Enjoyed this immensely Rocco! Agree with so much of what you share here. Now we need to work on getting you fitted for your own oven mitt for future hot takes!
I’m so glad you started off with Blue Note. My last order was for 8 albums and all 8 were damaged! Customer service took three weeks to get back to me! I love Blue Note and want to support them but Universal or whoever handles their support is terrible.
sorry to hear that! I had to cancel an order of 7lps because mysteriously one of them was out of stock - and who knows when it would have come back - and no one could answer a single question! But man - that vinyl is so good!
For personalized customer service, I would add Jump Up Records. True, it’s just new and select reprint ska, but Chuck takes a real interest in his customers. He’s gotten to know exactly what I like (ska-jazz, old-school ska and rocksteady) so all I need to do is tell him to pick out a few for me and send them my way. I don’t know what the return process is like because I’ve never had to use it
In-Groove is crazy good. I had a question on Thanksgiving day and I e-mailed in at 09:00 EST and Mike personally responded by 1:00 pm EST while I was eating Thanksgiving dinner with my crazy family. I did NOT expect to get a response on Thanksgiving, much less that quick.
Dang it! And to think, I thought I was Plaid Room’s only online customer, because that’s how they make me feel. In store is an even better experience. One thing you didn’t mention about Plaid Room, that should separate them even more from the A-Tier’s, their regular priced vinyl is normally a dollar or two cheaper than everyone else.
The only issue I've had with Target is getting a warped record. They wouldn't let me return it because they won't accept open media products. I no longer will buy from them. Agree with Warner and Sound of Vinyl. I've had great experiences with Amazon. Easy returns and the packaging has definitely improved over a few years ago. Disney records isn't too bad to deal with. Probably a B tier. Music on Vinyl has also been good for me. Will check out a couple on your list.
I agree 100% Plaid Room/Colemine is the BEST! I have never got a damaged record from the, but I remember I bought The Harlem Gospel Travelers Look Up Colemine exclusive bundle and they sent me the wrong 45. I emailed them and the next day they got back to me. Told me keep the GA-20 45 and sent me the correct 45 that was supposed to come with the bundle.I watching a podcast with Terry and he said customer service was important to him and he would answer or call someone to let them know whats going on. Great people. Good shit brotha man, much love to you
Out of all of those you listed the only ones I have ever had difficulties with were Warner/Rhino and the UMG owned ones, uDiscovermusic, The Sound Of Vinyl and Blue Note. Plaidroom/Colemine are absolutely the best for sure. Speaking of Plaidroom their 15% off sale starts tomorrow! Time for me to catch up on the last few Colemine releases. I still don't have Thee Sinseers and it's about to get got. Thanks man!
Yup - Im still waiting on the Impulse set and the Bluenote Set - and the Latin Series - it all got mucked up from the Pressing plant thing. That said - they sent a 40% discount for the willie colon (on anything in the store) and they have kept me updated on the delays of the Impulse - now they are saying August - I think its getting pressed at RTI. It sucks - but communication goes a long way.
To their credit, when they were offering one of those 40% off discounts around the holidays I contacted them and asked for a 40% credit for my full priced pre-order of the Grateful Dead Anthology which they granted.
Me too. Now I see that they have pushed it into August, and I have every expectation that they will push it further back again. VMP not so great. Another thing, they don't press nearly as many copies of bigger titles as they should. Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson, for example. Not everybody wants to be a VMP member. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting for some titles to get repressed but they never do.
Still watching and idk if the Interscope vinyl collective CS is different from normal Interscope but I just got Helmet Betty very warped and they sent another copy next day.
My experience has been that Amazon does not allow more than one replacement. After the first one they require you to take a refund and then you must reorder it.
One BIG problem with ordering from the In-Groove is that Mikey has a terrible relationship with the Phoenix USPS. Since he ships USPS, and because they have a poor relationship (99.9% the fault of the USPS I should mention), once the USPS makes the outgoing pick-up off the In-Groove dock, the Phoenix post office will sit on those outbound packages for a week before they will get them going in the postal system. So on average it will take over two weeks to get your records from the In-Groove just because the Phoenix post office are assholes.
Hello . Walmart does not take damage records back , i had a bad record from them it have a dish warp and of course i did open the record and they will not take it back because it was open they say that it is because of the copy right law that does not allow to refund the money once it is open . Thank for a great video.
@@PiecesofVinylI think they were talking about buying from the store, not online. Had the same thing happen to me, so quit buying from the store. Have had good results online.
