Anyone else a member of BMG?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been a member of BMG Music Service (Canada) for a couple of years, but recently things have gotten extremely bizzare over there.

I always use their website (http://www.bmgmusicservice.com) to turn down the monthly “featured selection” … I’m not going to waste a stamp each and every time I don’t want the dumb CD, when I can go to the website and do it for free. The problem is, the last couple of months, the website has been really snaky. Sometimes I can log in, sometimes I can’t. Mostly Internet Explorer gives me an error that it can’t even find the page.

The last time I was able to get on their site, they said there was a problem with my account. This was the same time that I got a CD (probably a featured selection) that I hadn’t ordered. I figure that due to website problems, I was unable to refuse the order. When I tried to get into my acocunt history to see what the problem was, it repeated that there was a problem with my account and blocked my access. So I clicked to “email a representative”. I sent a very nice, cheery email stating the problems I was having, and asking what the story was.

I received an email reply:
** "You recently asked us to cancel or change your order for D1319938 TITLE
OF RECORD but it’s too late to stop shipment. The order has already been processed and may be on its way to you now!

Please do not be concerned. If you decide you do not want to keep the shipment, you may return it to us for credit to your account, blah blah blah,
Your Friends at
BMG Music Service **

I searched high and low on the website (once I was able to access it again, which took days of trial and error) for any “real” mode of contact. There was none available, but I repeatedly saw the promise that EVERY email I sent was read by a REAL PERSON.

So I sent the following:
** Dear Real Person (supposedly every email I send is read by one):

For the last month your website has been extremely flaky and unreliable. I assume the message you sent, quoted below, is in reply to a message I sent last week saying just that. I didn’t ask you to stop shipment on an order: I already have the damn CD, I am well aware it is too late to stop shipment! What I am asking - no, demanding - is that a Real Person contact me at my phone number listed below and fill me in on why the only means I have of contacting you has become so unreliable. I am not going to pay for this CD until I hear from such a Real Person. I do not wish to receive ANY more Featured Selections and in fact, as soon as I am reached by a Real Person I intend to order 5 CDs to use up the gift certificates I have and then close my account with you. I simply cannot trust anymore that my orders are being received accurately and am sick of getting all kinds of errors on your website. This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that you provide no contact information to your customers other than your website, so that when your website starts misbehaving, no one can reach you at all.

Please contact me as soon as possible to straighten out this mess.

(my name and home phone number) **

Well as you can imagine, no one called. And today, I received this.

** Thank you for contacting us about charges on your account.

The product in question is listed below. I am providing the base price
for the selection, along with shipping, handling and sales tax, where
appropriate.

                                   BASE PR    S/H    TAX    TOTAL
        D1319938 TITLE OF RECORD     19.98   2.99   3.22  $ 26.19

As indicated in our billing, the total due for this selection is
$26.19. Thank you. **

This is really starting to piss me off. I have no other mode of contact with these people, and obviously no person, real or otherwise, is reading these emails. Does anyone else have similar experiences? Does anyone have any advice? I may just start sending them really rude and possibly pornographic emails, just to keep myself amused.

PS the ** TITLE OF RECORD ** nonsense is not mine … the emails they send me actually say that.

2

My only suggestion is to call your credit card company and tell them not to accept requests or whatever from BMG.

Beyond that, make sure any subsequent email you send them requesting them to close your account you send to yourself as well, so you have proof.

3

I’m sorry, I don’t have the number any more.

I was with BMG for about 3 years, and like you used their website to cancel all featured selections (once I found out about it). However, when I returned to school I sent them a letter requesting cancellation of my account.

I sent one letter every other week for SIX MONTHS with no response from BMG. I tried cancelling on the website (which supposedly, at one time, you could do). Listen, at least they answered your requests. That’s more than I ever got.

Finally, I looked at the city on the GD envelope, called information, got their TOLL number (no toll-free, of course) and called them during their business hours. This took three days, because of course I was either on my way to school or IN school when they were open.

