Discogs can be an awful place. Beware.

A month ago I bought half a dozen classical records. After more than a week the seller had not shipped them, so I contacted them. Had to wait a couple more days to get a reply. The records were in storage, were going to be retrieved soon. More days went by and still wouldn't ship. Another message was sent, even more waiting before obtaining a reply. Wouldn't ship then either and stopped answering messages. Seller was suspended by Discogs for not replying. After three weeks had to file a claim with Paypal to get my money back.

Even though they were in the wrong, left them neutral feedback out of courtesy. The kicker: they responded with negative feedback. Discogs is useless and will not remove it.

Discogs is the wild, wild west. Beware whom you deal with over there.

 

I try to only buy from actual record stores on Discogs.

 

What's Discogs' explanation for not removing the seller's negative feedback?

Not meaning to be insensitive but there's got to be more to the story than what is being presented.

 

Earth can be a horrible place, beware.

 

No, there isn't. If you go to y0ur profile page, select a feedback entry, and click on 'Request review', you will be shown the limited cases under which Discogs will remove feedback, which doesn't include the seller being abusive:

This seller also had other feedback indicating that after a month an order of 17 records had neither been shipped nor refunded, but unfortunately I disregarded it. The moral of the story is: read seller feedback and take it seriously because if a problem arises Discogs is utterly useless.

The world is a little better when ordering from serious places such as Ebay or Amazon Marketplace.

 

I've had a similar issue with a buyer right here on SHF. Failed to ship anything and I had to go to PayPal which gave me a prompt refund. That's why you pay for protection, rather than friends.

Had another situation arise on AudioKarma. Seller didn't ship an item for a week, which drives me nuts. I let it go and he eventually posted a tracking# and the item arrived.

So it's not just discogs, which I don't use other than as a reference point. YMMV anywhere.

 

Not at all what I'm referring to.

You're not ordering from a place. You're ordering from a person. That person can be on any platform and there are plenty of flakes everywhere.

It astounds me how this seems to be missed by most.

 

Different platforms impose different standards on their sellers. I have been shopping online since 1999 and have bought many thousands of books and CDs from all sorts of sellers worldwide. This is the first time something like this happens to me, and on one of my very first orders on Discogs. From now on I will only use that site for items I absolutely cannot obtain otherwise.

 

This sentence alone made me laugh out loud.
These are both not only the same type of platforms, with individual sellers, where one can be a Choirboy, while the next is Satan, but also, from my personal experience, eBay can be the worst place for buying records on the secondary market.

 

Flea Bay is even worse! I sold a Marantz stereo to a guy. He gets it, TAKES PARTS OUT OF IT, then just ships it back to me, says it wasn't what was advertised. PayPal automatically reversed the transaction in his favor. Im stuck with a stereo without parts, out the money, and out the shipping back and forth. Total BS

 

Strange people can make each and every place a strange place, that's not a Discogs-specific feature. Of course, you have a point here, but I think you should specify the Discogs related problems: (a) the db has been built by laymen/-women and the peer-review system is a joke; you'll never know, if a year of release really matches your copy unless you knew the facts in advance, (b) you won't find pics of the actual item for sale; I collect vinyl for fourty years now and I always thought it was really helpful to compare pics of the cover to the grading of the cover. In case some jerk grades a cover with heavy ringwear, seamsplits and ballpen essays on rear cover vg++, you may assume that his individual nm media grading might cause trouble too, when recieving the disc. (c) You have to realise that a Discogs fb of 99.2% may stand for a horrible seller and that Discogs staff are not really helpful and fast, when it comes to solving problems; here's a story 'bout a recent purchase on the said platform: bought a vg+/vg+ ('ottimo stato'=best condition) 1957 east coast pressing of In Orbit (Riverside:Clark/Monk) from an Italian seller, turned out to be a scratched g+ copy, g(+) cover, seam and spine split, heavy ringwear, woc etc. Took me two weeks to leave neg fb without risking retaliatory fb, still had to pay return shipping.

 

Ask them to let you change your own feedback, so that you could give a negative one with a proper explanation.

 

Again, you're making blanket statements based on a single experience which didn't even cost you any $. You got a negative feedback entry. Sucks but not the end of the world.

I'm a serious seller and treat each transaction as if I were on the other end. If you're letting one idiot ruin an entire platform, that's on you.

Good luck with that type of reasoning.

 

I'll also state a lot of sellers are on both platforms, making the argument moot anyway.

 

I meant to add that to my post above, but forgot by the time I had finished typing.
There's an item in the Amazon Marketplace right now, $30.00 cheaper than the seller is asking on his own site. Victim of the algorithms at Amazon, but living proof nonetheless.

 

That works better for records (sometimes), but when it comes to CD, I find quite often they've been buffed if they are being sold by a record store on Discogs. I received an order today from a record store - 4 discs listed as "near mint" but only one actually was. The other three were buffed and still had many visible scratches. The seller blamed it on his brother helping him out at the shop and not listing condition properly, but the seller was the one who mailed them out to me and didn't bother to check.

 

I have fortunately had nothing but 1OO% positive experiences on Discogs.
But it pays to be cautious, thorough in
one's feedback investigation of new sellers, and ever wary of first-time transactions. I also never take risks with sellers who do not have a rating higher than 99.5% .

Better luck to you in the future !

 

So far I've had pretty much 98% positive experiences there. (I buy mostly CDs, but the vinyl I do get is rare so there's that).

However it seems recently Discogs has been making some changes to their site that have left many sellers unhappy. Though I'm not totally sure what's afoot, I got a whiff of trying to please corporate overlords/potential partners through these changes, so proceed with caution friends.

 

Did you actually file a request? I've seen people file requests for similar situations and it's been removed.

 

If you haven't had a bad experience on eBay yet consider yourself lucky. Things go wrong regardless of where you buy from. One transaction on Discogs and it goes bad, that's just bad luck and it's not the wild wild west.

 

Those changes have not happened yet. They are due to come into force in Oct 1 IIRC. It concerns a new policy that forces seller to accept payment via PayPal only along with automatic shipping policies, which will not work for many sellers due to their local post office pricing methods. They are also updating the check out process so buyers can check out immediately without having to wait for an invoice from a seller (since the shipping will be automatically added). The last change is likely to appease stupid buyers who are used to buying on Amazon.

Anyway, many sellers are not happy about the PayPal only policy and many are not happy about the ASP enforcement since it will be impossible for them to include shipping costs for every variation. Unlike eBay, PayPal has no plans to integrate their shipping module with the post office so that prices can be pulled directly.

But outside of that, nothing really changes for buyers.

 

You didn't want to help other potentially harmed buyers by leaving Neg feedback? You figured you'd be nice and just leave neutral?

 

Yes I did. I never received a reply, my negative feedback was not removed, and the seller has been reinstated and is now happily selling again with unscathed feedback ratings thanks to my politeness.

I've shopped on Ebay for many years, and privately ordered books from small booksellers in Croatia, Georgia or India, and never encountered a seller this brazen or a platform this forgiving of them. I don't think it is simply bad luck.

Whatever the case, for prospective users of Discogs, read seller feedback and take it seriously because you won't receive any support from the site if anything goes wrong.

 

That's a old trick the rats have been pulling for years now. Synthesizers are a big target for this. When selling gear always document and photograph everything. I've opened my **** up to show the bits were all there to protect myself. Never had a issue myself but know people who have and it sucks.

 

Based on what? A bad apple sold something on a platform and you're blindly shunning that platform. If you prefer eBay, that's fine - I merely find the reasoning in regards to blacklisting Discogs entirely to be flawed.