Rupert Jones in today’s Guardian has a note about Music Magpie, a site where you can sell old CDs, games, and now DVDs. The site calls itself an “online CD recycling service.” I like CDs, so I took a look.
The service is a commercial operation and as far as I can tell isn’t any different in principle from any other online secondhand retailer – I guess they all ought to get some green cred by calling themselves recycling services.
So how does Music Magpie compare to others like, say, Amazon or eBay? Let’s look at it first as a buyer. I love the Cowboy Junkies, so I did a search. I can get their great CD The Trinity Session for £3.99. Amazon has this new from £5.98, or used from £3.91. What about postage costs? At Amazon it is currently £1.21. I can’t so far discover what Music Magpie charges, or whether it is included. The terms and conditions say:
9.2. These prices include VAT but exclude delivery costs, which are detailed on the website.
However I can’t find them detailed anywhere. Maybe it is included after all, but you would have thought this would be flagged as a selling point. So it could be more than Amazon, or less, depending on this point; it appears to be in the same ball park. However, Amazon has a vastly greater stock available and nice features like customer reviews.
OK, how about as the seller? If I decide to sell my Cowboy Junkies CD, Music Magpie will currently offer me 98p (the price varies according to the CD, and can be as low as 25p). There’s no postage cost to the seller; the company sends out a freepost envelope.
There are some alarming terms and conditions. If Music Magpie decides one of your CDs needs refurbishment (polishing), it deducts up to 50p. If it decides it is unacceptable, it neither buys nor returns it. There is no appeal.
Now Amazon. If I sell Trinity Session for the current lowest price of £3.91, Amazon will grab £1.82 in fees (including VAT) but contribute £1.21 for postage. That means I get £3.30. If the postage actually costs that much (it could well work out less), I still get £2.09 net, more than double what Music Magpie offers.
Listing an item on Amazon is not much more difficult than selling to Music Magpie – just type in the barcode and go. The big difference is that with Amazon you have to sit back and wait for a buyer. With Music Magpie I get the money instantly. Another difference is that with Music Magpie I can parcel a bunch of CDs once and send them off. With Amazon, you have to deal with each customer individually.
My immediate impression is that Music Magpie scores well on convenience, but if you need the money and have a little patience you would be much better off with Amazon.
Now, here’s an interesting remark on the Music Magpie site:
We originally launched musicmagpie as an easy way for everyone to turn their old CDs into cash so that they did not have to be thrown away if they had decided to go digital. This proved to be a massive success with thousands of people using musicmagpie as a fast and efficient way to turn CDs into money.
Well, CDs are digital; but I’m guessing that Music Magpie is referring to people who have ripped their CDs to a computer for streaming, or for an iPod, or another MP3 player. Here’s a can of worms though. I’ve heard it argued that even ripping your own CDs is illegal, though it seems a reasonable thing to do. Ripping your CDs and then selling them though – intuitively that seems wrong. Arguably, Music Magpie by its own admission is dealing in stolen music.
Still, I do see the other side of this too. You’ve ripped all your CDs, you no longer need them, you are short of space: isn’t it better to move them on?
When people moved from vinyl to CD they had no choice but to purchase again. In the case of CD to music files though, you can migrate without re-buying. That’s a headache for the music industry.
Personally I hang on to them anyway, as a kind of license and physical backup, and just in case I might want to read the sleeve notes again one day.
Note: Comments to this post are now closed.
Sent in 5 DVD’s and still waiting to hear after 2 months, this is a scam do not touch with a barge pole!
Never again for me and thats my experience but take the chance if you must. Dave
I agree. This is a scam. I sent in some Nintendo DS games and some DVDs for which Music Magpie offered to pay in the region of £27 for.
I’ve yet to hear back from them. It’s a con.
Ive used these guys for selling cds as there isnt an alternative..
However their games prices are awful! Better off selling them to cex.co.uk or tradeyourstuff.co.uk
Musicmagpie arent a scam though – theyve bought over a million quids worth of items from people..
Brian
How do you mean, there isn’t an alternative?
Tim
They CLAIM to have paid out over £1m but I wouldn’t believe that. Considering that they pay less than £2 for new boxsets which still retail at around £20 on Play.com, and 25p for music CDs less than 3 months old, they would have had to have turned over somewhere in the region of 750,000 units to have paid out that much. Rather than recycle they probably make their money by reselling the items on eBay or Amazon. Also if you look on Google, there seem to be a lot of disappointed people out there. Do your research before sending off your goods to people like this.
I”m just glad I read these comments first before visiting this site, i wont be visting this site anymore
These comments have put me right off too !
I agree with Tim about keeping as a back up to your ipod, but I do have some to get rid of.
Can anyone recommend another site where I can just send them and collect the cash ?
It,s interesting to read these comments and would concur with the negative side of things.
They are the same sort of set up as the “mobile phone recyclers” where you get low reimbursement offers and lots of T & C ‘s. And also similar to the “get paid to advertise on your vehicle” scams.
You don’t get a lot for nothing nowadays!!!
I think Ebay or similiar is better, at least you are more in control and T & C’s/fees are sort of fair.
Or just drag it all down to a car boot sale like the Good Olde Days !
I put in to sell about 10 cd’s and 50 ps2 games still waiting to hear after two weeks! it said they were worth £50, i bought a game for £2.50 and its worth £4.00 same price for a £1.00 extension game i bought. I dont know what to do!
