WARNING: bigcd is back
 

I don't even know how to find the original threads to point you all to, but I just wanted to warn you all that BigCD seems to have opened his doors again. He doesnt seem to be selling DVDs anymore, but just CDs, both from his onine store as well as ebay, under a different ID.

I don't know if any of you are still owed CDs and/or refunds by Mike, but it definitely bugs me to see that he just seems to have dropped out of sight for a while, then just shows up again, like nothing ever happened.

...just a warning, maybe I can help someone.

-jason

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=184503

They won't be back for long. The band will be HUGE any day now.

:lol:

Moving to Store Forum.

This is the funniest website I've ever visited!!!

Here's Mike's reason for shutting down earlier (taken directly from his Customer Service page) -- but be careful, you might split your pants laughing:

"BigCD: was started about 3 years ago as a Import music store initially, then grew into a much larger catalog that handled DVDs, video games and more. It was forced to close in early 2002 due to mainly the success of the business and sudden clamp down on funds and processing by the larger entities at hand."

Don't you just hate it when your business becomes so successful that you have to SHUT IT DOWN? A little know fact is that Microsoft was supposed to shut down in 1984, but they lost the memo!

rotfl

Here's another funny item:

"What's the difference between then and now? Same look and feel but much more simpler operation and strict only cd catalog at this point."

Not a single mention of quicker delivery, better customer service or increased business ethics! What a hoot!

By the way, although Mike says he runs a "strict only cd catalog", I was able to find VCDs and DVDs listed on his page.

Go to customer service and check out the recent orders, he is only getting 3 or 4 a day. Can't possibly survive. Before the site was officially up, he had a rant about people scamming him with credit cards, and the credit card companies ripping him off. It was quite funny.

You can definitely survive on 3 or 4 orders a day when you have absolutely no inventory and you are living out of your parent's basement.

How bad was it?
I remember buying from the site a while back, and everything came in on time. It was pretty cheap too, and fast. I paid using Paypal though.....guess I lucked out.

Neitzl

You should read the previous thread for all the pertinent info. It was a BIG FIASCO to say the least.

The original BigCD thread is one of the most entertaining threads I've ever read.

And, just like last time, when you probably have no plans to actually SHIP product...

I'd like to maybe clarify this to non business owners.
It's true being successful doesn't mean good times ahead when dealing with a merchant account, especially a company with crooked/bad agents like Cardservice International which was what BigCD was using.
What happens is you're allowed to process a certain amount/month. Say $5000 in CC sales. What happens is if you go over, say $10000/month they don't mention anything. It's not a few days later when you notice no money being deposited. So you call up and ask where's the money. They will say, 'sorry, you are over your limit'.
Ok, now you have $5000 of customer's money that's not actually in your account but you are supposed to ship product. Now when will you recieve this $5000 from the merchant bank? Who knows, they can keep it upto 6 months if they wanted. Now what are you supposed to do when customers want a refund? Sure you charged their credit card, sure you were supposed to have the funds in 2 days in your checking account but how can you refund when the merchant bank is holding the money? Do you think the merchant bank is interested in refunding all that money in a timely fashion? You have to understand the merchant's side. So him saying he was too successful might seem awkward to the average person but someone who's had the (dis)pleasure of dealing with the merchant banks, I was more sympathetic. There's more I could say but then my reply would be a page long.

Where BigCD f***ed up was continuing taking orders when they knew the merchant bank was holding the funds. That he has no excuse for and an exlanation might have helped.

And another thing that customer's might not have been aware of. If the customer went to their CC company and requested the refund they'd get it. However, the merchant would be dinged $10-25 chargeback fee for each request. Don't forget, this is the money that's being held up by the merchant bank. Say 1000 customers buying $20 of goods not recieved and all asking for their money back. That's upto $25000 the merchant would be 'fined' for something that the merchant bank is the cause of. And do you think the merchant bank or the CC bank would care? Nope because they make money off it.

if you can only do 5000 dollars a month in volume then make sure to only process that many credit cards a months. deny all other orders.

what other choice do you have?

he did not so as a customer what am I supposed to do?

I have no choice I have to dispute the charges and he will get dinged the money.

My feeling is that he just did not care and he was using money to pay for things other than the dvd's he was supposed to ship. when his ponzi like scheme stopped bringing in new money he was screwed. he had spent the money from the first orders and had none to buy the dvd's since no new orders were coming in to give him money.

BINGO!! Let's not forget that Mike bragged about spending BigCD money to promote his band, which amounts to total FRAUD!