I sent spun.com 70+ of my old cds and they accepted most of them, but for nearly all the ones they accepted, the quoted price was drastically reduced because they were supposedly "scratched". Some of these that were reduced were brand new. A few of them I opened once, burned the cds onto my laptop and then never used or even opened the jewel case again. Very few even had minor scratches on them. Even the rejected ones played perfectly and none had scratches that couldn't easily be removed.
The first response I got from them said they would check with the warehouse manager. The follow up response I got said, "Our Warehouse Manager reviewed your sell items from order #XXXXXX and he agrees with
our check-in evaluation. Unfortunately the following"discs are unacceptable in their
current condition".
This is something of which I am now very sceptical. A later response to a question I had with a specific accepted cd was an e-mail with the above response verbatim at the top (like it was a form e-mail, even though they did go on to answer that question). My later e-mail did not, however, ask them to review the discs.
I asked in between these to responses to be given a telephone number so I could speak to someone directly. This was completely ignored.
This company is not worth your time or effort, despite whatever they tell you about their company's history or happy customers. I have dealt with buybacks before and although I was completely used to and expecting some reduced prices, I have always had better service and more reasonable results with other companies. Between having to pay for a media mail box for the cds (They paid for shipping out but only because I bought a cd from them that I could have gotten much cheaper elsewhere), the shipping to receive the few rejected cds back and the low amount they paid me, I barely made any money at all. Although I don't need the physical albums anymore, it feels like highway robbery.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Alex
Whitehouse Station,New Jersey,
USA
Response
#3Author of original report
Sat, February 13, 2010
So I wanted to respond to the rebuttal I received from #1 Employee. I find it to be a further insult that they seem to think I somehow didnt understand the scratched CD policy or dont know how to read (the list of places the policy is written was helpful for someone as dense as myself-thank you). I did read the policy, however, and I understood it too.! I think its a fine policy in fact. I think that a CD thats been taken out of a jewel case once and burned onto a computer, should not be considered greatly damaged since Im not Wolverine and do not have razor blades inside my laptop. Luckily when I got my scratched CDs back I was able to confirm that Im not crazy and some of these were in fact in mint condition. It is true that Spun.com will respond in 24 hours, but that doesnt really mean much when there is a lack of common courtesy to the customer. I also like how they are sorry to hear that this customer was unhappy with their transaction. Putting aside the grammatical issue, they are not sorry to hear that I was unhappy. They never said that to me before and they are not saying that now. Rather than trying to improve customer relations on a one to one basis, they are merely using the reply as a way to defend their image. I can on here because I felt like it was an unfair trade (legal yes of course, but unfair nonetheless) and I was completely unsatisfied with our correspondence. I guess that was an invitation for them to come on here and insult the customer further. If a company doesnt have better things to do or better ways of improving imageperhaps satisfied customers actually saying they are satisfied rather than spun.com saying we are a good company with lots of happy customers. But I expect and hope they do in fact have some happy customers. As someone who has bought and sold many items with many different companies, this is the most disappointed Ive ever been with a transaction and the only time I felt a desire to warn others. If other customers disagree with me ignore this plain and simple (like spun.com would do if they were a more reasonable company). If the customers who disagree with me seem to outnumber me then just consider this a fluke or me being picky. The fact that I bought a used CD with the credit, as they say, is true. Im not really sure why they mentioned that, its not like it was some kind of gift and it doesnt show that I had some faith in their company after all. I bought it before I realized that they would under quote me on every single CD. This was over 70 CDs! Even if you dont take my word over their word, you must at least think that with that many CDs a single one of them would equal the quoted value. Spun.com is correct though. The customer is not always right. In fact I made a mistake. I just hope other potential customers dont make the same mistake.
Spun.com
Northfield,Illinois,
USA
Scratched Policy
#3UPDATE Employee
Wed, February 03, 2010
Spun.com offers personal service with every order and inquiry and responds within 24 hours. We are sorry to hear that this customer was unhappy with their transaction.
Our Acceptance Policies can be found in our Help Section, in all email correspondence, on every sell detail page, in the cart before placing your order and in our Terms of Service. Our records indicate this customer acknowledged these terms before placing their order 08/14/2009 10:41AM:
"Spun will accept CDs, DVDs, and Games in mint condition. We will also accept the above items in scratched condition at a reduced price. Prior to April 1, 2008 Spun rejected scratched discs. Although we cannot offer you full credit for your scratched discs, we will pay you 25% of the quoted price you would receive for excellent or mint condition. No gouges, chips, cracks etc. If discs are gouged or have heavy scratches, they will be rejected completely and no credit will be offered.
By promising to sell to Spun, you are willing to accept our policy regarding scratched items at 25% credit. If you send scratched items and your total credit does not exceed your outgoing order total, your credit card will automatically be charged the difference between the offer we made to you at the time of your order, and the 25% credit that you will actually receive."
According to our records, the customer promised to sell mint condition items totaling $74.10 in credit. Once the items were received and inspected, the scratched item condition brought their sell total to $19.35. The customer contacted us to let us know that they disagreed with our check-in and we promptly reinspected the items. We are always more than willing to ask a senior employee to reevaluate any disputed orders.
Once the re-inspection was complete, our Warehouse Manager found that the check-in was in fact correct. Not only were several items lightly scratched and reduced in value correctly but many items contained heavy scratching and damaged artwork. Unfortunately as these items were damaged beyond repair, we cannot buy them.
All scratched or rejected items are always available for return. The customer requested that the rejected items be returned and they were. In the end, the customer was able to purchase a used cd with the credit they received for their items, as well as receive credit for their scratched items.