I’d suggest contacting Music Magpie direct if you are concerned. These are the details from the site:
Entertainment Magpie Limited
22 Castle Street
Macclesfield
Cheshire
SK11 6AF
Telephone number: 0870 495 1283 (9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m)
Email: enquiries@musicmagpie.co.uk
Company Registration Number: 6277562
Tim
I work for Music Magpie. If you haven’t heard back from them, get in contact. Any delay is usually caused by people sending items in multiple packages, eg 2-3 CD’s in an envelope ten times over, either that or one or more of your items were damaged, and they just haven’t filtered through the system yet.
The warehouse contains over 20,000 boxes, all with 25 CD’s DVD’s in each, so yes, they have paid out what they said they paid
I would just like to put forward a positive note – I have used music magpie a couple of times to clear out some clutter and have found it to be very useful. Obviously you don’t put cd’s, dvd or games that you think are worth more than their max £3.
To date I have had no problems with either sending or receiving my money and have happily recommended it to friends. Having used both e-bay and Amazon I found it much more convenient for immediate money.
I must be one of the few who have found Music Magpie as a good site to buy from. I’ve always compared my cd wants with Amazon & Play.com and found that Music Magpie have been the cheapest for the vast majority of my purchases and no postage charge for sending.
However for several weeks now they have had an issue with their servers not being large enough to deal with customers so they have not been selling cd’s. I asked them when this would be corrected and i’m just getting ‘asap’.
Generally though i’d recommend them for buying from certainly, that is, when they are in a position to be selling again.
I’ve recently ‘downsized’ and decided to get rid of a whole load of stuff. Having taken 150 CD’s to various seconhand CD sellers in London and having been insulted by offers they made me (one well known company in Camden offered £15 for the lot) I decided to give musicmagpie a try. I’ve now sold 3 batches of CDs to them (45, 45 and finally 60) and recieved a total of £180.00. All the trades have been straight forward and pretty quick and out of 150 CDs not one has been rejected or had a reduction for polishing or broken jewel case. I admit a lot of the CDs are older Jazz recordings in good condition – but the second hand dealers also knew there was some ‘obscure’ stuff in good condition there, and they just tried to make a quick killing. Compared with the hassle of posting 150 CDs on Amazon or eBay – and 150 trips to the post office, this site worked very well for me.
just sent 60 cds off to music magpie they promised £65.00 i checked all the cds and all are not scratched, cases not broken. just waiting for a cheque..
I sent in over £20 worth of CDs and they are claiming that it takes 7-15 working days for the free post parcels to be received. This is a scam as i sent them in July. I sent them an email and they said just be patient. I wouldnt trust these people. It doesnt cost anything to send but you might aswell keep your CDs if they are going to scam you!
I don’t know what postal service this stupid website uses to send the cheques back out to the customers, but I have been waiting for mine for 20 days now. Maybe they are walking it to me personally. Starting to think I have been conned, and I will be making a complaint. It sounded like a good idea at first as I needed to de-clutter my CD collection and couldn’t be bothered with eBay… but that would have been a better option than being conned completely.
Hi everyone… Just wanted to say that im very pleased with Music Magpie’ very professional in the way i received an email and delivery of boxes from DHL to put my CDs in.I had sent over 100 CD’s which i didnt use anymore and within the 2 weeks they was delivered and i received my cheque today !
I think guys you have to understand its the way you send the CD’s and also just drop them an email to say they have been sent over.
All in all im very happy and i will use them again for sure….
At the end of the day i would of just got rid of these old CD’s and instead i got a nice cheque from them….
I think alot of these comments are from people that want something for nothing and expect to much and send damaged goods expecting the new price.
These people im afraid you can never please ! so take it from me use Music Magpie !
I used Music Magpie a few weeks ago and still haven’t had my cheque but they won’t answer my emails…Someone help me, tell me what else I can do!!! I sent off 10 CDs ands 10 DVDs 🙁
Paul,
Quote “I think alot of these comments are from people that want something for nothing and expect to much and send damaged goods expecting the new price.”
Have you actually READ the comments here? I don’t think anybody here expects something for nothing. It’s cases of people not receiving their cheques, or receiving them very late – surely people have a right to be disappointed or angry by that?
I personally sent off all my CDs and they were all in perfect condition, as I like to take good care of my belongings, thank you very much.
If you work for them then just say!!
To be honest, if musicmagpie are doing the volumes they are stating, then there is always going to be issues with customer service initially..
For cds, its an easy option to sell them to them – you dont get much but it adds up.
Similarly with dvds
For games, there are so many better alternatives – try game and gamestation on the high street, and even better try tradeyourstuff.co.uk online for games – they offer the best trade in prices in cash when they buy games from you and ive seen them offer more than double what musicmapgie does when selling to them on some games!
Can ne one help? still waiting from musicmagpie for my cheque which they said they posted over a week ago. Everytime I call them its the same guy who answers and just says it will be with u shortly…..sent over 30 dvds including boxsets and recieved nothing and they wont answer me by email…..
What do I do???????????????????????????
Sent my CD’s DVD’s etc over a month ago now, they state they have not received them yet. Hmmmm. This site was recommended by Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert, so am sure it must be kosher. Am hoping it’s just a case of waiting…….. Would’t use again tho.
@Amanda
As I mentioned in the original article, I don’t like the terms and conditions which seem weighted against you if there is any dispute. So I wouldn’t use the service personally. That doesn’t explain non-receipt though.
Tim