Discogs experiences-postive and negative*

I tell you what your problem is. You got the light on. Lower the light or just plain turn it off and those records will look NM, just like they were described

Sorry couldn't resist a reference to one of my all time favourite grading terms "you can only see marks under bright light" and variations on that theme.

Bummer about your records though. I guess you'll return them. Remember, Paypal will cover up to $30 of your return shipping costs so you won't be out any cash.

 

That was good - you had me going for a second. Received another record tonight from a different seller. Night and day to the last transaction - beautifully graded, and the seller put something extra in the package which I thought was really cool (I'd read about it in his feedback) - so - A+ transaction. I have a few more coming from other sellers -if they're close to this one - I'll have my faith in Discogs restored....

 

Gosh,I didn't even realize you could buy things from there. I use them for album art as they often have things I can't find elsewhere. I also like the a lot of the data I find there.

 

Discogs is probably the best place if you're looking for specific pressings of stuff; because it lists every variation with ways to identify it, there should be no excuse for people listing an item wrong. Mistakes do happen, and like anywhere that you can't actually see and test the item, it's a gamble based on how trustworthy you think the person is, but for the most part I've found it easier to deal with than Amazon and significantly better than eBay (although eBay words everything so shadily that I feel like I'm walking down a dark alley when I browse - "Hot! Everyone wants 'The Velvet Underground & Nico - original sealed 1967 pressing - $5000' - hurry or you'll miss it!" It reminds me of a car dealership, and let's be real, nothing that isn't a car dealership should remind anyone of a car dealership. Discogs meanwhile is a reference guide that happens to have a marketplace built into it; much friendlier atmosphere. The payment system is a little bit weird and takes some getting used to; if you place an order, you need to keep checking your inbox or else you'll get negative feedback for not paying straight away. Once you get used to it though it's a really easy place to do business.

 

Just turn on email notifications and you'll get an email when they send the invoice.

 

In my experience, the only thing that I ever use my email for is signing up for websites. For every one time I check my email, I probably check Discogs at least 75 times. For other people however, yes, this is a good idea.

 

Oh, well thats different. If you don't check your email, then I could see it being a pain.

 

When I open Discogs.com - in the top right it shows me how many new notifications I have not read - just this these forums. I only get email from Discogs if a user starts a conversation. Everything else I need to manually check on the website.

Isn't it like this for everyone?

 

No, sorry. Anything that happens on Discogs, I get an e-mail. If my order status is changed to "Shipped", for example, I get an e-mail when that happens. If a seller responds to a question I've asked, I get an e-mail, and so on.

 

I get emails when someone has a question about an album I have for sale, when an item sells, a buyer marks an item as "paid" or "shipped" etc, when my bill is due, when items in my want list pop up, etc.
I do not get emails everytime someone makes a change to a listing (thank goodness).

 

I would imagine - like I said, I never check my email. Anything that goes to my email is either spam or information that I've already gotten from websites like Amazon, Discogs, even here.

 

Automation is starting to take over Discogs the same as ebay & Amazon. Everything started going down the rabbit hole when their API project launched a couple years ago.

This is the problem.

Makes it too easy for sellers to mass-post across all 3 markets in high volumes.

And, I don't see it ever changing. The guilty sellers don't care, because they are moving insane volume. Discogs doesn't care, because they are making insane amounts of money from said sellers.

Don't see it getting any better unless a new medium is created. Would be damn near impossible to compete with their massive open source database though.

 

I love discogs but they on first view look like some warez website with pirate download mp3s, they need add new design

 

It's a great resource in my opinion, both as a catalogue and as a marketplace. Have done plenty of buying and recently a fair bit of selling and have had mostly good experiences. Sure there were some bad ones as well but not much more than via eBay, cdandlp, the old Gemm or what have you. Just gotta use your discretion; read listings and feedback profiles carefully and do double-check whether whatever you want to buy is listed under the correct pressing, as stuff does tend to get mislisted a fair bit. (Though that can also work out in your favor - I've gotten the occasional first pressing which was listed as a reissue and thus a lot cheaper than it shoulda been!)

 

I prefer discoggs to actual record stores. Shipping is so cheap with media mail, that it more cost effective to shop sitting at home. I only buy from sellers with 99+% positive ratings. I also avoid sellers who describe their LP's with "used-car salesman" lingo.. One seller used the phrase "verified STUDIO quality sound" on all his LPs. When I got them they were full of surface noise. Thankfully the noise all went away with my ultrasonic cleaner.

My only complaint is the "filtering" used to narrow down searches can be improve. For example there is no way to find a ll NM and VG+ records in my wantlist. It can only do one or the other..

 

Does anyone have this weird bug with Discogs- when you do a Google search for a release, click on the Discogs link and it asks you to log in. Going back and clicking the link again loads the release page.

 

It happens to me from time to time.

 

Yes, discogs generally has issues with login cookies (or something similar on the server end) - it prompts for a login at random intervals, sometimes daily, but other times not for weeks at a time.

My pet theory is that it's at least partially related to accessing your discogs account from multiple computers/devices (even when you've already logged in to it from those devices in the past).

 

I think discogs is good, better than Amazon at this point (and Gemm since it's toast) but it seems to be starting to be plagued by the same problem Amazon is rife with. That is, many sellers from Japan(?) with generic listings for rare CD's for big $. I read in another thread that this is a scam, these sellers don't have inventory and they hope, at every communication opportunity , that you will just give up and not ask for a refund but if you do they will give it back to you. It's a great scam for them, use the Discogs API to list tons of virtual items and as long as 2-3% of buyers never follow through on refunds you keep their money - all free for their keeping. Grrrrrr.

-s1m0n-

 

I was burned only once. I bought two Zeppelin albums. One was the self titles, original Canadian Atlantic label. This was totally over graded. The vinyl was no where near the grade given and there were a number of permanent marker spots on the jacket which also meant the seller overgraded that. Of course without specific pictures I had no way of knowing this as the seller never mentioned it. The second album was Houses of the Holy. Said to be an original U.S pressing, it turned out to be a Canadian reissue that was also over graded. How do you make a mistake like that? I contacted the seller a number of times but he never responded.

 

Although sellers don't have pictures uploaded I've asked for photos of labels or covers in the past. In addition, I always ask to verify the version they have listed just in case. A few times sellers responded that they've listed the lp under the wrong version. Most sellers will oblige. The one's that won't I just move on from.

Did you contact Paypal about the items?

 

In order to avoid any kind of problems, this is the better way IMO

 

I was contacted today about selling something in my collection as no other copies are showing up for sale. It happens to be a sealed picture disc that I got for free. I think I may have to sell it if they will give me $100, which seems fair based on the rarity and condition.

 

No I did not. I guess I should have but I just moved on. I gave the seller a bad review, but his profile was deleted soon after. Coincidentally I just recieved three albums from Discogs, all described as NM on both vinyl and jacket except one that was VG+ on the jacket. Two of the albums fit the description fine, with nice clean vinyl and jackets. The third album however, which was described as NM or both jacket and vinyl is not. For starters the jacket completely unglued on the top seam and there is some slight corner wear. It's obviously not NM. The vinyl doesn't look to have any obvious wear but it's not clean like the other two at all. It has a dull finish and what could be described as a light film on it or handling marks. I really feel it isn't NM. The cover isn't even a judgement call, it's not NM. I just contacted the seller and am awaiting his response.