…if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I went on kind of a Madonna buying binge last week:
-
- Music
- Bedtime Stories
- Like a Virgin
- GHV2 Greatest Hits Volume 2
- You Can Dance
- Ray of Light
I ordered these from a single seller off Discogs, a website that has—up until this point at least—been a reliable source for buying used media. But I guess there are bad apples in any bunch.
The seller described the CDs themselves as MINT or NEAR MINT. The cases were also uniformly rated VERY GOOD+.
The low prices probably should've thrown up a red flag: $5 apiece, with only two being priced at $10 (one of which was described as STILL SEALED), but it still seemed reasonable considering it was Madonna and there were dozens of copies of each title available on the site—especially since all of them were described as LOOKS UNPLAYED with one (Bedtime Stories) being hyperbolically described as "LOOKS UNPLAYED – WAS BOUGHT FROM A REAL MADONNA FAN NEXT TO THE LAUNDROMAT IN STAR CITY." Okay, whatever.
I checked the seller's customer satisfaction rating and it was 98.9%. Not perfect, but not horrible.
The disks arrived taped together in a package made of solid-color bubblewrap. My heart sank before I even got them unwrapped, fully expecting the center retaining clips of each case to be snapped off and all the hinges broken.
It turned out that was the least of the problems. (I have spare cases on hand, just for this eventuality so it was no big deal.)
First off, I found it odd that there were more discs than I'd ordered. For some reason she'd also included American Life (sans case, but with the front booklet), I'm Breathless, Something to Remember (both complete and in good condition) and The Power of Goodbye CD single.
Even without the breakage, none of the jewel cases could be described as VERY GOOD+.
And then I discovered that Ray of Light—something I did order and wanted—was just an empty case—with a $1.99 Goodwill price sticker on it, no less—that contained no CD at all!
What the actual fuck?!
I think what happened is that she realized that she was missing the disc for Ray of Light and instead of being an upstanding seller and actually contacting me before shipment and asking what I wanted to do*, just threw a few extra CDs in to apparently make up for it.
To her credit, the discs are in decent shape. There's only one that has some light scratches that plays okay in every player I own except that temperamental D-10. (I'm making my way through the stack as I type.) But c'mon girl. If you didn't have something I ordered you should've contacted me, not just thrown in some consolation prizes because. It's just common courtesy.
Needless to say, the feedback I left will further contribute to her sub-99% approval rating. And I just ordered a MINT copy of Ray of Light from a seller with a 100% approval rating for $2.99 so there's that…
*I had just this scenario happen earlier this morning with a different seller who realized the item he was selling and that I bought didn't match the "official" photos of that particular release. As it turned out, it wasn't the version I wanted and told him to cancel the order and just refund me the purchase price. That is a responsible seller!
