I think I'm done with Discogs

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

  1. MarkBK

    MarkBK Well-Known Member

    Location:
    IL
    I’ve had fairly good experiences on Discogs, with just a few issues. Vinyl purchases have been the worst experiences, with jackets and vinyl not being at all accurate for NM and VG+. In the 2 purchases that had issues, one had seam splits and both were noisy with pops, surface defects and sounded worn or poorly pressed. In both cases, sellers offered to refund purchases. CD purchases have been more reliable with one having shipping damage to the case, but everything else in great condition.

    My worst experience was with a seller that rated me poorly for a honest mistake on my behalf. While shopping I had a browser issue before I could submit payment and a purchase I was making disappeared. After trying several ways to find it or the seller, I gave up and looked for another seller to purchase the same from, assuming that either someone else got the purchase I was trying to make that disappeared or that it never registered in Discogs. A week later I received notice of failure to submit payment for the lost/missing person and immediately reached out to the seller to apologize for the error and explain what happened. The seller in turn, just gave me a poor rating in Discogs. Literally the only bad rating I’ve ever had. Lesson learned after looking at the rating of the seller, is NEVER buy anything from this guy.

    All that said, I am most reluctant to buy vinyl used unless it is particularly desirable.
     
  2. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    You should request a review on that rating and explain it to Discogs. The fact that you reached out and the seller refused to do anything will probably get that review taken down.
     
    eddiel likes this.
  3. Ken Dryden

    Ken Dryden Forum Resident

    Discogs will make adjustments to ratings when an honest mistake happens. When I was new to the website, I listed a handful of titles for sale, but was not visiting the site daily adding my collection and shopping. Someone ordered an LP and I was unaware because it went to a secondary email that I didn’t check daily. The order expired before I realized what had happened and I offered a further discount to the buyer and explained my mistake, but all I got was negative feedback. When I submitted an inquiry to Discogs, the negative feedback was removed promptly.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2022
  4. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Well I hope you changed that, and that they no longer have 100% positive!
     
    raye_penber likes this.
  5. Canadian

    Canadian Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I've made a lot of Discogs purchases, probably around 500 but might be more. It is relatively risk-free if you follow a few simple rules:
    1. Never buy from someone with a positive rating less than 99.5%.
    2. If still undecided, read negative reviews. Are they recent? Are they all they same issue?
    3. Never buy lower than VG+. I can deal with (and often clean up) a little crackle but I can't deal with or fix repetitive clicks. They completely ruin records for me. VG records will often have those and you can't send them back in good faith if they were rated VG.
    4. The more sales the seller has, the better. For instance, someone with 5,000 sales and a high rating who is selling a VG+ version is a better bet than a cheaper NM version from a new seller.
    5. If you are looking for first or early pressings, especially if expensive, verify that the seller has accurately identified the pressing. Ask them to confirm the deadwax info, cover detail etc. I have found that the world of FPs is full of near-misses.
    6. Take care regarding anomalous listings. You can find bargains when a seller has listed something unlike most of their inventory... a rare jazz record amongst a bunch of Springsteen and Tom Petty, for example. They may be too young, or not a fan, or whatever, just don't know what they have. So the odds they have taken care to identify the right pressing are lower.
    7. Be assertive if there is an issue. Don't get angry, just be clear with them, and report them if they won't budge. I've dealt successfully with three bad sellers this way, got my money back and moved on. 99% of all sellers will deal quickly with an issue once identified.
    Not sure how one can be "done" with Discogs. It's the biggest record market in the world.
     
    bug2362, Dave, AL01 and 3 others like this.
  6. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    8. If the record is really important to you, and price is on the high side compared to other offers of that title, then before you buy it, ask seller if there is anything like damage or writing to cover or labels that is not mentioned? Is there a cut corner, or hole punch, or dings to corners? Anything I should know about?
     
    Jarleboy likes this.
  7. raye_penber

    raye_penber .

    Location:
    Highlands.
    9. Actually read the thread and realize, to your horror, that most people have already gone through steps 1-8.
     
    quicksrt, eddiel, Dave and 1 other person like this.
  8. danielkov86

    danielkov86 Playing Devil's Avocado Since 1986

    One thing I've started doing lately is when I look at a seller's negative feedback, I click on the buyer's profile to see if he has retaliatory feedback from the seller. If so, then I know the seller should be avoided.

    Good list, I agree with most. I think I disagree with #4. I've noticed that many times the more sales a seller has -- and importantly the more negatives he has -- he's more likely not to care about negative feedback, as it would be cushioned by his already high positive rating.
     
    Canadian and quicksrt like this.
  9. p147

    p147 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sussex. U.K.
    As we all know, grading is going to be very subjective, but I think the one thing above all else is how the sellers deals with a dispute, If a buyer with me has a problem (and I have had a couple and I still have 100% feedback) then I refund in full INC postage and ask the buyer to keep the item, life is too short.
     
  10. Peter_R

    Peter_R Maple Syrple Gort Staff

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    I think that's the point.
    It is the biggest market, and the posts on this thread are a means of expressing exasperation with a place that should be a Shangri La for most of us.
     