Music Direct is DIFFICULT to deal with 3/4's of the time. Their cartons ARE CRAP! I have purchased about 22 albums from them, usually MoFi label stuff, but occasionally some Acoustic Sounds (just trying to bundle my shipping). Look, out of 22 albums, I have had six seam splits. That's an amazing failure rate. Now, they will replace the sleeves, but man, they make it is a process. I mean a stupid process. I will say you do talk to a human when you call, but the human can't do anything for you. I've bought six One Steps and three of them had seam splits. The last shipment, April 2024, was the recent repress of Bitches Brew and while I was at it, I bought an Atlantic 75 title from Acoustic Sounds to bundle the shipping). Both of them had terrible seam splits. It took me until last week to get the replacements and they required me to allow them to take the albums out of the sleeves. I'm done, not happening again. Also, I bought a $3,200 record player (MoFi UltraDeck) from them. It was a DISASTER from the start. I'm not going to get into it, but I had to return it and they did not honor their policy and for right now, that's enough to be said. I will NEVER buy another piece of hardware from them.
It doesn't seem to me that you have a clear understanding of the DSD step that Mo-Fi was using in the mastering of their records. To call Mo-Fi liars is unreasonable and unfair. But you're going to believe what you want to believe. I'll leave it at that.
Enjoyed this immensely Rocco! Agree with so much of what you share here. Now we need to work on getting you fitted for your own oven mitt for future hot takes!
Yes! I want an Oven mitt!
I’m so glad you started off with Blue Note. My last order was for 8 albums and all 8 were damaged! Customer service took three weeks to get back to me! I love Blue Note and want to support them but Universal or whoever handles their support is terrible.
sorry to hear that! I had to cancel an order of 7lps because mysteriously one of them was out of stock - and who knows when it would have come back - and no one could answer a single question! But man - that vinyl is so good!
I would add Elusive Disc to the A tier. Agree with you on Plaid.
I'll agree with that.
For personalized customer service, I would add Jump Up Records. True, it’s just new and select reprint ska, but Chuck takes a real interest in his customers. He’s gotten to know exactly what I like (ska-jazz, old-school ska and rocksteady) so all I need to do is tell him to pick out a few for me and send them my way. I don’t know what the return process is like because I’ve never had to use it
I am into all of that stuff so I will def check this out.
In-Groove is crazy good. I had a question on Thanksgiving day and I e-mailed in at 09:00 EST and Mike personally responded by 1:00 pm EST while I was eating Thanksgiving dinner with my crazy family. I did NOT expect to get a response on Thanksgiving, much less that quick.
He definitely cares about his customers and it shows.
Dang it! And to think, I thought I was Plaid Room’s only online customer, because that’s how they make me feel. In store is an even better experience.
One thing you didn’t mention about Plaid Room, that should separate them even more from the A-Tier’s, their regular priced vinyl is normally a dollar or two cheaper than everyone else.
You are correct!
The only issue I've had with Target is getting a warped record. They wouldn't let me return it because they won't accept open media products. I no longer will buy from them.
Agree with Warner and Sound of Vinyl. I've had great experiences with Amazon. Easy returns and the packaging has definitely improved over a few years ago.
Disney records isn't too bad to deal with. Probably a B tier. Music on Vinyl has also been good for me.
Will check out a couple on your list.
I had a number of places not on this list - maybe someday I will do a part 2. Dustygroove is a good place to check out as well.
I agree 100% Plaid Room/Colemine is the BEST! I have never got a damaged record from the, but I remember I bought The Harlem Gospel Travelers Look Up Colemine exclusive bundle and they sent me the wrong 45. I emailed them and the next day they got back to me. Told me keep the GA-20 45 and sent me the correct 45 that was supposed to come with the bundle.I watching a podcast with Terry and he said customer service was important to him and he would answer or call someone to let them know whats going on. Great people. Good shit brotha man, much love to you
Love that - keep the wrong one -- here is a new one! They did something similar when they had a stock issue with an LP I ordered. Top notch!
This needed to be done
Thanks!
Out of all of those you listed the only ones I have ever had difficulties with were Warner/Rhino and the UMG owned ones, uDiscovermusic, The Sound Of Vinyl and Blue Note. Plaidroom/Colemine are absolutely the best for sure. Speaking of Plaidroom their 15% off sale starts tomorrow! Time for me to catch up on the last few Colemine releases. I still don't have Thee Sinseers and it's about to get got. Thanks man!
