Thread: amazon orders sending me CDs instead of sacd

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Post by tzh21y October 31, 2014 (1 of 11)
Has anyone else experienced this with amazon. I was browsing the recommended sacds on this site and used the link to amazon to purchase. I received the CD version. It is not a very reliable link. Has anyone else had the same issue?

Post by Polly Nomial October 31, 2014 (2 of 11)
Can you let me know which disc(s) are affected by this?

Sometimes companies replace the original SACD with normal CD but retaining the same EAN/JAN/UPC; sometimes it's third-party vendors not being accurate with their listings.

Post by Fugue October 31, 2014 (3 of 11)
I've only had that happen with third-party vendors. Thielemann's Strauss Alpine Symphony on DG and Protopopov's 1st Symphony on Telarc immediately come to mind.

Post by emaidel November 1, 2014 (4 of 11)
I too have had that happen, and with third-party vendors. I had no trouble returning the wrong disc, and rated the vendor "poor," as she represented the disc as an SACD, but sent a CD instead. Oddly, she was "hurt" by my rating and asked me "how could you (I) do such a thing?"

Post by rammiepie November 1, 2014 (5 of 11)
emaidel said:

I too have had that happen, and with third-party vendors. I had no trouble returning the wrong disc, and rated the vendor "poor," as she represented the disc as an SACD, but sent a CD instead. Oddly, she was "hurt" by my rating and asked me "how could you (I) do such a thing?"

When I order SACDs or even BD~Vs from Amazon third party vendors I wait a few minutes after placing an order and then e~mail the company describing the ordered product in full and then specify cancel if what they have in their stock is incorrect.

It doesn't always work as the larger vendors sometimes have separate warehouses and cannot do a personal check and then I just keep my fingers crossed.

But as long as a vendor makes good on an erroneous purchase (incl return s/h) I always give them a high rating.

Post by Kutyatest November 1, 2014 (6 of 11)
tzh21y said:

Has anyone else experienced this with amazon. I was browsing the recommended sacds on this site and used the link to amazon to purchase. I received the CD version. It is not a very reliable link. Has anyone else had the same issue?

Yes, I have experienced this using links from this website, but like someone else in this thread, only with third party vendors, i.e. Amazon Marketplace.

Once I was caught out, I have adopted a policy similar to rammiepie, whereby I will typically send a message to the seller - although I have done this ahead of ordering. Not a bad idea to do it after ordering though. Like rammiepie, my experience with large volume (business) sellers is that they are often unable to answer a question requesting specific information on a product - which is quite pathetic really. The answers I've had in the past are a standard e-mail reply stating something along the lines of, "Please refer to the Amazon product description of this item."

I tend to ignore large volume sellers - especially if I get that sort of reply, and choose to stick with low-volume private sellers. I recently bought the Moody Blues "In Search of the Lost Chord" SACD through a private seller on Amazon, and I was able to communicate effectively with the seller, guiding him on how to recognise if the album listed for sale was in fact a genuine SACD.

The links on this website remain extremely useful in my opinion/experience.

Post by Marpow November 1, 2014 (7 of 11)
rammiepie said:

But as long as a vendor makes good on an erroneous purchase (incl return s/h) I always give them a high rating.

I have had two experiences. The first I ordered one of The Doors SACD multichannel directly from Amazon, they sent me a RBCD, I returned per there policy and received the SACD immediately, I just chalked up to human error, no big deal.
The other, I ordered a RBCD from a third party, I wanted a specific 1990 Marshall Tucker Band disc, and I wrote to the vendor, as Ralph suggests, the vendor was very nice, checked the disc and even sent me pictures and when I received it was just what I wanted.

Post by Ubertrout November 1, 2014 (8 of 11)
So, a few discs (most notably the Rolling Stones SACDs) use the same UPC code for both the CD and SACD versions. For all other discs, confusion as to CD v SACD versions shouldn't be an issue as long as the seller lists by UPC/EAN. Generally speaking, large sellers will list by UPC/EAN while smaller sellers may or may not do so.

I've actually had really good luck with Amazon for getting SACDs rather than regular CDs - and much worse luck with eBay, which is less UPC/EAN centric, and more free-form in its listings.

The vendors who tend to make mistakes on this count tend not to sell a lot of media - basically folks cleaning out their attic. As long as they have a decent number of feedback results they're generally okay.

I will say that rating a single poor rating by a customer has all kinds of negative consequences for ability to sell on Amazon. I'm not saying it was unjustified, but it's less about hurt feelings and more about real consequences for your rating.

There are a number of reasons why volume sellers aren't able to check, but the two big ones are either that the staff isn't particularly proficient in English, or that the inventory is already at Amazon's warehouse and so there's no way to check. Whether or not those reasons are acceptable is up to you, but it is what it is.

Short version: be skeptical of deals that seem too good to be true from inexperienced third-party vendors.

Post by Lunna November 1, 2014 (9 of 11)
Apropos -

Beware of SACDs offered by GoHastings on amazon.com. I've been burned at least two or three times that way. It's true - if the price sounds too good to be true, it probably is because it ain't true. (Always got my money back, but what a pain doing so.)

Post by emaidel November 2, 2014 (10 of 11)
rammiepie said:



But as long as a vendor makes good on an erroneous purchase (incl return s/h) I always give them a high rating.

I gave the vendor in question a "poor" rating because she did not send me a replacement SACD (which I erroneously stated in my post), but was totally clueless as to the difference between an SACD or a CD, even though she very specifically posted the disc I wanted as an SACD. She returned my money, though not shipping costs, and I bought the desired disc from someone else.

I think amazon is a great out fit to buy things from, and their return policy is the best I've ever encountered, but their third-party sellers aren't always the sharpest knives in the drawer. Still, they're bound by amazon's rules, and so must return one's money after the customer (me, or anyone else) isn't satisfied.

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