Discogs just cost me $20 — caveat emptor

I just bought a Scorpio release of an official Polydor James Brown LP reissue of "Please, Please, Please." The listing says it's in mono, like the original 1958 release. But when you click the pictures, you can plainly see the label says stereo. If I had clicked on those pictures, I would have caught their mistake. I didn't, and that's on me.

Be careful relying on Discogs, and do your own due diligence.

James Brown And His Famous Flames* - Please, Please, Please

 

Pictures of the labels, art are user submitted by anyone and not always correct to the submission.
You may get your mono.

 

I thought about that, but I reached out to the one user who rated the album, and he confirmed for me that the pictures are accurate. Now maybe it's in mono anyway, we'll see.... I don't have a TT at the moment to test it, however.

 

Ahh, If it was a mis-print by the company, they should of stated it when this entry was created.

 

If it's not the one advertised see if the seller will take the return. I had a similar issue with a King Crimson cd where the seller didn't realize the difference between similar releases. I sent it back and got a refund.

The tone of your headline implies that Discogs tried to trick you.

 

The photos were submitted 2 years ago by someone other than the person you bought from most likely. Have you contacted the seller ?

You say you contacted the person that rated it, looking at the edit information, he's who submitted it years ago, but he's not the seller is he ?

The only person who matters is your seller, as he's the one who'll be shipping you your purchase.

 

None of that stuff was recorded in stereo.

I wouldn't pay such close attention to label details on a Scorpio release, they aren't exactly a high class operation.

 

I got a Jimi Hendrix Cry of Love from Discogs that was listed as Red Vinyl, I knew it wouldn't be, but it was on the Track label, which is what I wanted.

 

Surely your own due diligence would be to ask the seller first before committing to buy?

I wouldn't solely rely on photographs.

 

I've been burnt by Discogs a number of times. I'll never buy from them again. Buyer beware.

 

You're throwing out the baby with the bath water. Otherwise how could I have had 72 successful transactions ?
Discogs is where sellers sell from.
Like eBay, Amazon Marketplace, or our very own Classifieds here.

 

Well, everything on Discogs is user submitted, from the ground up, and anyone can add or change, if something is incorrect it is up to those who use the site to make sure it is corrected.

But it doesn't matter how correct an entry is if the sellers then don't list their items in the right place (and for some albums with hundreds of variations distinguished it can be a nightmare to get it right) you can never know that you will get exactly what is shown (especially if there is conflicting information of course).

There is no "them". Discogs is a database with a marketplace attached to it where anyone can list their records and sell them. You can sell, and if so you are part of "them". Discogs is as good or bad as the people who use it. If you have a problem you have to take it up with the specific seller, and if that doesn't work, if you have paid via PayPal you can get your money back there, there are systems for all this.

 

I've posted this a 100 times in the years I've been here
Diligence is due from the buyer at all times, especially when looking for certain manufactures, country of, and any/or variations. I don't always fault the seller in some cases. Always ask questions.
Do many people realize the US Thomas Dolby-Golden Age compact disc has two versions, where one uses single edits and vice verse?
Sister may have been dumped with a collection of stuff after her brother passed away. She having zero clue what she has

 

I was looking for an original pressing of Zappa in New York, the one with Punky's Whips on it.

I sent over 10 e-mails to sellers that advertised this before I got a seller that indeed had the version I was looking for. If it's important to you, it shouldn't be a problem to confirm via an e-mail before you send your cash.

As stated above, this is not a Discogs issue, it is a due diligence issue.

 

96 successful purchases on Discogs.

Pretty much every seller has been reasonable if there's been an issue. There's the odd "difficult" person, but no more than anything else in life.

That's my experience.

 

I like Discogs. Given the choice, I would prefer to spend a few extra bucks and buy from an ebay seller who provides pictures of the actual item rather than using a stock photo. Having said that, I've gotten some good deals on Discogs. Most sellers there are pretty responsive so when in doubt it doesn't hurt to ask questions.

