pilot

The previous thread was closed/deleted so we'll start over fresh..I know everyone isn't going to be happy ..those of you who want it..those of you who don't ..obviously everyone can't be made happy ..so..this will have to due..

Adrenaline

Any reason why the old one was deleted? There was a lot of good observations on the whole "what is up at CH" in there.

As good an average cost per DVD CH offers, the latest business practices really have me debating on whether or not to continue to spend my money there. Leting people buy tons of movies with the sole intent of getting more FunCash then taking away a good portion of that is wrong.

Bill Needle

The brazeness of bait and switch by Columbia House re: Fun Cash the last month or so is amazing. It really is reprehensible what they have done, even if legal. Screw them, and screw their badgering of the people who until now have been their most loyal repeat customers. They may still on occasion get my $5.50/DVD business, but nothing more. And any word of mouth I pass on about them shall be negative to the extreme. In my books they join coconuts.com as co-holder of the title "Worst treatment of DVD customers by an online vendor. Ever."

lizard

There was some concern that Columbia House was trying to track the source of the information that led to some of the deals used to acquire funcash. They had grilled several people whose accounts were frozen about the source of the information they used to place their orders.

While it is likely that Columbia House will find this forum, if they aren't monitoring it already (they used to in years past), whether that will be a problem is the subject of debate. They could, for example, kill some of the deals we routinely use just by watching for threads on the subject.

As a precaution, we might want to just discuss the new terms of funcash and what, if anything, to do about it.

For the record: the debate is over the changed terms of funcash with regard to box sets. As we all know, we used to be able to use funcash to buy box sets for "free" (plus shipping) using the regular "Special Price" of the set. This was a good deal. Individual DVDs can also be purchased "free" but at the highly inflated MSRP. Since they are only worth about $6, this makes them a poor deal.

The new terms:

8. Can I redeem FunCash on sets?

Yes. FunCash may be applied to take sets at a discount, but not for free. As of April 21, 2005, there are maximum amounts of FunCash that may be applied against the purchase price (special Club price) of a set:
Purchase Price of Set /Maximum Amount of FunCash that may be Applied

$39.99 or less /$10 FunCash

$40 - $59.99 /$20 FunCash

$60 - $89.99 /$30 FunCash

$90 - $149.99 /$40 FunCash

$150 - $199.99 /$50 FunCash

$200+ /$60 FunCash


9. Why can't sets be taken for free with FunCash?

Due to the exceptional value offered on boxed sets purchased through Columbia House, it has been necessary, as of April 21, 2005, to adjust our FunCash redemption policy for that product line. Of course, you will continue to be able to redeem FunCash Dollars to take sets at a discount.
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10. When can I cash in my FunCash to get discounted and free DVDs?

You can redeem FunCash earned in 2005 during our special redemption periods. Stay tuned for more information on future redemption periods!

dsa_shea

I don't even bother with the funcash. It's really not even worth your time unless you are going to keep the account open for a long time and buy a lot of dvds on that account. Other than that it is worth more to open an account, get all of the dvds in the enrollment, fulfill and close. You're still coming out ahead this way. So what if I lose 4 dollars of accumulated funcash on each account when I never intended to have the account open for long. This is no bash on those of you that do use the funcash, I personally am not going to use it. It is a shame that CH suddenly changed their rules.

Bill Needle

CH offered numerous borderline decent deals during the last 60 days that, when combined with the normal "value" of the fun cash re: purchasing box sets (which are otherwise quite bad deals) became very attractive. Then they changed the rules and retroactively looted peoples accounts with no recourse available to those affected.

Edit:

My point being that at almost any other time I have dealt with Columbia House the last three years I would have agreed with you. But this was just plain scummy on their part.

marty888

My current account has $70 funcash - it's the first time I've ever had an account accumulate more than $4.

BUT - nothing I bought was for the sole intent of getting more funcash. There were some very decent deals (free shipping, B1G1, etc) offered for DVDs I wanted, including several Fox Studio Classics, the last two Matrix moves, Bourne Supremacy, Punisher,
Last Samurai, a couple of MGM "best Picture" classics, etc. My average cost for 22 titles was $6.39 per DVD, including sales tax, and I was able to remove a lot of titles from my "want" list quickly and inexpensively.

