AVOID MapleMusic.com and MerchMrkt.com

I hate to speak badly of a local, Canadian on-line music seller, but I must strongly recommend that anyone considering doing business with MapleMusic or MerchMrkt think twice before placing an order. I placed an order for two Cowboy Junkies LPs on January 2nd. After placing my order and receiving a confirmation email I notice in small print at the bottom of the page that it says:

"Maplemusic.com is processing your order. Please allow up to 14 days for order processing and packing prior to shipment. Thank you."

Huh? Nothing of the sort was stated during the checkout process and what if I had paid $$$ for expedited shipping? Anyway, 14 business days pass and I send them an email to two of their addresses. A week later no response. I call them from my office over 3 days, no answer. Finally I started to dig into the horrible service that others have experienced, all laid bare on their Facebook page. Now I was concerned being out over $80, so I started a Paypal claim for non-delivery. I allowed another week for MapleMusic to respond to PayPal and nothing. So I escalated the claim. They had until Feb.10th to respond and lo and behold I receive a tracking number on the 7th. I was not overly pleased as I wanted to wash my hands of this company and their total lack of customer service, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. The records arrived today with minor corner bumps. One LP was exactly what I ordered, the other, the Analogue Productions reissue of The Trinity Session was NOT! Yes, it was the Trinity Session, but the common Sony Music pressing. If you look these up you'll see a huge different in the pricing and the MapleMusic website specifically says that they are selling the AP 200g pressing by Quality Record Pressing. So now I have changed my claim dispute with PayPal to a "wrong item received" inquiry. Seriously? I don't have time for this and I'm concerned I'm going to be left stuck with something I didn't order. In my many years of buying on-line all over the world, this has to be the worst experience I've had and I'm very concerned that there seems to be no one listening at the other end for customer issues. Hopefully the Paypal dispute goes my way.

The moral of the story: check all sources of customer feedback no matter how large or prominent the company BEFORE you place and order.

Thanks for letting me vent.