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Who's absorbing the cost?

The other day I purchased a couple of albums from HMV.

Got them home and discovered that one album (with two discs) was damaged

The damagewas to both discs and looked identical, it was though they had been jammed into a thin slot and had pressure applied to actally bend them.

I returned them to the same HMV store only to be told that I could either
  • Get a gift certificate
  • Get an in store credit
  • Exchange for another album of equal or greater value
  • BUT Refunding my money was against corporate policy
So I contacted HMV and got the same reply.

They also said they had no option because the Record companies refuse to take back damaged goods

However, most other stores I deal with do offer refunds on damaged albums.

My point to HMV - even if I exchanged the album they would still be left with an album they could not sell and would have to write off. So they could actually give me a refund and glean a lot of customer goodwill, but instead chose to alienate me.

Sometimes corporations cannot see the wood for the bottom line.

So who does absorb the cost if not the record company 
  1. The distributor
  2. The retailer
  3. The store
  4. The customer, i.e. built into the price of each album
#4 you say? That's what I believe

Thanks in advance 😩
williewonka
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
HMV's policy is irrelevant.  You purchased good playable discs - they did not provide them.

Dispute the charge on your credit card.  If HMV doesn't like it, let them take you to small claims court.  You can also complain to your state attorney general's office of consumer protection.
Post removed 
jeff1225
172 posts
 
My local record store said that their distributor refused to take returns. This is the reason that I only buy new vinyl at Amazon or Elusive Disk now. The manual nature of record pressing increases the changes for blemishes, I'll only deal with a company that stands by their merchandise. 
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,397 posts
 
whart...
This is probably an incomplete answer since I was never involved in the distribution side, but in the old days, the major labels ate the cost of defects and returns and probably pushed back against the pressing plants if there were defective pressings;
That's my understanding of how it worked it the golden days of vinyl records. My friend owned a shop and had a bin that contained defective records that were sent back to the distributor.
Another friend worked at Tower, and the same policy applied; defective records were shipped back. (1970's thru 80's).

Refunds were given if defects were found in the same batch of records the store received; e.g., returning a record that had clicks or pops, exchanging it, and finding the replacement had the same problem. These were the shops that would open an LP for you and play it and/or inspect it.
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,397 posts
 
jeff1225
My local record store said that their distributor refused to take returns.
That's what I've been told by several venders. That's why in today's music business model, the consumer always loses.
(Well, the artists also lose, but that's another story).
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