I think I'm done with Discogs

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by CAP, Jun 9, 2022.

  1. astro70

    astro70 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Illinois
    Have had another streak of bad luck on Discogs lately. Lots of carelessly over-graded junk. Yesterday I got what was supposedly an unplayed, mint, stunning example of Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs. What I got was an LP that had a severe bend in it, and indents into the surface of the vinyl where something heavy had crushed it. The seller of course insists it must have happened in shipping. No, since the mailer is perfect and not a bend on it. I feel a little bad opening a paypal dispute but I’m getting real tired of dealing with these people. Grade your records correctly and stop trying to make a quick profit on records that belong in the trash.
     
    cwitt1980, Dave and jim249 like this.
  2. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Agreed. Avoid record stores and other large bulk sellers on Discogs and the experience improves greatly.
     
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  3. astro70

    astro70 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Illinois
    The more bad experiences I have on discogs with overgrading, the less I’m willing to bother trying to work things out with the seller before just opening a paypal dispute. It’s one thing when maybe I got a VG+ record that was supposed to be NM, but it plays fine and maybe was a fair price for VG+ anyway. Then sure, I’ll give the seller benefit of doubt that they messed up one time, maybe they didn’t have a great light to grade under or something. But when it’s records that are so obviously majorly damaged, and anyone with 20 seconds of time and eyes could look at it and tell you it has issues, and you still try to pass that off as a perfect condition record, you can kick rocks. I mean here I am, out £22 in shipping already for what was supposed to be a mint perfect unplayed record, and the record itself was only a few £ more. So to ship it back, by the time I pay for postage and the seller gets the record back in 2 weeks, I get what, like £3? Absolutely not worth it. I guess I could just let it go and take the loss, but again when something is so obviously wrong with the product you are selling and you’re too careless to notice before sending it halfway across the world, maybe you should be the one eating the cost on it.

    And then, after offering the bare minimum of a partial refund or returning the item, buyer pays shipping, the seller still gets all pissy if you leave negative feedback. Half the time I don’t even bother because I don’t want to deal with some jerk sending nasty messages and pleading me to remove (honest) feedback. To be honest I’m about done working with these sellers, still not getting jack, and then they want positive feedback. You get positive feedback if you don’t rip people off and take them for a ride. Not if you rip them off and then still expect to come out on top.
     
    skisdlimit likes this.
  4. jim249

    jim249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah, USA
    Sellers are selling junky records now because that is what is mostly left. All the really nice records are in collections by now.
     
    iloveguitars, Cronverc, Dave and 2 others like this.
  5. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    This is the worst offense when it comes to badly grading an lp. The ones I have to return, always fall into this category. You can often tell, even before the entire record is out of the sleeve that it's nowhere near the condition advertised. I find it hard to believe that these cases are genuine errors when the issues are so visible. Some sellers just outright lie IMO and others make little to no effort grading. They probably have a quick look in bad light, get motivated by the high price it will sell at, and consider it done.
     
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  6. jim249

    jim249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah, USA
    They are gambling a young collector won't know any better.
     
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  7. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    If you are buying a record advertised as Mint that is unsealed, this is already a pretty big red flag. I would ask for photos of anything you are buying that is being advertised as Mint, but opened - at any price point. For any NM records I'm buying over $15 or so, I ask for photos. Unless it's a seller I've used several times and trust. Requests for photos are sometimes either declined or go unanswered; it's true. Have the patience to move on and don't buy. Remember, the only reason you are considering buying the item in the first place is because it was either among the lowest priced pieces in NM or M condition that you saw, or because it's something you've been after for awhile and you don't often see it listed in M or NM condition at all. In both cases, the need to see it before you buy it should be apparent. You probably wouldn't rely on a condition sticker and not take it out of the sleeve if you saw a record in a brick-and-mortar store; why do it on Discogs?
     
  8. astro70

    astro70 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Illinois
    They almost certainly just figure that most people won’t notice or care. I bet those types HATE collector types like us who will actually hold them accountable. I suppose I could go and ask them to confirm condition and send photos etc, but photos of records online rarely accurately show the condition. Hardly anyone knows that you need extremely bright direct lighting, and a high quality camera. Even most phone photos just don’t give you an accurate picture of the record in real life.

    Even so, if you grade a record NM, and then write a description saying it’s unplayed and perfect condition, you better be sure.
    I still fail to see how it would be my fault that the seller miss-represented what they sold me. Of course I look at records when I’m record shopping in real life and don’t just take it for sticker grades. But I also don’t expect to return used records to shops because they’re miss-graded either. Once in a while I get something from the local shop that looks really nice but has audible issues like groove wear. Unless I paid over $40-$50 for it, I just keep it and take the loss. That’s the beauty of paypal and eBay though. If you get ripped off, that extra protection is there for you to use against fraudulent and dishonest sellers. If those protections were not offered I’d have stopped buying records online years ago.

    My gripe is that so many sellers seem perfectly content either not having any idea of how to grade and sell records, and not putting any time into even trying to accurately grade and price them, but still pricing them at top dollar or “eBay pricing”. Or, the alternative is that they’re purposely dishonest and want to pass off their trash onto someone else while profiting off it. In no way is that a buyer’s fault. Sites like Discogs are set up on a bit of an honor system. You are supposed to trust seller ratings and descriptions of items for sale. When you can no longer do that, there’s a problem.

