Received via email from csresponse@columbiahouse.com, at 10:32 AM today:
Dear PHUTATORIUS,
Re: Account # XXXXXXXXXX
We have noted that you have returned several recent DVD shipments.
When you joined the Club, you agreed to contact us when you do not wish to
receive your current Director's Selection. This way, we can be sure to send
you only the selections you want.
The quickest and easiest way to let us know if you wish to receive the
Director's Selection, is to go to http://www.columbiahouse.com and click on
the Director's Selection. You may also use the Order Card we send in every
Club mailing, or call us toll-free at 1-800-262-2001. Just be sure to respond
by the date shown on your Order Card or on the web site. It's simple, fast and
easy!
Sincerely,
Customer Service
* * *
My return message:
Dear Customer Service:
Thank you for the protocol reminder: I certainly can avoid receiving unwanted DVDs by checking in at your website and reading your relentless promos. But let's be straight with one another — the above message has little to do with any desire to improve your customer service. Your concern is with the accumulating round-trip postal charges that Columbia House incurs when it mass-mails DVDs that nobody wants.
And don't give me this crap about how I "agreed" to tell you in advance every time I didn't want the Director's Selection. You well know that none of your members is contractually obligated to buy your recklessly compiled catalogue of overpriced and schlocky Director's Selections. It is the right of members to return said products — at your expense — when they are not wanted; it is your strategy to rely on our laziness or neglect in so doing, thereby effecting a "sale" of goods. In short, when you propose to send Phutatorius a copy of "Bad Boys II," you take your chances with the postal charges.
Thus am I brought, by the patronizing mass-messaging of your Customer Service Department, to the Rubicon of this war. As I blandly step over your line in the sand, hear these words of sworn enmity:
"I, Phutatorius, a Preferred Member of the Columbia House DVD Club (henceforth, the "Club") who has amply met and exceeded the purchasing requirements of his Membership Agreement, do solemnly swear that
(1) I shall never purchase another DVD from the Club;
(2) I shall never respond by mail, email, or website visitation to any of the Club's "Director's Selections"; and
(3) I shall never terminate my membership with the Club.
It is my determination to stick the Club with the monthly there-and-back postal charges for its unwanted goods into perpetuity — or until such time as I meet the aforementioned "Director" and am able to berate him for his taste in films. It is also my intention to take all steps necessary, until my dying breath, to bend the will of other Club members toward this same end.
This is my solemn vow."
