viking99

Whoops....I was speaking DVDtalk-talk.

When we say "good" wrt an application, we mean it has the most favorable terms; which in the recent past has predominently been the "buy 6 @ .49 plus a seventh for $9.95 with only two more to buy." The "LMT" offer codes were a long standing example of this type of offer - the bread and butter for account cyclers for most of 2005 - 2006. A month or two ago, these suddenly quit being recognized as valid by the fine folks answering the phone enrollment 800 number (which we've been led to believe was a separate activity from the normal CSRs, of which you apparently were one). Thanks again for the insight. You'll likely get many more questions.

JoN8282

first off - thank you very much for all the information, i have a few questions...

1) Do you know if CH still makes money or breaks even on account cyclers? And if not, is it known why they permit it?

2) Were there any specific details given on any plans to circumvent forums like this one's ability to gain the best deal?

3) Are there any promotions that would be favorable to the consumer that are not regularly discussed here... here we basically discuss the best enrollment and promotion codes... but is there a way to get anything better?

4) Is it possible for a CSR there to earn a high salary via incentives?

Ebeyerinski

Oh I see. Well like I said most of us did not open new accounts but if we did those options were always available to us. I know that we were “supposed” to ask the member which option they preferred. So those options are still available but the 3rd party people who were not actual CH employees were sometimes down right deceptive. I’ve written more than one complaint against them. There was a certain form just for that purpose so it wasn’t like they didn’t know. The best option I felt was to get the 6 @.49 then 1 @ 14.95 & 1 @ 9.95 & 2 more commitments. The 14.95 is supposed to go toward the commitment but hardly ever does. The CSR has the ability to correct errors without asking for permission, if there is a commitment disagreement we could easily change that. But some people just want to be disagreeable & when you have someone (a member) who is screaming at you it’s not going to happen. I don’t know how many times I said to people “just calm down, it’s only a DVD!! We can correct the problem.” We could give people a certificate for a free DVD or funcash, any of those things with no problem at all. People would ask how they could speak to only me but that is pretty much impossible.

And there are many people who have certificates on their account & have no idea. I would always mention that as well. It could have been there for years who knows? People didn’t know how to use the funcash most of the time either. I was always big into educating people on how the club works so they get the benefits instead of being taken advantage of. That’s probably why I’m not there anymore.

Ebeyerinski

1. CH knows the members that know how to work the club to their advantage & pretty much gives them respect. They aren’t too concerned about those members because there are so many others that aren’t getting the best deal. The ones who only get the director’s selection sent to them every month because they didn’t decline it. I’ve had many people call to cancel their account because “we kept sending movies they didn’t want.” Then I would say, “Do you have any idea how the membership works?” Nope.

2.They also weren’t concerned about this forum, they knew that a lot of people were trying to get better deals with their membership.

3. There are several different types of promotions, that have nothing to do with enrollment or promotion codes. The usual monthly promotion is to buy one at regular club price 19.95 & everything else is up to 60 % off. Another is “some” DVD’s @ 9.95 with no other purchase necessary. The CSR can choose from 3 promotions to give you the better deal. Most won’t put forth that much effort though. It’s only a matter of clicking on the drop down menu to see what the better price is. There are online promotions that never seem to work correctly so the member has to call in & be told they have to do it online which is untrue. Some people will get a letter saying the can buy one get one free. It's the letter from the president of the company, we never verified that we just entered the code. I'll look through some other papers I have & let you know more.

4. As far as incentive, a usual incentive check would be around $400. a month. We earned 1.25 % on invoiced orders which would be whatever was actually shipped out. Then there were the monthly kickers which added to that. I was the #1 in the entire company for cross sells which is when you sign people up for the music club. That added another .5% to my incentive check. Other things come into play as well, your call evaluations, your handle time, things like that. My talk time was always high since I was trying to help people so much. But I was high in all the other areas so that helped. CH was always looking for the opportunity to not pay your bonus $$. Since I’m not there we are now debating whether or not if they will pay mine. It doesn’t look likely.

I am going to miss being able to buy my DVD's @ $7.00 though.

foxxvox

Another question and it's an easy one.Is there anyway to enroll on the phone with a CSR,and NOT give credit card info?I'm pretty sure the answer is no but just want to make sure.

Ebeyerinski

No, not on the phone. They are really trying to make everyone provide a credit card or pre pay before the application is accepted. Even when it's $5.00.

foxxvox

How does one prepay?Okay,here's what I have in mind.I plan on enrolling via phone.I'd rather not give them credit card info.Can I just tell them I'd like to prepay?Are they cool with that?How do I go about doing so?Thanks for answering all of our questions.

matrixrok9

I have a question...

What happens if they suspend your account for sending back too many director selections, do they send it to an agency to collect how much you owe, I still had one more fulfillment? I called the CS about it and they said they would send me instructions on how to re activate it, never got the instructions. Thanks

foxxvox

CH cancelled my open accounts.Not sure why.I had to buy at least 7 more DVDs from them but i heard nothing from a collection agency.So in that one case my membership agreement was 6 for .49 cents each with free shipping and agree to buy 0 DVDs in the next few months.

Xbox69

I've had 2 instances this year where I received a call from CH. I had canceled a couple of accounts and they were making their standard 4 fulfillments within 2 years offer, 5 FREE DVDs to choose later after paying $9.95 for 1 now.

