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  3. 140932-85419

Online LP Dealer Deceit - Any Experience(s) and Advice?

One of the joys of collecting LP's is the great variety available online, but yes, but there can be the downside.  I'm basically thinking of when your LP arrives and then you learn the LP is an outright deception.

Basically, I then contact the Seller and he (never a she yet) either does not answer and/or replies but is evasive and/or rude...and so ultimately I'm forced to appeal, for example, to eBay, Discogs and/or PayPal to enforce a refund(s).  

My most recent example is from Discogs with "Audio_Basics."  Very briefly, it went from his denial that the LP box set could be damaged to evasiveness and outright rudenesss.  And still no refund after 15 photos of the damage. His negative feedback was removed by Discogs and PayPal decided to force a purchase refund.

Please have you had such a bad online LP buying experience with whomever and have advice to protect oneself?  Knowing who to avoid would be the most helpful of course.  Thank you in advance.      
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4 responses Add your response
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Unfortunately you can be burned anywhere online nowadays, I have had a few badly described vinyls from eBay and Discogs sellers. Depends how badly I think misrepresented as to what I do about it.

Fortunately buyers have most protection on Ebay for sure ( which sucks when you are the seller though ... lol) and if I find a seller starting to get rude and aggressive I just open a case and let eBay deal with it.

However my good experiences far, far outweigh the bad so far, with ever increasing ecommerce there will be an increase in those who are not true enthusiasts and just looking to cash in on the vinyl interest.
If you find a good seller my advice would be to stick with them, I have two "goto" Ebay sellers now and my LRS and that pretty much is enough for me for now.
slaw's avatar
slaw
21,402 posts
 
Look at the ( What's up With Soundstage Direct) thread.
rodman99999
6,130 posts
 
I’ve been dealing with Elusive Disc, for a couple decades, without disappointment. A VPI SDS and RCM 16.5, some PS Audio stuff and lots of music. They pack the hell out of the vinyls, in boxes made for LPs, and everything’s always, simply right!     http://www.elusivedisc.com/
gillatgh's avatar
gillatgh
381 posts
 
I do some business at ReverbLP and have experienced some questionable practices such as an advertised item magically not being found, sold in "store" missing etc. This has happened a number of times. I believe this is to gain interest in their wares as most of us will order more than one item at a time. It is strange that the items unavailable are always the most wanted item, never the add on's. I can say that I've also had some very good experiences there. I think we need to be aware of the pitfalls of purchase from on line vendors.
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