Thee Sinseers is REALLY good. And if you like that kind of thing ….check out Thee Heartones or Thee Marloes coming from Big crown records.
I am still waiting for my Grateful Dead Anthology box set (2nd pressing) from VMP that I ordered and paid for over a year ago.
Yup - Im still waiting on the Impulse set and the Bluenote Set - and the Latin Series - it all got mucked up from the Pressing plant thing. That said - they sent a 40% discount for the willie colon (on anything in the store) and they have kept me updated on the delays of the Impulse - now they are saying August - I think its getting pressed at RTI. It sucks - but communication goes a long way.
no shit - I sent this comment and then immediately got another 40% off coupon for the entire store - for the impulse set.
To their credit, when they were offering one of those 40% off discounts around the holidays I contacted them and asked for a 40% credit for my full priced pre-order of the Grateful Dead Anthology which they granted.
Me too. Now I see that they have pushed it into August, and I have every expectation that they will push it further back again. VMP not so great. Another thing, they don't press nearly as many copies of bigger titles as they should. Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson, for example. Not everybody wants to be a VMP member. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting for some titles to get repressed but they never do.
@@PiecesofVinyl 40%, huh? They sent me jack-sh*t !!
Still watching and idk if the Interscope vinyl collective CS is different from normal Interscope but I just got Helmet Betty very warped and they sent another copy next day.
Glad you got a good copy!
My experience has been that Amazon does not allow more than one replacement. After the first one they require you to take a refund and then you must reorder it.
That was not my experience sending back three different records - each time I sent back multiples and never had to re buy it.
That's been my experience as well.
Black Sabbath box was....EXCELLENT! I have purchased all their records without any issues.
Mr. Pete----->
aging hippie
Plaid Room Records is the only place to shop for vinyls ❤
One BIG problem with ordering from the In-Groove is that Mikey has a terrible relationship with the Phoenix USPS. Since he ships USPS, and because they have a poor relationship (99.9% the fault of the USPS I should mention), once the USPS makes the outgoing pick-up off the In-Groove dock, the Phoenix post office will sit on those outbound packages for a week before they will get them going in the postal system. So on average it will take over two weeks to get your records from the In-Groove just because the Phoenix post office are assholes.
Good to know - and that sucks.
Hello . Walmart does not take damage records back , i had a bad record from them it have a dish warp and of course i did open the record and they will not take it back because it was open they say that it is because of the copy right law that does not allow to refund the money once it is open . Thank for a great video.
Hmm. I was able to return LZ II since it had a scratch and Cannonball Adderly OJC. I just sent it back two weeks ago.
@@PiecesofVinylI think they were talking about buying from the store, not online. Had the same thing happen to me, so quit buying from the store. Have had good results online.
Just wanted to let you know that I have sent 2 messages to vmp and got nothing back from them?
you will/should hear back - if not - send another!
Music Direct is DIFFICULT to deal with 3/4's of the time. Their cartons ARE CRAP! I have purchased about 22 albums from them, usually MoFi label stuff, but occasionally some Acoustic Sounds (just trying to bundle my shipping). Look, out of 22 albums, I have had six seam splits. That's an amazing failure rate. Now, they will replace the sleeves, but man, they make it is a process. I mean a stupid process. I will say you do talk to a human when you call, but the human can't do anything for you. I've bought six One Steps and three of them had seam splits. The last shipment, April 2024, was the recent repress of Bitches Brew and while I was at it, I bought an Atlantic 75 title from Acoustic Sounds to bundle the shipping). Both of them had terrible seam splits. It took me until last week to get the replacements and they required me to allow them to take the albums out of the sleeves. I'm done, not happening again.
Also, I bought a $3,200 record player (MoFi UltraDeck) from them. It was a DISASTER from the start. I'm not going to get into it, but I had to return it and they did not honor their policy and for right now, that's enough to be said. I will NEVER buy another piece of hardware from them.
Sorry to hear that. It sucks because they do have the stuff we want!
I've cultivated a relationship with the Customer Service Mgr. at Mo-Fi/Music Direct and he takes care of me. No complaints!
It doesn't seem to me that you have a clear understanding of the DSD step that Mo-Fi was using in the mastering of their records. To call Mo-Fi liars is unreasonable and unfair. But you're going to believe what you want to believe. I'll leave it at that.
They settled a lawsuit for it. But that doesn't mean that I don't know what Im talking about!
@@PiecesofVinyl Just so you understand: settling a lawsuit is NOT an admission of guilt.