Discogs: Am I Doing it Wrong...?

The halcyon days of youth have passed, and I no longer have the time to drive around to record stores/record conventions sift through bins for deals. I'm ok with paying a bit more for the convenience of vinyl shopping from my office or living room via the internet.

Of the 8 or so records I've bought through Discogs, only three transactions have gone smoothly. The main problem appears to be the listing format. By searching "All Versions of This Release," there will invariably be numerous entries for the exact same release. I've never sold on Discogs, but it appears that sellers can create their own release entry for a specific record based on a particular mastering, set of matrices, etc, or they can select a previously-created entry. Based on my experience, lazy and/or uninformed sellers will select the first title they see that matches the record they're selling without investigating to make sure that all of the info listed in the entry matches the record they are offering.

Case in point: I purchased a "first pressing" of Sgt Pepper's with the "yellow & black Parlophone label," only to have an 80s issue show up in my mailbox. Ditto a purported WLP of a Solomon Burke record that proved itself to be neither white label nor promo. As I had a Discogs purchase pending (agreed to buy; was awaiting seller's invoice) when the latter arrived, I messaged the seller of a reasonably-priced mono Who Sell Out to confirm that the record was actually a Decca mono, and it turned out it was not. I explained to the seller that it was listed in the wrong category; he apologized and thus let me out of the deal. He must have forgotten, and left me negative feedback as a non-paying bidder a few weeks later.

I am now awaiting confirmation on a newly-listed LP that seems too good to be true price-wise. While I don't want to be aced out by another buyer whilst awaiting the seller's response, I don't want the hassle of undoing an erroneously-listed transaction.

Am I the only one who finds the Discogs format maddening, or am I doing something wrong here?

 

I've bought quite a lot on Discogs and only had the problem once, when I informed the seller that their listing was wrong he refunded my money. It was only $10 so no big deal.

On higher value purchases I have asked for photographic proof that the release is indeed listed correctly, I have done this on 3 or 4 occasions and the sellers have always been more than happy to oblige. It might not be so easy with the larger sellers though......

 

No its not just you. It's a joke. The only way to solve that problem is to message the sellers with specific questions confirming the pressing. That's why I use ebay. There are usually enough pictures to tell. The only time I message sellers on ebay is if they don't have enough pictures or I want to know exact deadwax info. Maybe I'm a little biased because I have much better luck finding better deals on ebay, but I like not always having to message the seller.

 

I prefer ebay myself because they tend to have more pictures of the actual item - if I can't see a real picture of the seller's actual CD or LP - I won't buy it. I've never used Discogs to purchase anything, but just looking at their website it seems like it's not much more reliable than amazon as far as being able to verify a specific version/label for a given album. If it just has a stock photo, I can't really trust it.

 

Thanks for all of your responses, and I see that my problems with Discogs are not due to my limited computer savvy. I've learned the hard way that messaging the seller beforehand is imperative, but as with this current LP that I'm waiting for confirmation on, it's annoying. It's been a full day now with no response from the seller, and as the LP is recently-listed low-hanging fruit, I'd make like a sledgehammer on the "purchase" button if I knew for sure that it is in fact what it's listed as being.

 

I sell and buy from Discogs and I think that there is a big problem with listings. The entries are made by regular people, so, if I have a certain record I want to sell I will look to see if my record is already listed. With big selling records there is often more than one variation in label design. For example the word "stereo" might appear on top whereas with the another version it will appear on the right. If everything is the same then I have the option of selling my record as the same release, or I could claim that it is a different issue and start a new entry based on the slight label variation. But does anybody really know which was first pressing? Was it pressed in two different plants at the same time? Are they really different? Does it matter (except for very expensive items)?
This is just one example, but over millions of items entered by thousands of people it becomes complicated and impossible to police efficiently.
Having said that, I think that Discogs is a great place. I find that overall sellers and buyers are easy to deal with and are happy to accept responsibility if they made a mistake.

 

I buy a lot on Discogs and have had mixed results. A lot of over grading ...a good amount of incorrect listings. But every time there was a problem, I got my money back including return shipping costs.

 

As long as there is good communication with the seller, I never had problems. Ask specific questions, ask for photographs, anything to be sure you're ordering the right piece. If the seller is slow to respond, get away...but I've had nothing but good experiences so far.

 

You're not doing anything wrong. It is absolutely amazing how people consider Discogs to be some sort of infallible vinyl bible.

I'm not doing too much on there, but in my experiences, the seller is usually too lazy to e-mail pictures or answer a lot of questions - although I was once told I'd have to wait a week, and they actually did send the photos!

 

I'm having to do a return now at discogs on a overgrade.
How do I go about it ? Do I ask for refund before I return or return and hopefully get refund
when Seller gets the record back ? Open a paypal dispute ?
The seller agreed to take it back.
I just don't trust anyone who would so blatantly overgrade a record.

 

Be certain to have registered tracking on your return to prevent a possible incident or outright lie saying "I never received it back."