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My first job out of high school was entering those Columbia House applications into a computer database. The amount of fake applications I, personally, came ac

My first job out of high school was entering those Columbia House applications into a computer database. The amount of fake applications I, personally, came across was astounding. I can remember, on my first day, coming across a batch of applications that were so obviously all from the same person -- different CD selections (six-digit numbers, if memory serves) and different names but the same mailing address and same handwriting. I went up to ask my supervisor what I should do about them and was told to enter them in regardless. Basically, it did not matter one bit if the apps were fake or fraudulent. My job was to enter them into the computer. It was explicitly NOT my job to decide whether they were legitimate or not. I wondered then how they managed to make any money. Even before I worked there, though, it was common knowledge amongst my friends in high school that you could put whatever information you wanted to on the applications and the CDs would still come in the mail.

cpeterso 11y ago
Interesting! Did your office have a quota or bonus that depended on how many applications were entered? It sounds like some perverse incentive that made sense at corporate HQ but had unintended side effects. :)
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  ISTR we had a minimum number of applications we were supposed to process (averaged out over a period of time), but I can't recall what that number was.
bryanrasmussen 11y ago
surely filtering out the false applications should have been the task of programmers / DB admins once the data was all in the DB.
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  One would hope so but the evidence (CDs showing up in the mail) didn't tend to support that assumption. In addition, this was nearly 20 years ago so the technology wasn't as great as it is today. If memory serves, our interface was a DOS-based application with our PCs networked using Netware, if that says anything.
  - mixmastamyk 11y ago
    That technology was fine, the policy and culture is what mattered. Likely people were making sales targets and bonuses and looked the other way at "fraud" that aligned with that goal.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - hakutsuru 11y ago
      While this may have been so at some time, while I was at the company (1998-2010), it is categorically false. Fraud detection became an important kpi, and sophisticated tools were used to minimize it. The company was shopped and acquired several times, due diligence for the business model would not allow outright fraud like this to survive. I appreciate the cynicism though. Another example of manual processing done on the warehouse side was manually entering in pricing from the print catalogs, to honor pricing mistakes. Such mistakes cost the company millions of dollars, but I eliminated them by automating print segment pricing (via 4D, AppleScript and Em Software plugins). An important element of the business which might not be appreciated is that members were segmented, so each cycle several versions of the "monthly" catalog were created, with pricing tailored to the segment ("in commit", "out of commit", etc).

cpeterso 11y ago

Interesting! Did your office have a quota or bonus that depended on how many applications were entered? It sounds like some perverse incentive that made sense at corporate HQ but had unintended side effects. :)

jlgaddis 11y ago
ISTR we had a minimum number of applications we were supposed to process (averaged out over a period of time), but I can't recall what that number was.

bryanrasmussen 11y ago

surely filtering out the false applications should have been the task of programmers / DB admins once the data was all in the DB.

jlgaddis 11y ago
One would hope so but the evidence (CDs showing up in the mail) didn't tend to support that assumption. In addition, this was nearly 20 years ago so the technology wasn't as great as it is today. If memory serves, our interface was a DOS-based application with our PCs networked using Netware, if that says anything.
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  That technology was fine, the policy and culture is what mattered. Likely people were making sales targets and bonuses and looked the other way at "fraud" that aligned with that goal.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - hakutsuru 11y ago
    While this may have been so at some time, while I was at the company (1998-2010), it is categorically false. Fraud detection became an important kpi, and sophisticated tools were used to minimize it. The company was shopped and acquired several times, due diligence for the business model would not allow outright fraud like this to survive. I appreciate the cynicism though. Another example of manual processing done on the warehouse side was manually entering in pricing from the print catalogs, to honor pricing mistakes. Such mistakes cost the company millions of dollars, but I eliminated them by automating print segment pricing (via 4D, AppleScript and Em Software plugins). An important element of the business which might not be appreciated is that members were segmented, so each cycle several versions of the "monthly" catalog were created, with pricing tailored to the segment ("in commit", "out of commit", etc).