My point is - while I can understand the reactions to a change in terms, I don't understand why people would buy "tons of movies" only on the indication that somewhere after the fact it would become a good deal.

For me, the good deal was the DVDs I purchased, and anything else is strictly a bonus for me.

j-bo

I would tend to assume, well for me too so it's not an assumption. But instead of regularly cycling through accounts, and waiting, it was more prudent to buy those dvd's that I was going to buy anyways with the funcash bonus to get free box sets that I never buy, because CH cost on them is a bit higher than DDD.

Thus, I bought 36 dvd's that I would have bought anyways, with the intention of using the funcash (since they put on a bonus funcash dealio at the same time to ENTICE ME TO BUY MORE NOW) to get boxsets for free, furthering my cost effectiveness. However, now that CH has barfed on my plan, it's all for not and I will be using funcash on overpriced single dvd's, as I refuse to use any amount of cash on boxsets now.

Hope that explains why people have an extreme distaste in their mouths for CH's pukey business practice.

Adrenaline

I didn't pick out movies I hated, I just would have gotten them as enrollments down the road. I spent an extra $100 on this account so I could acquire a lot of FunCash, now some of those deals were pretty good like the 5 Fox Titles for $33.95 or the B1G1, but the most recent deal with the 9X FunCash was purely to get FunCash. I spent $39.91 on 3 DVDs that will be available for enrollment very soon (if they aren't already).

Gobear

I agree that CH's changes suck, but FC has always been a bonus perk that they said in the T& C could change without notice. Even though we can't get free boxsets now, we can still get deals. I had my heart set on getting the Godfather set, but now the most FC I can apply is $20 on a set that costs $56.96. So let's say there's a 40% off sale concurrent with the FC redemption period.

56.96 X.4 = 22.78

56.96
-
22.78 (40% reduction)
=34.18

34.18
-
20.00 FC
= 14.18

14.18 + 7.99 (S&H) + .99 (VA tax) = $23.16

OK, $23.16 isn't free, but it's still a better deal than I'm ever going to find at another retailer, so I'm still going to get the set. Yes, the blatant bait and switch utterly blows, but I'm going to try to maximize my FC as much as I can. And if I'm lucky, maybe I'll get a foreign CSR who hasn't heard the news and I might still get my Godfather set for free. Hope springs eternal and all that, ya dig?

SFranke

Nice try, Gobear. However, the 40% off applies to the LIST price, not the special price. The final price would be less than $34 before taxes.

Gobear

Seriously? (fuming) Just when I thought I could get a silver lining out of this cloud . . . Oh, well, over-priced single DVDs, it is.

SFranke

Well, ~$34 + tax for a $76 set is a good deal no matter where you go, except for The Godfather set, that is. Even better, if you join DV2, there's always the possibility of avoiding a shipping fee, making the set $26 before tax [~66% off].

Another thing wrong with your calculation is that you applied $20 Funcash to a purchase price of $34. The max you could've applied was $10.

Gobear

Thanks for the education. I've never had FC to spend before, so I'm looking at this aspect of CH with a wild surmise.

j-bo

BTW..

I work with t's and c's all day long. I can guarantee you, if a vendor pulled this type of business practice, we would def. be in court about it!

It's more about the enticement offers to purchase more product with the understanding that funcash could be used on all dvd's, including box sets, with the few exceptions of product that they originally listed. The date of the offers coincided with the t's and c's that were in place at the time. The reserve to change/cancel at anytime language is a moot point in real business, as it is still time sensitive. Once they accepeted our orders, that made a contract to the exsiting rules. They surely can cancel/change, however, the contract was in force and would be governed by the prexisting rules at that date and any changes would have to be at a new date (April 21 as they stated). Meaning all orders accepted prior to April 21 would be governed by the rules prior to April 21.

