I really think I have to give up buying on Discogs. Is every seller there a lying bastard?
I picked up a copy of Dire Straits first album along with Steely Dan’s “katy lied”, both described as being NM!
According to seller he always down grades and most items will be better than expected.
But still, I went to the trouble of mailing him to clarify that we really meant near mint, sending him the wording for the grading system so that ambiguity could be removed from the transaction!
Yeah I mean I’m not as fussy as I sound here, if it was a few light hairlines where the record has been handled, I’d be happy to suggest it’s still near mint.
But given his own suggestion that he grades down, and that he’s a buyer as well and that I’d be happy with them. He’s either deluded, or a cunt
The trouble with ‘everyone being a dealer’ is the idea people A) know how to grade B) they don’t get greed stuck in their eye when attempting to do so. There is also an issue with buyers who expect a bargain, often the adage ‘if it looks too good to be true’ is real.
*Much of this may cease at the end of this month when Discogs / eBay (even air B&B) will send all information on transactions to HMRC. Whilst the law hasn’t changed £1000 in sales PA is fine there are many (and I do mean thousands of people) in all areas of collecting and selling from the Mum’s kids cloths side hustle to the guy who has x5 private eBay accounts swerving all tax shifting coins etc.
It is unclear how aggressively HMRC will go after people selling more than 30 items or over 1K PA. (It would be possible with a simple algorithm to deduce anything over 1K and automate a tax demand) The ‘everyone’s a dealer’ thing will change - some will register as a business others will have less luck switching over to Facebook (Which currently can’t / wont be reporting) In truth I know very few private individuals that haven’t shot past 1K on the side leaving a perfect electronic trail.
Probably incredibly aggressively,
They always go after the person owing a couple of grand with no flexibility on amount owed or time to pay.
Meanwhile if you run tax avoidance schemes or owe a few million they either won’t investigate or will bend over backwards to negotiate a paltry settlement.
I guess time will tell, HMRC have always been able to access PayPal. For the people paying their mortgage / supplementing their benefits out of their side hustle things may get a little tricky if they go all in.
I think paying £20 plus postage for NM copies of not particularly rare albums doesn’t suggest I was expecting to do anything other than pay a fair price for a clean LP
The comment wasn’t directed at you (You hadn’t mentioned your purchase price) but rather the state of collecting / buying / general mess for buyers and sellers on Discocks.
PEDANT ALERT!
