Back in December I mentioned that I was buying used CDs off Amazon Marketplace. 26 of my CDs showed up within the first full week of January, while the remaining five have apparently been lost in the mail. The great part is that the sellers in question apparently shipped the discs, as each one gave me a full refund upon hearing that I hadn't received them. So what's the problem?
I put those orders on a reloadable cash card, and canceled it after I was finished purchasing items so that I wouldn't have to incur the end-of-the-month cardholder fee. That means my refunds, totaling around $30, are now the property of Bank of America.
I'm not entirely sure where to lay the blame here. All three of the sellers in question had a reputation score of 96% or higher, and had received feedback from over 350 unique buyers, so it's doubtful that any of the sellers were Amazon Marketplace scammers. On the other hand, this wouldn't be the first time I've had packages lost in the mail by the US Postal Service (I highly doubt that the likes of Crucial Memory flat-out wouldn't ship an order). While Bank of America's policy on funds to canceled cards may be terrible, it's nevertheless a policy that I agreed to when I activated the card.
I'd stick to CD stores, if they still existed. The closest thing to a physical music store around here is Wal-Mart, and at that, their selection shrinks every time I visit the store. As far as I'm concerned, the benefit of guaranteed delivery from a restricted music store is still outweighed by the fact that the media is restricted.