They will get away with this. Consumers rarely are going to go and sue for such a minor amount (to them anyways). Only if an outragous number of complaints to the Attorney General (of the offending state) will they even consider it. Even then, the dollar amounts probably aren't worth their efforts.

So.... basically. Everyone must choose how to spend the funcash that they have to the best abilities that suits themselves. We ain't gonna win this one.

Colleen

For those that followed the previous thread as well as this one, did anyone else notice the kind of comical progression of the "Five Stages of Grief"?

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

bboisvert

I (finally) got notice about the change in policy today in the mail. Only 2 weeks before the cash-out period. Fuckers.

Seriously, do they really think this was a good idea? I realize that many people stay with CH because of "deals" and such, but I feel like I'm being treated like a criminal (or dull child) rather than a customer here.

Since the holidays, I've built up a couple hundred dollars worth of Funcash. All from legit purchases, nothing underhanded. And now -- 2 FREAKING WEEKS -- before the cashout period, they tell me that the rules have changed and I can't treat my funcash like cash.

Fine. I'll cash out as best I can, and then I'm leaving them forever. They've lost a customer -- I hope it was worth it to them.

SFranke

I'm still working on bargaining.

Adrenaline

Be happy you still have your FunCash intact, I lost $36 in FunCash because they decided to "fix" their glitch 2 weeks after I got the DVDs.

sumdeus

I'm moving toward the last step, which is murder (just kidding), having just talked with Andrea at CH. I remember someone else saying that she was the worst CSR ever and whoever said that in the other thread was almost right -- she is the worst there is, the worst there was, and the worst there ever will be. She flat-out refused to let me speak with ANYONE else about this FunCash scam they are running -- REFUSED! I asked FOUR times at various points in our "conversation" and she absolutely, positively would not let me speak to her supervisor, another CSR or someone in charge of returns. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall because the conversation would have been more intelligent. I got the same response as so many others, "the code wasn't our code." To which, as so many others replied, "Then why did the website accept it, let me check out, and correctly add the FC to my account?" To which she replied, "You shouldn't use codes from other websites." Talk about avoiding the issue. I talked with her for over 20 minutes but it was a complete waist of time. She derves pain in the ass of the year award and CH deserves the company version of the award. I totally understand the gun waiting law now.

I was also asked where I got the code, as so many others have reported, but apparently they already know where the code came from, or at least that is what Andrea is reporting. I just filed a complaint with the BBB (that is my second CH complaint to the BB this week) so hopefully something will happen.

PS -- Evitagen -- If you get any positive results PLEASE post here or send me a message because I've been working OT on trying to get this situation handled properly. To anyone who wants call CH I would suggest waiting until Andrea is not on the clock because it is not worth the frustration. I'm going to try again tonight and maybe I will have better luck with someone else.

SFranke

Well, sumdeus, is your account on hold right now? In other words, are you transferred to the "appropriate department" whenever you call in?

sumdeus

Apparently it is on hold. I received the infamous e-mail and have talked with Andrea twice, but this was the first time I talked with her for more than 30 seconds. I was able to talk with a regular CSR once, but she couldn't do anything because "her computer was down." Any suggestions?

SFranke

Yes. [I plan on deleting this post soon, lest paranoia consumes my mind]

Here's what you do. First, you call back and see if you can get Jennifer, who is also somewhat bitchy, but she sounds more reasonable than this Andrea demon. Ask her why there's a hold on your account. She will say why, and she'll want to know where you heard about a certain deal. Tell her a friend of yours got it from a certain deal website that is not this one, or he accidentally discovered the code by typing it in and he gave it to you. She'll thank you for being cooperative. Next, ask that she take your account off of the hold status and that she remove her name from your account, "so I can place orders over the phone after hours." This should free you from her bondage. Getting any Funcash back might be accomplished by speaking with a foreign CSR after your account has been liberated. Simple as pie.

Also, acknowledging that you did a bad thing and that you are sorry probably wouldn't hurt, either.

viking99

legend42

LOL, how true. I think we need Dr. Kübler-Ross to help us through this despair.