Discogs experiences-postive and negative*

Geez, everybody was new once. He may take PayPal and not know how to set it up. It’s not like the Discogs software is exactly intuitive. Write the guy and tell him there are boots around and you’d like to buy it if he himself bought it from Amazon or whatever, and ask if he takes pp.

 

To be fair, I did ask a previous seller if he would mind taking PayPal when he preferred taking credit cards. He was more than amenable to that suggestion, and it ended up being a fine transaction. I believe that seller was more of a pro retailer, though. I (knock wood) have only ever had good buying experiences. Being in the US, I have tried to stay with US or UK sellers lately, mostly out of wanting to cut down on long shipping waits.

 

I bought three CD sets from a seller just now. They were each a Make Offer, he accepted each but then I had three separate orders with three separate shipping charges. $10 for each order, which is kinda high for shipping CDs, no way I’m paying $30 shipping total.

Anyway, I asked him to please combine the orders and shipping, seems like a reasonable enough request, I’ve never had any other seller object to it. He sends me back this message:

Hello,

That is an inquiry better suited to the negotiating time rather than after a price has been agreed upon, with no mention of further alteration of conditions. I am, however, not unsympathetic. How about you pay the invoices in full and I’ll refund you $15- half the shipping?

 

If you haven't paid yet, he can combine the three invoices into one within eBay and send you a single invoice with the corrected shipping amount. I have done this within the past week, when someone bought two items. It's cleaner all around because he will only need one label. You can resonably act surprised that he didn't just do this automatically, everybody else does. $15 is probably more than you were expecting but if you bought them from three different vendors they probably would have cost you $4-5 each and he did take your offers, so I'd pay that much in your place without complaining. Remember he doesn't even get the $15, they take 13% off the top.

ETA: sorry, I didn't see you said discogs, not eBay, but he can do the same thing there - I just looked back at an old multiple item discogs order to check.

 

what a weird response. maybe the seller just isn't familiar with the process of combining orders.

 

Uh, no. Seems like he's trying to get more $ than what he'd normally get. efinitely wouldn't trust that he'd refund you later on. What a preposterous proposition on his part. Had a Discogs seller try to pull a similar one on me. He accepted an offer, his seller terms stated shipping would be $5 but he put that charge as $8 to compensate for the difference in the offer he accepted. Quite underhanded. He thought I wouldn't notice but I called him out on it and he fixed it.

I'd ask him to contact someone from Discogs on how to combine orders if he's unfamiliar with the process and to combine shipping. Do the seller's terms indicate shipping for 3 CDs? If so, he has no choice but to abide by them. Otherwise, he's in violation and you can report him. If the shipping fees aren't laid out in the terms, you can always renegotiate as it clearly doesn't cost $30 to ship 3 CDs. In the event he proves to be unreasonable, ask to cancel the sale.

 

Very odd response. When you make an offer on Discogs it clearly states that your offer does not include shipping.
Also, any seller would know that a buyer would likely want all three items shipped together as well. I wonder what his sellers term say about shipping and/or combined shipping.

Personally I would not pay in full and then wait for a refund even if I did want to pay the postage being charged. I'd simply ask that he lowers each one accordingly, which is possible.

Even with the discount you'd be paying $15 to ship three cds. Now if you were in Canada I'd say that sounds about right lol But you're in the US and that doesn't sounds right at all.

 

It was a really weird interaction, I was definitely not expecting to be chided the way I was for what seems to me like a simple, reasonable request. I wrote back and told him basically he could either combine them like I asked or just cancel the orders, I wasn’t playing games and the same CDs were for sale from plenty of other sellers. Next thing I know I get an email saying all three orders were cancelled. Oh well

 

You should check if he gave you feedback.

 

You dodged a bullet, IMHO.

I agree with @Yost that you should keep an eye on your feedback and contact Discogs if he leaves a negative entry on your profile so they can remove it.

 

yikes. i'm getting anxious just thinking about having this happen to me.

yes--make sure the seller doesn't leave you adverse feedback for their ignorance.

 

Sounds like quite the dirtbag seller to me. Sheesh, even if I couldn't figure it out, and I can BTW, I'd say that I'll go to the post office and determine what the actual cost is and then re-invoice you. Not exactly rocket science from where I sit.

 

I’d say the balance of my experiences on Discogs have been positive. I mean, yeah, there’s been stuff over-graded but that’s bound to happen. This and one other seller — the other being a guy who suggested I’m more suited to ordering from Amazon when I messaged asking why my order hadn’t shipped after two weeks — have been my only experiences with actual weirdos.

The thing is, you have to be service-minded if you’re going to be selling people things. Even if you’re just a hobbiest or simply trying to cash in on emptying out your closet. All it takes is just a little bit of the ole Golden Rule, imagining what you’d want yourself, and it’s all gucci. Don’t bring your weird axes you have to grind to the transaction, or you probably won’t be selling much!

