After reading other consumers' complaints about Columbia House, I just had to throw in my two cent's worth.
Have you ever tried to find company contact information on their website? It's almost non-existant. I finally found a physical mailing address after much searching, but as far as a phone number, forget it! It doesn't exist on their site.
Now - where do I even begin with my complaints about this company? First of all, if you're thinking of signing up with them because you like their offers of CD's and DVD's for a penny, don't get suckered in! Their shipping and handling charges are outrageous and they do not tell you up front what they will be. Also, they ship your initial package in several smaller packages - I guess so you're not hit all at once with a $30-$40 shipping bill. They prefer to send you 3 or 4 shipping bills at $10 each so it doesn't look so bad.
I have in the past sent them partial payments of $10 at a time (The same way they billed me!), and within 30 days or so they had turned me over to a collection agency for non-payment. I continued to send them $10 a month, which they accepted and posted, but I was continued to be harassed by their collection agency for "non-payment".
When they turned me over to the collection agency, they then stopped sending me any correspondance - no "monthly offers", statements, bills... Nothing. So now I have nothing with a phone number on it to contact them. I knew from past experience that writing them was a waste of time, so I decided to try their website. First, I found a "customer service" page doing a search, only to discover that that page had expired. Then I tried their Music Club homepage. Lots of offers to join and buy, but not even so much as a contact page. Then, since I'm also a member of their DVD club, I tried to get on that site. It will only let me access ONE of their sites! As long as I'm registered on their music club site, it will NOT let me get on their DVD page! Unbelieveable! Oh yes, when they turned me over to collections, they also stopped sending me anything DVD club-related. So now I don't even have an address to send them payments! During all this, I moved, (I did change my address on my personal info. Page on their website) and since I moved, I haven't received even a letter from their collection agency, who I might be able to get some information from!
Also, when I pulled up my account history page on their website, it lists two different balances in two different places. One does show the last payment I sent, but the other place shows my balance due before they received my last three payments, and it's shown that balance for almost four months now!
Basically, I'm stuck now not knowing my true balance with them, not having a clue how to pay the DVD club, and my credit probably being ruined through that collection agency. So anyone who's read this long complaint and is thinking of joining Columbia House, please do yourself a favor and buy CD's and DVD's from your local store! In the end, you'll save yourself a lot of money and headaches!
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