    I would stop buying records online all together at this point, but I live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Maybe once every few years, the only store within an hour’s drive maybe gets 1 or 2 decent collections in with records that are hard to find, or that I’m actually interested in buying. The rest of the time, all they can get ahold of is common rock records that most of us have all of by now. There’s absolutely no way I would own 60% of the records I do, especially the records that I care most about. Beatles in mono? Local store has had 3 maybe 4 single titles make their way into the store that past 5 years. Velvet Underground? Saw the first peelable banana VU&Nico come in after 5 years of shopping there weekly. And I can forget about completing my International Artists label collection by only shopping locally. All those records are in Texas. I quite literally have to either trust online sellers, or don’t get the records I want. That’s not at all a complaint about that store, it’s just the reality of buying records locally now. Most of us don’t have stores that specialize in say, Jazz, or rare Psych records.
     
    skisdlimit and Dave like this.
  9. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    Guys, this misgrading crap you LP aficionados are experiencing is happening more and more with CD's these last couple of years too so we're all in the same boat it appears.
     
    eddiel and Peter_R like this.
  10. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    You bought it on Discogs, I don't think you'll have to pay to send it back, unless it's different in the UK.
     
  11. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    There's been some items where I take a video of me opening the package. So far I haven't had to use one. I've been burned by junky packaging. If you're in a different country (including Canada!), put something in there to support the friggin' record! Obviously all records need some kind of support no matter where it's from.
     
    astro70 likes this.
  12. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    On Discogs, PayPal is the "arbitrator" of disputes. So buyer has to foot the bill, which they can always claim via PayPals, return shipping refund service, so technically free returns up to a certain amount. Discogs doesn't get involved with disputes between buyers and sellers.
     
    astro70 likes this.
  13. astro70

    astro70 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Illinois
    Yup, you know my story about that… :realmad:
     
    cwitt1980 likes this.
  14. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    #1... ah crap!
     
    astro70 likes this.
  15. theMot

    theMot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    Photos are not foolproof but they help a lot. First thing I look at is the sleeve, if the sleeve is over graded good luck with them grading the record correctly. If I’m buying online I usually go to eBay first these days. You can weed out a lot of over graded records quickly there. More chance of getting a good deal too because some people who list don’t know the pressing they have or some auctions just don’t get a lot of traction.
     
    eddiel likes this.
  16. Boomy

    Boomy Senior Member

    Location:
    Indiana
    A lot of prices on there are :wtf:
     
  17. Peter_R

    Peter_R Maple Syrple Gort Staff

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    Right now I am dealing with a schlemiel that is not very responsive.
    I'm trying to spend over $100 in his store, and he can't be bothered to answer a question and send a couple of pictures.
    Been waiting 4 days.
    I guess I'm not spending enough money for him to get off his duff.

    Should he finally reply, I am tempted to tell him I moved on, and he took too damn long.

    Am I being impatient?
    Is 4 days with 0 reply a reasonable wait time?
     
  18. theMot

    theMot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    I’ve been waiting 3 months for a quote for a pool “cause Covid”. I say give it a couple more months.
     
    Peter_R likes this.
  19. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    :shrug: Maybe he's on vacation right now and forgot to suspend his listings?
     
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  20. Peter_R

    Peter_R Maple Syrple Gort Staff

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    He replied to my initial messag.took him 7 hours, which is fine. Since the second message, nothing.
     
    Dave likes this.
  21. p147

    p147 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sussex. U.K.
    Oh, I don't know, l would assume quite a few audiophiles are parting with there collections probably more so now then ever for one reason or another, in my case I have moved onto other formats and just have too much, the problem is sorting the 'wheat from the chaff' as they say.
     
    Dave likes this.
  22. Peter_R

    Peter_R Maple Syrple Gort Staff

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    So, besides Discogs, and eBay, where else is there for OOP CDs?

    Yes, we have the classifieds, but for non-US residents like myself, there's maybe six or seven sellers that acknowledge the rest of the planet.

    So, where else can someone go to find what they're looking for?
     
    Dave likes this.
  23. Joseph.McClure

    Joseph.McClure Forum Resident

    Location:
    Memphis, TN
    It’s not that we don’t acknowledge the rest of the world but we don’t want to get a PayPal chargeback when the item hasn’t been received in a week.
     
  24. Peter_R

    Peter_R Maple Syrple Gort Staff

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    With all due respect, I have yet to encounter anyone expecting an International package within a week.
    And, for what it's worth, my experience had been that once a package crosses the border, it arrives quickly to its destination.
    It's an internal problem.

    Case in point: I ordered a package from Salem, Oregon. It spent THIRTY-ONE DAYS zig-zagging across the United States.
    It arrived in Canada on July 6th. I had it in my hands on July 8th.
     
    Dave likes this.
  25. Joseph.McClure

    Joseph.McClure Forum Resident

    Location:
    Memphis, TN
    Ok…it’s the US’s fault.
     

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