ETA: I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, just wanted to get that all out of my head.

 

I tend to agree with @Strat-Mangler here. I don't know if the seller was trying to put one over on you necessarily, but I think it's likely he passively allowed the transaction to go forward with the $30 worth of shipping charges so he could get back a bit of whatever he gave away during negotiations bout the prices of the items themselves.

To my eyes, his response seems to say something to the effect of, "If you didn't think to ask for combined shipping, it's not my responsibility to offer it to you, and technically you've already committed to purchase, so I'm kind of annoyed but I realize I'm not being entirely reasonable so fine, I'll give you a discount, but I'm not redoing my invoice."

I agree it's weird. It takes all kinds I guess.

 

Sadly, I now make it policy to interrogate every seller on Discogs for just this reason (too many 'M/NM/EX+' records arriving in 'VG' and 'Fair' condition). Sometimes, even after said interrogation, they arrive in audibly shoddy condition. It really is a lottery. Word of warning, too. A good amount of sellers I've dealt with don't like to be challenged over their gradings. I had one guy tell me that he'd been successfully dealing for over 25 years, and in all that time he'd never heard a single record that didn't have surface noise, crackles, and pops. He told me that it was 'part of the format'. I told him that I have records from the 70s that are as silent as CDs between tracks.

 

You don't have to justify yourself. If paid via PayPal, you theoretically could return the album for any reason whatsoever and the seller has no choice but to accept.

Myself, I've had a run of 3 separate sellers who swore the albums were in NM condition but were in VG at best. Perfect or next to perfect rating, too. A waste of time for all. Even when grading visually, it is extremely easy to tell these aren't anywhere near NM.

My guess is they couldn't be bothered to check.

 

Bought a 45 that was listed same day. Paid for it immediately. 2 days later the seller claims it is lost?

 

Finally tried Discogs.

Ordered a Mint single 12" from the UK. Arrived in 7 days to Canada. It was mint as stated.
Then I bought a new/mint lp and a sealed lp from the same seller in Greece. Arrived in 10 days to Canada. Both mint!

So far so good. Both sellers had 100% feedback.

 

The last thing I bought on discogs was two years ago. I have a want list of about 22 items where I get daily updates of any additions/changes. About 3 months of just seeing the same overpriced stuff posted over and over. Seems like anymore brick and mortar is 80% of my purchases with about 20% on ebay.

 

This is basically an epidemic in the record grading world. I recon people are too scared to use VG+ because, despite an lp in that condition being in great shape, no one wants to be just very good plus a bit better.

Seriously though, I recon sellers who do these sorts of things are out and out liars who are just hoping that people don't bother to return anything.

 

I've covered this before, but maybe not in this thread. Basically, as a seller, there is zero downside to overgrading your records. Especially at discogs, where it's so easy to get negative feedback removed, but really on any online marketplace.

Let's say you overgrade a VG+ record as NM-.

Some percentage of buyers won't say anything. They'll take the overgraded record and never complain. As a seller, this is pure win, i.e., free money, and my guess, based on some of these sellers' ratings, is that this happens at least 50% of the time.

Some percentage of buyers will complain, and accept a partial refund to make things 'right'. Now you've still made as much money as you would have made if you listed it as VG+ in the first place, but you've made a sale that you wouldn't have made if it had been listed as VG+ (because the buyer was actually looking for a NM- copy). So this is still a win, because you've moved some inventory that would otherwise still be sitting on a shelf somewhere.

Some percentage of buyers will be upset enough to return the record and request a refund. But I'm willing to bet (based on my own experience as a buyer) that this percentage is pretty small, probably less than 25%. In this case, you're out a little money for shipping, but the extra money you've made from the other 75% of your sales will more than make up for it.

As I say, overgrading -- especially when combined with a weak feedback system like discogs' -- has literally no downside.

 

I'm not so sure regarding eBay. Regarding Amazon it might kill your account without any chance to ever sell there again.

And in case all or at last many sellers are overgrading there is no big advantage left. You actually have to follow the pack not to have a big disadvantage.

 

Not so sure I agree with this. If you read the feedback closely you can tell if the seller grades properly. Ideally you want to see a conservative grader.. Acceptable is accurate grading. For sellers who over-grade then you are just rolling the dice..

 

Sight unseen, I downgrade all grades a full grade when bidding/buying. Exceptions being people I've bought from before and/or very descriptive commentary along with the grade. Maybe I miss out on some good deals, but it minimizes disappointment and, as mentioned, there's way too many people that can't grade or willfully overgrade.

 

yeah, this is basically how discogs expects their feedback system to work. ya gotta skim the positive in addition to the red & grey. for instance: i just recently bought a "NM, PERFECT" lp that was far from. the seller made it right, no questions asked. apology given as well. so i gave him positive feedback, noting the grading error but the overall great interaction. now seeing that might turn some potential buyers off, but surely the overall experience was positive and we worked it out. there'd be no reason for me to be harsh.