Why I wouldn't bother with Music Magpie as a service.

So we had a loft FULL of dvds and was going to car booty them off, but I saw the ad on the TV for musicMagpie and thought heck, why not. From the comfort of my own home, I can get rid of them swiftly and make a bit of cash too - great!

The website musicmagpie.co.uk is relatively easy to use, typing the barcodes of 342 dvds was a bit of an effort though - it took just over 2 hours in the end.

Once you've done this, you receive a handy email explaining how many boxes you will need to package them up. We were advised 4 boxes, fitting approx 93 in each. I wasn't sure of the dimensions so took a trip to Wilkinsons and asked for some advice - the lady was nice enough to give us some boxes free of charge as to buy the boxes we needed would have cost a good few quid. Oh, we did have to purchase a roll of brown tape though. I would have thought that, given musicMagpie offer an average of around 20p per dvd (a pittance in reality!) they would have provided the boxes themselves - but they don't.

They do, however, offer a free collection service, which is what I opted for. You can leave your items wherever you fancy (you don't have to be in for collection) but as we had a whopping 342 dvds - and have nowhere to leave them outside, we would have to choose a date that we would be in. Luckily you can choose the best date for you so we pre-booked today (13/08/2013). They can't give you a time slot but advise that collection will occur any time between 8am and 8pm.

So, today, 4pm (ish) the door knocks and the guys states "collection for musicMagpie". Toddling off into the back room to get the first of 7 boxes (varying sizes) he looks a little concerned, but it was only when we noticed his tiny red car outside - already full of boxes - that we asked if he knew the quantity he was collecting. He said "no, why?!" We told him how many and he shook his head and said he couldn't fit them in his car, he'll have to come back later. Annoyed that we'd waited in all day up to now, only to wait longer, and also at the obvious lack of collection preparation, we begrudgingly agreed and continued waiting. Thought: where was the nice shiny white van that's depicted on TV for collection??
Anyway, 15 minutes later the house phone rings "Yeah, sorry, I'm gunna have to leave it 'til tomorrow now. What time will you be in?"

Seriously?? Waste of an entire day, and now we have to waste some more time tomorrow.

So, in bullets, this is why I wouldn't bother with musicMagpie again - and would recommend you don't either:

> Exceptionally low prices offered in comparison with other alternatives
> They may not accept every title you have - pick and choose what they want from your collection
> Source your own packaging, at your own cost
> If a large order - you'd want to stay in for collection rather than leaving them on the front or in the wheelie bin
> No time slot for collection just a generic 12 hour window.
> Lack of communication between musicMagpie and courier
> Unsuitable courier selected for the size of the order, and the very large time slot (car will be filled very quickly)

I wish I'd car booted - more fun, less time wasted, more cash made, less cash investment (cheaper to get a stall than source own packaging for large orders!)

Totes Crapola. Let's see if they're collected tomorrow!!

Have you used them before? What was your experience like? xxx
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