The good news is, once I managed to get ahold of a live body on the phone they were courteous and efficient and I haven’t heard a peep out of them since. (Well, except for the occasional mail saying “we miss you come back” [crabaple]HA![/crabaple]

So, I recommend calling. If I still had the number I’d put it here, but I don’t. :frowning:

4

Ah, BMG. Fondly do I remember my days as a member there. If you get a CD you don’t want, what you do is, you get a black magic marker. Then you scribble out your address, circle the return address for BMG in the corner, and then write “return to sender” on the package in big letters. Do this for every CD they send you that you didn’t request. They’ll send you letters expressing their concern about what you’re doing for a few months, then cancel your membership. With that in mind, if you choose this route, you should probably redeem all those coupons right off the bat, before you begin to play with the bastards.

Is it possible that they referred to the CD as Title of Record because it is, in fact, the Filter album Title of Record?

5

I’m still a BMG member, I think…I got really sick of going to their web site and cancelling the “Selection of the Month,” and mailing it back if I forgot to do so. So I called and threatened to quit the club, whereupon they said that if I stayed, they’d stop sending me stuff I didn’t ask for. So they did, and I haven’t really heard much out of them, other than the occasional catalog…

6

I was a member of BMG a long time ago, when they were still called RCA Music Service. I’ve always kind of assumed they changed their name because they pissed off too many people as RCA.

Nice to see they still do business in their traditional way.

7

I belonged to Columbia Record Club a long time ago. I had fulfilled my membership agreement with them and had decided to quit the club. I wrote to them numerous times to no avail. I started sending EVERYTHING they sent to me back marked “refused”. None of that worked. I then got ahold of the Better Business Bureau and got a complaint form from them, filled it out and sent it back to them. In less than 2 weeks, I got an apology letter from Columbia, my membership was cancelled and I never heard another word from them. They didn’t want a “blemish” on their record from the BBB.

Try that, it may help.

8

I am seriously laughing my ass off. I had to run to the other room and check the CD itself, but it is indeed called this. What a hoot. I thought it was a computer glitch. Oh well, my foolishness will not detract from the matter at hand … I hope!

These are all really good suggestions, I will keep you posted on my search for the phone number!

9

Brunetter, please keep me posted! This is the first I ever heard that you could cancel the “selection of the month” on the Internet. I usually would forget to send back the card and have to put “return to sender” on the shipment. After a couple of times of doing that, they would usually send me a letter politely asking me to inform them if I didn’t want the selection of the month. Then I would cancel and sign up again next time I got an advertisement in the mail.

I just re-signed with BMG classical (got an album of Icelandic medieval tunes extolling the virtues of the gods of Valhalla! Life is good) so please let me know what you find out.

10

How the hell do you order a CD at normal club prices??? I want to cancel so bad.

11

Gee, I’m a member of the BMG Jazz Club and I haven’t ever had any problems. They have a better selection of jazz music than my local Megawarehouse Tons O’ “Music” store. And the site has always worked fine for me. I do miss the “clearance” section though…picked up Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” for just $2.99…

12

Yeah, I’m a member of BMG. My ex-girlfriend signed me up and we split the free CD’s bonus she got down the middle.

I just turn down the selection of the month online each month, and wait until they have 3-for-1 or 4-for-1 sales so I can get my CD’s at reasonable prices - about $8.00 each when you factor in those killer shipping charges.

There is one weird thing that I can’t explain, though:

When I joined, I chose the Rock/Pop category, which, although it has subjected me to the likes of 98 Degrees and Ricky Martin, also gets me the catalogue that prominently lists such favourites as Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks.

Lately, though, I’ve instead been getting the featured selection mailers for the Christian/Gospel category, featuring such rock-n-roll greats <snicker> as Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith.

Needless to say, the selections I desire are not exactly listed in detail in the catalogue that comes with that package, so I switched back using BMG’s web site. Let’s see if it takes.

Pete
Long time RGMWer and ardent AOLer

13

I never did pay the shipping and handling, plus a dollar or so, for the first shipment. Other than an occasional bill for the whole amount (which is now like 80 bucks), I haven’t heard from them again.

14

Sequentia’s Edda, released by Harmonia Mundi? I’ve got that, and it’s damned amazing, especially the Voluspa.
Sorry about being OT.

MR