Mercury
There's got to be a better collector site than this rubbish.
Their tagline, 'built by collectors for collectors' should be changed to "built by whiny douchebags" because for all my interactions I had with them, that's always how they came across. I'd been with them for several years back when it was simply Pop Price Guide, but alas it had to be absorbed into some Marxist hellhole that somehow coexists with capitalist values as "We need your money, but you'll do it our way!" Um ok, sure. So now if you want to access their site just to even look at your own collection you'll need to subscribe and their whinging doctrine will tell you that there's simply no other way. $47 odd dollars, after being subjected to a U.S exchange rate, just to keep tabs on a collection that I actually spent weeks to establish on the site, but yeah, I guess the cost of soy lattes had gone up. I previously contacted them several times over obvious flaws in their pricing calculations and questioned why some pop vinyls that had been out for years still had no hint of value and the reply was more whining about how they're only a small team, they don't have resources, they can't do this, can't do that, not sure what day it is and on and on etc. If that's the case, why bother assimilating other sites and taking on so much if you lack the resources to control it properly? Why not just keep the status quo? It seems resistance really is futile. I'm sure I'll get some whiny reply that'll attempt to explain such a poor executive decision. I'll look forward to ignoring it. In any case I thought I'd help them out initially and sent them a lengthy email outlining the average cost of several pops that were at that point valueless on the site and pointed to my sources for the costs I had provided. Rather than doing any research themselves to confirm my findings or do any work at all, I was told that they're unable to accept anything I sent on this matter as I was not officially part of the chosen ones and I'd need to "officially" join the team of Jedi's or something. Really? With chantings of 'one of us, one of us' circling my mind, I'm not sure how the info provided would be any different in any stretch of the imagination and it could be easily verified if someone there was capable of using a computer and examining the info as presented but unfortunately it wasn't to be. Even the usurpers don't like being usurped it seems. Next came the site issues as HobbyDB started to slowly sink into the mire of inadequacy and even a simple matter of signing in became an old testament plague to ones sanity. The site was supposed to remember you for 30 days, why only 30? Don't know! But after you signed in you had to go back and choose their 30 day option, at which point the site will patronise you and point out that you've already signed in. But wait for it; if however, you then wanted to check your collection from highest to lowest or from A-Z, guess what? You'd have to sign in again. Fastest & worst 30 days ever. Several emails venting my frustrations about this was reversed back on to me as the Mensa team at HobbyDB was adamant that it couldn't possibly be an issue at their end, how dare such a thing be suggested "A pox on thy house"! It's obviously something I'm doing wrong, or it's my device, or I've been gypsy cursed. Worse still was their god-awful Captcha nonsense which every reasonable person hates, as humans confirming that they're human seems a lot like a Salem witch trial. If you're human, Captcha will send you insane, if not, clearly you're a robot. And then well a lot of us hit a wall didn't we and reading between the lines of their whiny rhetoric, it pointed out "we can't, we can't we can't....." What can they do you ask? Don't know! So I thought I'd try a subscription under the guise of 'give a little, get a little' but instead what I got was another headache as despite me giving them my credit details, they somehow decide to take money from somewhere else and as that account, which I no longer use didn't have enough in it, their system defaulted to another account that they had no authorisation accessing and syphoned money from there. Now I can already picture the reply I'll get that "they didn't, they can't or they wouldn't" but I can assure all who are reading this that - they did - they can and they would. Nevertheless I'd had enough of them by this point, I'd deleted the account, so I've lost all info on my pop collection, the money will be refunded, if not by HobbyDB, then by the bank, so you'll have to find others to fund your gluten free muffins. Good luck and good riddance, I look forward to the cut and paste whiny reply I'm sure to get. PS - The reply just says it all. 5 months to reply and that's what they come up with. It's exactly what happened and you can portray me as an insane person as much as you like, but I know what happened. The fact you've just ignored everything else says a lot!
Response from hobbyDBFeb 17, 2025
I would normally reply but do not even know where to start here. This gentleman is just insane (just read it, for example "despite me giving them my credit details, they somehow decide to take money from somewhere else and as that account, which I no longer use didn't have enough in it, their system defaulted to another account that they had no authorisation accessing and syphoned money from there"- that is not what happened...).