Ableton Forum

so recently i had a really bad experience buying a record on EBAY. long story short, it arrived warped. (possibly damaged during shipping) the seller was a real A-HOLE about giving me a refund for the record showing up in bad condition. so i have been kind of sketched out about buying records mail order.
has anyone ever purchased anything from INSOUND? or any place like that? someplace i don't have to worry about getting messed up stuff, and having to fight for a refund.
is getting a p.o. box a good idea for records?
thanks ahead of time for the knowledge yo!

i've only bought one record on ebay. pop-punk (imo) band, The Dark - Chemical Warfare. It came in the condition advertised and I'm pretty sure the seller was "da-real-beat-digger"

I've bought tons of vinyl mail order, for the last ~15 years or so with no issues; never eBay though. Insound has worked fine for me in the past, as have loads of other online shops. I could rattle off leads for you but it's really a question of genre; what are you looking for?
-Hamish

thanks rakim, yeah i have had a few good ebay purchases too. but this last one was so awful.....the seller took it so personally, and actually got pretty vindictive (threatening to sue me(over $35.00), not pay my refund) i eventually had to get ebay involved, and ended up getting my refund......the whole thing was insanity! she sent me numerous emails about how she was a poor grad student and that this $35.00 was going to be life or death for her. then she had the nerve to ask me to change the (generous) neutral feedback i left her.
my collection has got to the point where i want to start buying more expensive, rare stuff, but i am trigger shy as far as ebay is concerned now.

doc
just general stuff. i want to feel like i can spend +35 bones without getting something warped.
electronic stuff i like is downtempo, IDM, ambient stuff. nosaj thing, boards of canada, flylo, growing, oneohtrix point never, panda bear (that type of thing)
i am pumped INSOUND was alright to you, their selection seems pretty awesome.

i buy quite a lot of vinyl over the internet, mostly from companies based in the uk. i have bought stuff from the states occasionally but only if whatever i'm getting isn't available elsewhere as the shipping costs tend to at least double the price.

i'd recommend norman records and southern records in the uk, but i guess they'd not be much use to you as the shipping would probably again be quite expensive

i never had a problem with vinyl off ebay, they've all arrived ok and well packaged. your ebay purchase sounds like a right nightmare

I have had good luck and hassle free experience purchasing vinyl from Discogs. A lot of them from international (UK and Italy). The only thing I would complain about is the long waiting time for shipping. Other than that, no complaints. I only go for "mint" to "near mint" items. Lots of 70's and 80's 12". Vinyl for me has always been an addiction. I have close to 1500 records on my collection and will be adding more.

Just dug through my old emails, Insound and http://www.junorecords.com seem to be the stores I order from most. Juno has a nice selection but is UK so there will be additional shipping cost; if you buy enough it's worth it. Also, I tend to check the artist websites first, sometimes they sell their vinyl direct with less markup; then I go to the labels (http://www.maddecent.com comes to mind...), then the stores last, especially if artists and labels are US-based (if not, the markup from a US distributor is probably less than international shipping from the label...).

Sometimes you can call your fav record stores (say if you have one in SF you love or something) and have them ship for you as well.

Also, http://www.ughh.com (UnderGround Hip Hop) has been good to me for that sort of thing.

Happy Digging!

I've used eBay quite a bit and have never had any issues with Vinyl I have bought. I think the particular seller you were dealing with is just an arse and probably shouldn't be used as a benchmark. If it was well packed, I don't see how the warping could have happened during transit either, so maybe it's a case of the seller not realising it was warped or just never really checked. I have had one issue with a seller before when buying an MP3 player years ago and the hard drive was knackered. I really do think that happened during transit and I did have to open a paypal dispute to get my money back. The smart sellers will save some kind of disclaimer saying they are not responsible for damage during transit - would be harder to win a dispute if this is the case, so watch out for that.

eddiex wrote:so recently i had a really bad experience buying a record on EBAY. long story short, it arrived warped.

Where did you get those warped tracks, I would love to buy prewarped tracks, it's such a hassle with the new Live 8 warping method

eddiex wrote:thanks rakim, yeah i have had a few good ebay purchases too. but this last one was so awful.....the seller took it so personally, and actually got pretty vindictive (threatening to sue me(over $35.00), not pay my refund) i eventually had to get ebay involved, and ended up getting my refund......the whole thing was insanity! she sent me numerous emails about how she was a poor grad student and that this $35.00 was going to be life or death for her. then she had the nerve to ask me to change the (generous) neutral feedback i left her.
my collection has got to the point where i want to start buying more expensive, rare stuff, but i am trigger shy as far as ebay is concerned now.

that's ridiculous, in that situation I think I definitely would have left her negative feedback. i'd say 'i'll change it to neutral if you fix the situation' lol. what was her overall feedback score? sometimes viewing their past negative feedback gives you an idea of what to expect. I have a crap situation too but if I sell someone something I'm not going to cuss someone out for something like that.

Maybe just be more aware of their feedback scores, unless hers was 100% or close to it. I'm not a regular ebayer, I only have 12 transactions on there but I haven't had any issues because I always go over all of the sellers information before I buy. If I see he has 99.9% and the one negative feedback he got was "item never showed, seller wouldn't respond" than I won't buy from him.

"Mail order"? Do people still say that?

Komodovaran wrote:"Mail order"? Do people still say that?

Until we can download vinyl yes.