{"id":4647,"date":"2008-10-24T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-25T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=4647"},"modified":"2017-11-04T06:11:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T11:11:18","slug":"i-dont-just-want-to-cancel-i-want-to-besmirch-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/24\/i-dont-just-want-to-cancel-i-want-to-besmirch-too\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don’t Just Want To Cancel; I Want To Besmirch, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I’ve mentioned that I’ve fallen back into the BOMC, buying a handful of the books so I could get some relatively recent titles for less than full price. Well, now. It required the commitment of buying one more book over the course of a year at regular club prices, and I ordered Robert Crais’s Chasing Darkness<\/a><\/i>. Then I marked the next mailing “Cancel” because I’d completed my obligation, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong!<\/b><\/p>\n

The next mailing came yesterday and said I was still obliged to buy a book. So I called to see what was up, if maybe my payment for the Crais book hadn’t cleared. Oh, but no. The fellow politely explained that the book I bought was on a “promotion” price, not regular club price, so it did not count. I asked if this was all noted in the mailed catalog materials, and he said it was.<\/p>\n

So I looked.<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah, here’s where it says only books over $13.98 count:<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"The
\nClick for full size<\/i><\/font><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

It is right there. But the catalog could be a little more explicit, no? I mean, they call it “Member’s Edition” price regardless of whether it’s “Promotion” (doesn’t count) or regular (does count).<\/p>\n

Here, let me illustrate some of the pages to identify for you what counts and doesn’t count. Since Book-of-the-Month Club does its bed to obfuscate it.<\/p>\n

The new Spenser is out, and old ones are available, but do not count:<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"1
\nClick for full size<\/i><\/font><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

The new David Balducci is out, but again, if you want the old ones, they don’t count unless you spend $14 on them:<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"Balducci
\nClick for full size<\/i><\/font><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Poor Anne Perry; none of her books fulfill the members’ obligations:<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"Perry
\nClick for full size<\/i><\/font><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

And those books printed on the inside of the envelope? Good luck.<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"In
\nClick for full size<\/i><\/font><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Of course, outside the BOMC News flier, your odds are probably worse.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, today I got the chastising letter that I’m trying to slip out of my agreed to obligations:<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"You,
\nClick for full size<\/i><\/font><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Don’t worry. I will fulfill my obligation now that I understand it. Also, note that I will never, ever play this game again. Increased deception-lite, cheaper books (newsprint pages, almost), and the double-gotcha “Dual Selections”–you can just continue faltering. Your business model has always been based on taking advantage of your customers, but I hate to see how much further you’ll go before collapsing under your own negative brand management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I’ve mentioned that I’ve fallen back into the BOMC, buying a handful of the books so I could get some relatively recent titles for less than full price. Well, now. It required the commitment of buying one more book over the course of a year at regular club prices, and I ordered Robert Crais’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4647"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17278,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4647\/revisions\/17278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}