Customer Wants on the Stores’ ‘A’ List
Question: I have charge accounts at a number of department stores in Los Angeles and use a card to charge purchases at least every three months, but have not received any catalogues in the past eight months notifying me of new items or sales. I called Bullock’s and they said I needed to use the card regularly to get mailings, but said they would put me on the mailing list.
When I called the Broadway, I was told that because I pay my bills promptly and never have a balance due, I would not get any mailings.
Isn’t this a peculiar type of policy to not send mailings to a customer who may have more disposable income and to send mailings to a customer who may be heavily in debt (and, of course, making handsome interest payments)?--M.E.
Answer: Most peculiar, indeed. Of all the third-class mail that batters us daily, department store catalogues--by a wide margin--are certainly the most cordially received. By virtue of their glossy professionalism and the soaring cost of mail service, however, they have also become horrendously expensive to distribute. Thus, the shotgun, willy-nilly mailing of all promotional material to all customers is universally out the old window.
But as Charles Zahka, vice president of customer relations for the Broadway, points out: Whoever told you that you weren’t getting catalogues because you don’t maintain a running balance was a country mile off the mark. Like any good retailer, the Broadway knows which side of its bread is buttered and that’s with customers like you. If you went many months without using your account, then, sure enough, the catalogues would begin trailing off, but charging “purchases at least every three months” sure doesn’t put you in the “inactive” category by a wide margin.
Only twice a year, according to Zahka, does the Broadway make a general catalogue mailing to all customers--that’s about 1.5 million pieces--and those are in connection with the store’s anniversary (the 91st is upcoming) and what else? Christmas.
“In the case of a mailing promoting, for instance, men’s wear,” he continues, “we might confine it to customers who have made purchases of suits, shirts, slacks or other male items in the preceding months. In a cosmetic promotion, we might restrict it to those who have made purchases of either cosmetics or women’s wear. Others might go to customers who have bought at least $200 worth of merchandise of any kind over the preceding six months.”
As a personal note I might add here that I still maintain several charge accounts in stores in a city several hundred miles away where I once lived and to which I return on a regular basis. Because some of these accounts may be used only once or twice a year--or less frequently than that--they are still “alive” as far as usage is concerned, but in virtually every case the only mailings I receive are, sure enough, around Christmas time. And not from all of the stores, even then.
Q: Please consider the following: We bought a compact disk (CD) of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony from Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard for the holidays. To our total astonishment, the notes are only in Japanese! I called Tower Records to request an English version, was put on hold (three times) and was finally told that there were none available. Why did they recommend this recording so highly in the first place, I wonder?
I wrote to the Japanese recording company that was responsible for the recording: No answer. Is this another case of caveat emptor or of “the public be damned”? All exporters should follow the example of Common Market countries, where notices, brochures and announcements are multilingual.--M.H.
A: We’re talking, of course, about written, descriptive, notes about the recording and not about the musical notes. Shostakovich, played in Russian or Japanese, sounds remarkably like Shostakovich played in English.
The situation, “alas, is all too common,” the Times classical music critic, Martin Bernheimer, confirms. In many cases, the recording will be billed as “bilingual” and sure enough, he continues, “the title will be in English and the notes will be in Japanese, or German, or whatever--technically, that’s bilingual.” And that is what you ended up with.
Equally common, Bernheimer adds, are instances in which an insert with the English translation is printed and then, somehow, never gets inserted.
In any event, it’s difficult to fault the distributor who may have been assured that a translation is included, but who can’t verify it without opening the albums or CDs individually.
Q: Here are two questions concerning certificates of deposit (CDs):
--If Mrs. Smith deposits $10,000 in a CD naming herself and her niece, can she later remove the name of the niece or her own name and put in someone else?
Answer: At most banks and S&Ls; but not at the Bank of America.
--Why is the Bank of America going broke?
Answer: Because of a chronic habit of arranging their procedures to the greatest disadvantage of their customers.--A.J.
A: The public relations people with B of A in San Francisco (where, because the phone is still operative, the bank still seems to be in business) tell me that your letter (mine was a copy) has been answered--let us hope, to your satisfaction.
There was apparently a breakdown in communications between you and whomever you talked to at the B of A. You can change the names on a certificate of deposit without penalty, but, for income tax-reporting purposes for the Internal Revenue Service, it has to be done by closing out the existing CD and creating a new one with the new names--on the same terms and at the same rate.
OK?
Don G. Campbell cannot answer mail personally but will respond in this column to consumer questions of general interest. Write to Consumer VIEWS, You section, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.