  11. Canadian

    Canadian Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I had read it. What you say isn't entirely true, though yes some points had been made before. I figured I'd just set out what I have learned in one place.
     
    raye_penber and chazz101s like this.
  12. Canadian

    Canadian Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Yes, totally agree. There's a seller called MadPierrot who is the king of this. Mind you sometimes negative original comments can be kind of capricious or personal, rather than factual. So you just have to assess whose behaviour is more issue.
     
  13. Canadian

    Canadian Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Fair point. There is one seller PhiladelphiaMusic which does high volume. In my opinion their records are graded too high as a rule, having bought quite a few back in the day. The prices are low so I never complained, until one time I did when the grading was way off base. I was promptly refunded and blocked, which seemed a little extreme -- but as you say, high volume means never having to say you're sorry.
     
    chazz101s likes this.
  14. Ken Dryden

    Ken Dryden Forum Resident

    I have purchased CDs from Philadelphia Music with no issues, but sorry to learn that they have an issue with grading LPs.
     
    cwitt1980 likes this.
  15. danielkov86

    danielkov86 Playing Devil's Avocado Since 1986

    I've bought from PhiladelphiaMusic and have encountered that very issue. They actually have a storefront in Philly that is my favorite shop to go to when I'm in town. I always leave with a stack of new wax from there.
     
  16. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    i have come to find that there are a few really rude bastards at discogs. and there really no need to be that way.
     
    BurntOutBassment, Dave and Peter_R like this.
  17. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    My first Discogs experience was my last. Ordered two CDs for $5.50, seller did not have shipping cost on listing. Came back asking $7.00 for shipping, and I politely declined.

    I found out, a YEAR later, that the person had rated me 'Neutral' in reviewing the transaction. What transaction? Most Discogs sellers have an auto-decline set if you're not a net-positive transactor, so as a result, I cannot do any business on there.

    So my one 'transaction' killed my ability to buy or sell anything on the platform. Which is fine by me. I'll just use it for cataloging my collection, and nothing else. It is a great app aside from this.
     
  18. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I was going to post that this is not possible but based on the timeline it looks like it happened before the current ASP policy. It's one of the benefits of the policy, you can now see your postage costs up front. Usually anyway.

    The seller was able to leave feedback because you did enter into a transaction. You committed to buy. It's a shame you didn't see it at the time as you could've appealed it. It's possible they would've removed it if the seller did not state the postage costs in their seller terms.

    You can still try to buy if you find something you want. If the seller has a min rating set, just message them, explain it was a one off blah blah and you intend to buy. I had a few people reach out to me and I set my level lower so they could buy.
     
    chazz101s likes this.
  19. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Sometimes the response to Neg from the seller is:

    "We offered full refund since buyer was unhappy, but they refused to return the item, they wanted refund & item"
    or
    "Buyer never contacted us about an issue, and just hit us with a negative"
    or
    "Buyer initiated paypal dispute without contacting us first, avoid this difficult person"

    So if one more additional comment is left for that buyer stating the same thing, I get a feeling I should cancel their new order, and not even ship it.
     
  20. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    Webster - transaction: an exchange or transfer of goods, services, or funds

    A 'commitment to buy' is not a transaction. Nothing was exchanged.
     
  21. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    It appears you don't know how Discogs works so, not really a surprised at the end result.

    The transaction was not completed because you cancelled it. Since you did not honour your commitment to buy, the seller was able to leave you feedback. You could have left the seller feedback as well. Consider it the penalty for breaking the contract. : )

    In your case, it would've made more sense to ask what the postage rates were before hand rather than agreeing to buy the cds without knowing what the postage was and then backing out.

    Now if your seller did indeed have no rates posted anywhere including his seller terms (which they had to do), they have blame in the mess. Your feedback for them would've been your opportunity to point that out. It's shame you didn't know how it worked because if you had, you'd probably had left them feedback warning others.
     
    quicksrt likes this.
  22. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    Hey, thanks for pointing out several things that in hindsight are all completely obvious. That really helps.
     
    quicksrt likes this.
  23. slop101

    slop101 Guitar Geek

    Location:
    So. Cal.
    I am buying less and less from Discogs, mostly because even used vinyl prices have become ridiculous - but then that's not an issue inherent to just Discogs, as it's something that infected the entire industry, and Discogs just happens to be a big part of that.

    I still think, as a database, it's a pretty damn good resource, and I love having my entire collection of records and the information for each release, within the palm of my hand. You don't have to buy from it to use it in that way.
     
    patient_ot likes this.
  24. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    Sales are the highest they've been since the 80s, so it is the downside of the industry being on the upswing.

    The good news is that record production is peaking again, so many titles that would otherwise be hard to find are getting reissued. The question there is the provenance of the source, and a person's desire to have the original, or just the music.

    Another downside though is Record Store Day clogs the presses for months with novelty pressings. One can argue on the value of that, but forcing a huge amount of inventory to drop on two specific days a year is a supply chain disaster.
     
    patient_ot likes this.
  25. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    At one time I felt they were on the conservative side. Maybe someone different is running the Discogs store but their gradings are no longer conservative IMO. They obviously are putting LOTS of items for sale online. It's a case of quality gradings being sacrificed over quantity. They did seem good about taking care of an issue for me but didn't really respond about it. Just a quick refund and no message or apology.
     

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