On 1 call I asked to be billed and the CSR allowed me to do that. I later went on the website to make a one-time card payment. This account was also designated as a positive order account -- that is, I would not have to repsond to any Director's Selections throughout my membership. I later chose 5 FREE selections and am now in the process of fulfilling with the various B1G1 codes that appear every so often.

The 2nd call was something similar but without the positive order designation. They also gave me $5 OFF the 1st selection since I provided a credit card payment method.

I'm not sure if these were subject to an application review since they initiated the calls but I received each within a couple of weeks. I guess these aren't the best deals around but I'm happy with them. Only last week, I selected my 5 FREE titles for the latter account. I had just recently used a B1G1 code to make my 1 fulfillment purchase on it as well.

Living Dead

I used to always promptly cancel the director's selection, but it generally showed up 3 or 4 times a year anyway. It's so obvious they're just hoping I'll open it and keep it, but I send it back every time.

One time last year I got three in a row over three months, so I wrote in big black letters on the back of the box "RETURN TO SENDER. STOP SENDING ME MOVIES I DIDN'T ORDER." Then I dropped it in the mail.

About a week later, I got a letter from CH that basically said "You agreed to cancel director's selections if you didn't want them. If this behavior continues, your account will be suspended." I laughed my ass off and threw it away.

I figured if they were going to blame me for their own obviously deceitful practices, I might as well make myself responsible for it. Now I intentionally do not respond to ANY of the director's selections, and when they come in the mail, I send them back. I've been doing that for over a year, for no reason other than to cost the company money, and still no suspension.

uwftke26

Ha ha, I love doing that with BMG music too. haven't responded to a featured selection in months, even though you can do it online. F'em.

Jim

Thanks for the info you've been providing. Read a little more at this site and you'll see that it's better not to get the $9.95 title since it doesn't count as a commitment.

Most of us haven't paid (on average) $7 for CH DVDs for about 3 years. For the last year it was mostly $5 or less.

Your heads up about upcoming holiday deals is good to know. I may have to get an account going so that I'm ready to take advantage of those deals.

thomkai

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but will this always go to a person? I mean, there's no chance of the automated help call just cancelling my account is there? I have a major problem and the cancel account option seems to be the closest thing to help I can find, but I really just want to resolve this problem rather than cancel my account (as of now, anyway).

lizard

Yes. If you care to stick around here Ebeyerinski, we can teach you how to get DVDs for less than $6. It takes some work to optimize the deals at Columbia House, but it can be done routinely.

You mentioned the promotional codes, like Buy One Get One Free, which were sent out in letters from the President. Here we often get them in e-mail offers. The code can be scraped from the URL by those who know how. Or the codes can be mined using a program that just checks all possible codes one by one (although nobody who has the ability to do it is posting here at present).

Thanks for giving us the benefit of your experience. I wasn't aware of the structure of incentives for CSRs.
Interesting. Since my HD DVD player is due to be delivered in a couple of hours I've been hoping that Columbia House would eventually sell HD DVDs! I can be patient; there aren't a lot of titles out yet that I want anyway.

Upper pylon 3

I have a question. When CH has their free shipping promotions, in the past that has always included box sets. But in the last few months they have not included box sets. Do you know if CH plans to offer free shipping on box sets any time soon, perhaps in time for the Christmas sales, or is that a thing of the past?

viking99

Congrats on that Lizard! I've been struggling to hold off, but it's only a matter of time..... Panasonic owes me a BlockBuster video card good for 40 rentals, which should cover most/all of the HD-DVDs I want to see for now. CH-HD would be a very welcome longer term answer. Maybe next year.

onitapgr

I'm curious to know what percentage of the CSR's are outsourced from foreign countries...and where?

foxxvox

I called CH earlier tonight.When asked for credit card info I told that I don't have one(though I do)and asked if it is possible to prepay.She sounded as if she didn't know what I meant.I said"so you take my order,you send a bill,I send payment and than you ship the DVDs".She still wasn't sure so I hung up.Also,I have read here that it is possible to get a rejected application "revived".How does one going about doing this?What do you tell them that will make your application get accepted?

Xbox69

I know what you mean but I don't think that's ever been a practice of CH. I do know there is a "Bill Me" option when you submit an application online -- not sure if it's still available now. In that instance, they would send your enrollments (usually 7 DVDs) along with an invoice that is due "on receipt". When you read further you'll notice the *$3.00 added to your invoice if it is not paid in full within 30 days*. I guess as long as you get payment -- check/money order -- mailed out in time, every should work out.

You could also just pay online thru the website with a one-time credit card transaction. Your card would not remain on file.

foxxvox

The thing is I don't want to enroll online because I think my chances of getting accepted are better if I enroll on the phone.I emailed customer service about this but so far have not received a reply.

Erreth

Just bite the bullet and apply online this first time, I would think your first ever app should be approved with no problem. Once you get your first account open they usually send you "come back" emails, I've had I think a 100% approval rate by applying through the emails. From time to time I apply without the emails and still usually get accepted. Not sure what causes people to not get accepted through online apps, but I apply regularly and have only had a few lost apps.

foxxvox

I have applied at least 4 times online and 2 or 3 times via phone in the last 3 months and received nothing but 2 rejection letters.

Erreth

So you've never had an account and you can't get approved? Thats odd. Any reason they wouldn't want you to get approved?

whotony

wont cancel.
i just had to do it this way.
a prompt will take your acc't # then movie you to a csr.