jhr@ncsu.UUCP (07/28/83)
Back in the early '70s, I bought a lot of records from a place in York, PA called Record Club of America. They seemed to be different from the other record clubs in that they had no required purchases or automatic shipments. Also, it was not hard to get some good deals from them, particularly by signing up new members. Apparently, they were doing some of their own pressing, because records often arrived with a statement like "Manufactured under special license issued by xyz recording company to RCOA". I often wondered about this, but the records were usually of good quality, and I never had any problems with returns. I haven't seen any ads for RCOA in several years, so I guess they went out of business. Did anyone else ever buy anything from them? Does anyone know anything about them-- Their history? How they operated? What happened to them? Please reply by mail, and if there is enough interest, I will summarize to the net. Thanks. John Reece N.C. State Univ. ...!duke!mcnc!ncsu!jhr
jerryd@microsoft.UUCP (jerryd) (08/01/83)
I seem to recall that the Record Club of America got in trouble with the law, unlike many of those clubs which obligate you to buy n records over x years at standard prices. It seems that when they didn't have the record you wanted in stock, they would ship a "close approximation," without any indication. (I believe that part of their problem with the law also involved the fact that they often advertised records which they didn't stock or were understocked on.) When I was young and my brother and I dealt with RCoA, on at least one occasion we received a different album from the one we ordered. We assumed that they had made a shipping error, and since the LP we received was by the same artist, and included the same "hit" song as the actual record, we never complained. (Having grown older and wiser, I now care about more than one single per album.... Then again, having grown older and wiser, I refuse to divulge the name of the "artist" in question.) Hope this matches other people's information. Anyhow, my personal experience seems to confirm my recollection. Can anyone confirm RCoA's legal hassles? Jerry Dunietz, Microsoft Corp. decvax!microsoft!jerryd