During the waning days of Tower Records’ final clearance sale, I picked up, among many other CDs, Live at the Fillmore West by King Curtis. It was the only copy in the store. The CD was sealed, but did not have the sticky title strip on the top. It was obviously a reseal, because when I opened it, I found the disc to be visibly damaged. It was deeply scratched in a circle about half an inch in from the disc’s edge. I have a hard time imagining what kind of screwed-up CD player could have produced such damage. The main program played okay, but once it got into the bonus tracks, skip city. I tried buffing the scratches out with some plastic polishing compound, but they were gouged too deep.
So I took the disc back to Tower. Yes, there were signs up at the counters warning “all sales final,” but this was a disc that should never have been sold in the first place. Somebody (distributor? Tower employee?) knew it was wrecked and put it out for sale anyway. I didn’t even want a refund–another copy had magically appeared on the shelves, this one with the title strip intact, and I just asked to trade. No dice. The dumb punks at the counter were losing their jobs anyway; it wouldn’t have been any skin off of their noses to bend the rules and give me a little customer service when I’d clearly been ripped off. Instead, they insisted that I could only return the CD directly to the record company, and added helpfully that the record companies were being good about the situation. They sent me off with my damaged CD and the address for Rhino Records’ website in hand.
So I e-mailed Rhino about the situation and asked about the possibility of getting a replacement CD. Got a generic response back advising me that I’d be contacted shortly about the problem. I waited. And waited. Hey, it was the holidays, everyone’s busy, I can wait. I waited some more. Finally, after six weeks or so, I wrote back, asking if the prolonged silence meant that the answer to my request was “no.” Got a response advising me that this issue should be sent to the “Dr. Rhino” e-mail address. So I forwarded my message to the Doc. And waited. And waited. And nothing.
I wouldn’t even blame Rhino for refusing to replace the CD. As far as I’m concerned, that was Tower’s responsibility to make good. But Rhino could at least have had the courtesy to say as much, instead of just giving me the runaround. And while I’m not surprised by the jerkishness on Tower’s part, it pains me to pit Rhino. They were once an ultra-cool label, and they’ve managed to hang on to a lot of good will from those days, even in their current corporate configuration. I feel really disappointed with them.