 

I've gotten a bunch of records off Discogs over the years and find it to be a fairly reliable site. I've only had one seller send me a pressing that was different from the listing (and that was from the UK) but he took care of it. And one other time I snatched up a UK 1st pressing of Fragile from a US record shop seller and he responded a couple of days later telling me the item was no longer available, which pissed me off. But other than that, I've done well.
Before purchasing, I always check a seller's rating. Doesn't need be 100% (because I know how difficult buyers can be) but it needs to be real close. And I always read negative feedback to see if it was just a late shipment as opposed to poor grading or whatever. But ultimately, for used records its either Discogs or ebay and I much prefer Discogs.

 

you don't have a turntable but you're buying records. so what's the difference what's in the grooves if you can't hear it.

 

I have bought about 50 CDs on Discogs. No problems for me, and sellers have been courteous. Sometimes the pictures do help using ebay.

 

You didn't ask the seller for details, you haven't received the item yet, and you don't have a TT, but you start a thread to complain about it.

 

Mostly successful on Discogs. I think some people are confusing Discogs as a seller. They're not. Check feedback, ask questions, look at seller guidelines, etc. It's like a record fair. You can't blame a record fair for having a bad experience with a seller.

 

I'm pretty sure your beef here is not with Discogs but with the cheapie budget label Scorpio.

Scorpio's not known for their attention to detail. They've released lots of Blue Note reissues that use the mono cover artwork but have stereo discs inside. So the photos on Discogs were just accurate representations of the album you're getting. It's Scorpio's goof.

 

There’s a certain degree of challenging gamesmanship in negotiating successful transactions, and it always pays to try and figure out if the seller is clued into the nitty gritty of release versions and mastering, or if they’re just blindly inserting the sale item into an existing discography listing. It’s an all-too-human process, good or bad. I once tried to bargain down the price on an expensive Go-Betweens LP and the seller became quite comically incensed.

 

*Discogs* only exists as a user-edited database and platform for third-party sellers. The only "they" are the people who sell their wares through the site, which can be anyone who registers an account for free.

The platform provides a number of tools for buyers and sellers to gauge the reliability of those trading on the site, and as with any open marketplace, one will find sellers who are exemplary and others who may be downright undesirable. Approval ratings alone cannot weed out every bad deal or shady seller, since sellers get to rate their buyers as well and many will retaliate out of spite against a buyer who complains and gives an unsatisfactory rating, thus causing some to rate dishonestly to avoid a bad rating for themselves. This is why it is also necessary to read actual buyers comments about a seller, and take into consideration how many transactions a seller has completed as part of the criteria for gaining an idea of how reliable they are. It's not a prefect system, but it is not the fault of the site if sellers do shady business there.

 

I'm always amazed that people keep thinking Discogs is a singular webshop where you buy from Discogs themselves as the second party (or at least talk about it that way), especially when they've actually used the site to buy, it must be obvious when you get that far that it is a marketplace where there are countless different sellers...?

Seeing a picture of the actual item is great, but it is also the only positive thing I can think of with the eBay experience. I used to spend a crazy amount of time on eBay every day once upon a time, but I'm not sure I've bough anything there in the last five years.

On eBay you are totally at the mercy of the sellers' headlines and descriptions to be able to find anything, there are a myriad ways some items could be named and described and if you make a search a certain way you will get certain hits, but then there's that other listing of exactly the item you're looking for at a much better price and in perfect condition but they've missed a letter or word or whatever else somewhere so you never saw it. I have long ago given up on thrawling through thousands of listing on eBay to try to find items that could have infinite variations in how just the headline is created. Then even if the headline is perfect that still mostly doesn't tell you what pressing or version (or whatever you're looking for) it is, you have to scrutinize the description and try to figure out what it is depending on the seller's system or way of expressing themselves. On Discogs the database is the system and the entries are created with all the information, you then find exactly the release you are looking for and there (hopefully) are all the sellers that have it, it takes a fraction of the time and effort it would take on eBay. Then by a click you can see all other items that seller has from your want list or from a certain genre or format or whatever, or you can find all other sellers that have items by that artist, producer or record label. On eBay you have to find everything one item at a time in a painstaking process. Sure there are filters, but it's up to the sellers how or if they use them, on Discogs all the filter setting are already set for the listing and sellers just (hopefully) apply their items to the correct one. (Then of course there's the whole auction aspect of eBay, which I used to kind of enjoy because I could make a good deal, but which I now also loathe and would never bother with.)