I recently signed up with a mail-order music club. Now this wasn’t just some average deal they were offering, but 12 for the price of one! I knew something had to be up. Upon looking further into the ad, I discovered that a “small” shipping and handling charge would be added to each CD bought. I wound up paying $16.16 for my first 6 “free” CD’s. Now what I’m wondering is, what happens to all that money? I’m assuming that because it says shipping and handling, the company can legitimately keep whatever money is left over after they pay their dues to the good old US Postal System. Is this true? If not, then how does it all work out?
You guessed! Everything over the shipping is “handling”.
That pays for someone to put your address on it and put the CD’s in to box. They can charge anything they want for it. That’s the major reason I quit the one I joined.
$16.16 is still a good price to pay for six CDs. The problem I have with those clubs is they never have anything good after you pick those first six.
It’s not that I’m complaining about the price of the CD’s. It’s more the point of it all. We think we’re getting a great deal, but then once the shipping and handling charges are added in, it doesn’t look so great after all. Infomercials are infamous for doing just this. Half the time, the s&p charges can be almost as much as what you’re buying. So what they are effectively doing is making us pay a higher price than we ever would have normally. They just hide it.