companies and their despicable overlord, the RIAA. They tried to keep downloadable music under wraps, just like they did DAT cassette decks (we could have had fully digital duplication capability in 1990, but they managed to legislate its banning from the US). Fortunately, they failed miserably, and now their entire business model is rapidly collapsing. I have a huge music collection that is backed up on four hard drives, and they say I'm breaking the law. The end of the classic recording industry can't come soon enough, IMHO.
Posted by Ron | June 13, 2009 7:47 AM
Posted on June 13, 2009 07:47