Got a CD-R instead of a CD from an amazon third-party-seller.

I ordered a CD from an amazon third party seller by the name of "HT Audio LLC". The title was "So Low" by Hughie Thomasson. It's a somewhat rare CD and it cost me close to 40$ including international shipping.
Imagine my surprise when the parcel arrived and not only was the CD case broken but the disk in it was clearly a rather cheap looking CD-R.
A quick Google search taught me that there seems to be a pressed CD edition and a "cheap" CD-R edition of this album so probably the CD-R was legit.
Still the item was not advertised as a CD-R on the amazon website. I would never buy a CD-R for 40 bucks and have it crap out on me five years from now.
So I asked the seller for a disk return and a full refund. I even provided him with pictures of the broken case and the code number on the inner ring that clearly marked the disk as a "CD-R-80".
He refused to take the disk back because it was a legitimate disk and "not a homemade CD-R" as I have claimed. He pretended to not understand what was wrong with the disk. (Could a CD dealer really not understand why a customer could be not satisfied with a CD-R if he ordered a CD for 40$?). He only offered a 5$ refund for the broken case.

So I filed a claim with amazon and within a few hours I got an apology from amazon, a full refund and I did not even have to send back the disk.

Great service from amazon. I wish the german amazon would be half as customer friendly.
Shame on the third party sellers that are trying to ripp off customers by selling CD-Rs as CDs.
If HT Audio had accepted my return request he would have only had to pay for the return shipping costs. Now he lost the money AND the CD-R.

 

Are you positive a 'professional' press was even manufactured?
This looks to be his only release and by a 'company' that only released this album. looks like a home release, maybe given out to buddy's or sold locally which would make sense it was a CD-R

 

I got another disc that was a CD-R instead of a regular CD from a Amazon Marketplace seller recently. It was made to look like a regular CD. It would be easy to not notice that it was a CD-R if you weren't paying attention. I returned it and got all my money back. Seems to be something we need to be careful about in the future.

Glad it worked out for you.

 

This shop offer's a pressed CD: Southern Records | Southern Rock Online Shop | CD HUGHIE THOMASSON (THE OUTLAWS) - So Low

But it doesn't matter, I would not want the CD-R even if there was no pressed CD release. Not for 40$ anyway.

 

I just purchased the three Carl Palmer 'Working Live' CD's from importcds_ through amazon.ca.

No problem with Volume 3, all super there. However, Volumes 1 & 2 were not only homemade CD-r's (albeit with printing on the CD) but whoever made these didn't know what they were doing and there are 2-second gaps in between songs. Pretty annoying when listening to live recordings. No indication that these should have been anything but factory-pressed CD's.

All three are on Eagle Records, usually a pretty reliable label and all three were sealed but only Volume 3 had the adhesive seal on the top of the disc.

I've sent an e-mail to importcds_ (that's how they spell it, honest) and will report back once I find out what they are going to do.

I paid $CAD 16.78 & $CAD 13.32 for the two burner discs. The actual silver disc was $CAD 12.94.

 

Ack! To add insult to injury, the two CD-r's are sourced from mp3's.

 

Track-at-once? YUCK.

 

This has happened to me once and Amazon refunded me in full and told me to keep the disc. Quite good customer service, but it sure is an annoyance to not own the original.

(I forget which album I bought, but, at this juncture, it’s not important anymore.)

 

My first e-mail from these guys told me that it was clearly listed as MOD in the format area on the listing and that they have done no wrong. I wrote back stating that the only information next to format is 'Import'.

They also had no comment on the poor quality of the burn and the use of lossy files.

My second e-mail indicates that they will accept a return of this garbage but since I'm in Canada and they're in Kentucky, they have not indicated who will pay for the return shipping.

 

importcds_ would only refund me if I paid for tracked international shipping back to them, more than what the order would have been worth.

Contacted amazon directly and was issued a full refund, including shipping. Avoid importcds_, they are far from honest.

 

I was going to mention that Import CDs is responsible for return shipping in your case, but didn't want to add any fuel to a possible fire. Thankfully, it worked out right.

 

I just came in to say the same thing happened to me on Amazon but they refunded me and I got to keep a CD-R.

This just bugs me because I was a big music pirate until recently. I can finnally afford to buy music as I am getting older. But, if I am going to shell out my money I want a real copy. In fact I have downloaded FLAC files of most the CD's I buy these days so the real reason in mainly to have the original. I can burn my own damn CD (with out two second gaps!!!)

 

whats the best way to tell a CDR from a real cd, do CDrs show only a single color reflected on the bottom?

 

There is the colour of the CD and a factory-pressed CD will have information engraved onto the disc (on the back around the hole).

 

Some smaller labels these days are actually pressing albums on CD-R without any indication that they're CD-Rs. They're very well made CD-Rs and you have to look carefully to tell the difference, but they're still CD-Rs. No silver CDs exist for these albums.

It's the only way to make it viable to press small enough runs for some albums.

 

It may be the only viable way to make something available but they need to be upfront and honest about the item being a CD-R and not a CD. If it is not stated that it is a CD-R that is being dishonest in my opinion.

 

if it only exist as a small press cdr then a cdr is the real thing, the OP is talking about a situation where there is a real CD and a CDr is substituted.

Two totally different situations

 

If you threaten to dispute the charge with your credit card company, they will usually stop arguing and refund the entire amount. They don't want to deal with hassle and expense of chargebacks. I think in this case it's justified when they deceive the buyer and send you a CD-R ripoff.