This shop, though being widely diverse in it's merchandise, has totally underwhelmed me with it's customer service and damaged products.
I live close by to this store and have always passed it by. The other day I popped my head in out of curiosity to find that, as well as "antiques" the shop also sold vinyls. Being an avid collector I started to dig through the boxes only to come across Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On'. A classic, owing to the notoriety of it's title track's opening riff. The sleeve was damaged but I thought, 'Meh, as long as it plays alright then that's a good price at £5'.
On playing the vinyl I found that the disc had several skips in it (unable to see with the naked eye), and most painfully, in the title track. I returned to the store, found another copy, and had the following conversation with the regular shop keeper.
"Hi, I purchased this record from you and found out after playing it that it has several skips/ scratches that you can't see on the vinyl itself. Can I switch it in for this other copy I found?"
"No. We don't take second hand vinyls". Obviously being second hand (probably passed on to it's 5th set of hands by now at least), this irked me.
"Ok. Understandable seeing as I don't have a receipt. In the future then would it be OK to listen through the copies before I bought them?"
"You should try a record store mate." He said, not even gazing up from his newspaper.
From a man that has his own personal collection of records behind the counter I couldn't believe the attitude he was showing.
I will never buy anything from this store again. read more