In the early 1990s, shiny little mirrored-records dominated music stores’ shelves: compact discs or CDs. While cassette tapes of the 80s were phasing out, CDs were the must-haves, and eventually to be played on clunky portable players. Even car radios started offering the cassette tape/CD duo. This was the time before the world wide web, and two music distribution conglomerates (BGM and Columbia) offered membership packages through mail-in shopping catalogues. Incessantly, weekly mailings advertised the hottest music with huge discounts: one penny for 8 CDs (originally priced around $20 per CD)….wait, one penny for 10 CDs…no, 20 CDs. The two companies would Ping-Pong better deals against each other vying for suckers. These deals had a catch in the very small print *You must purchase a certain number of CDs within a year at full price. Also, you had to be at least 18 years old to participate in these deals.
What was to stop this teen from filling out the simple form, taping a penny to it, fixing the stamp-like album covers to my top choices and mailing it in? Absolutely nothing. Within a month, I received a full box of brand-new CDs all for a penny! I became an obsessive collector of the top albums of the year. I had to have all of the Grammy nominees for best pop music, or the top 10 albums on the Billboard 100 for the month. Wait, I had no job, no money, so no way to purchase these CDs after I received the initial 8 for a penny. Hmmm, it says that if I refer a friend, then a few more CDs would be free!
Eureka! I referred my friends: Kenny Gaughan, Kenneth K. Gaughan, Ken A. Gaughan, Kenneth A. Gaughan, Kenny A. Gaughan, Kenny B. Gaughan, etc. Then, I started to receive rejection letters that too many accounts were registered at my mailing addressed, so I adapted to using apartment numbers in my home address (1, 2, 3, 4, etc) which worked. Wow, I had a lot of CDs arriving almost at the rate that Amazon sends boxes to us. I know my parents were concerned, but I was unstoppable. At age 14, my CD collection exponentially grew every month to 200, 300, 400, and eventually 500+ CDs. When I referred a friend, they were instantly approved for memberships, so they also received the CD deals for a single penny! I had a slight problem: storage. My wish list for Christmas often asked for CD storage containers. But, what happened when it came time to fulfill the terms of the agreement by purchasing the other CDs at full price? Yikes, I was receiving piles of bill collection notices: first attempts, second attempts, third attempts… Since I would arrive home from school before my parents could check the mail, I could easily intercept the packages and bills…but not when they would arrive on Saturdays.
So, my parents raised their brows, “What was I getting myself into? How would I fix this?” Eureka Again! I just called the 800 numbers for BMG and Columbia and told them that I was a minor and was very sorry…The representatives would surprisingly apologize to me and cancel the membership without any fault or debt. Voila, I accomplished a scheme to amass hundreds of CDs for pennies. Throughout the process, I also learned that I could call the 800 number and tell them that the CDs all arrived broken, and copies would be sent. I shared these copies with friends and traded many of them for store credits at music stores to buy CDs not available through the mail. My developing brain encoded this schema for circumventing the fine print in life and normalized this behavior.
After 28 months in federal prison, I’ve had much time to introspectively dissect how I ended up in this situation. Much research on the criminal brain or common characteristics stem from childhood trauma and/or adolescent deviance. Thus, I reflected back to this sophomoric scam, which classifies as mail fraud. While I never intended to break laws as an adolescent, I self-rationalized that these companies should’ve done a better job at preventing my exploitation. At the time, I couldn’t see any harm in what I was doing, which certainly laid the foundation for thinking beyond the fine print in life that I used to break laws instead of adhering to them. Alas, I no longer refer a friend, especially to a wasteful life in prison. I cannot express enough gratitude for you taking the time to check-in and see how my journey in federal prison has been developing. I hope you and your loved ones have a great week and continue to look for any little miracle in your life this week 🙂