RIP GEMM

[pH]

Seems another vinyl market place has hit the dust.


From Discogs forum page -

"For those of you who don't know this site has been in financial trouble for some time, today the website and database have disappeared.

If you are one of the many sellers owed money by GEMM do not expect to see it, Site owner Roger Raffee had emailed several people stating that he intends to file for bankruptcy and close GEMM down

It is a sad moment, GEMM was the first music marketplace, dating back to 1995, a true pioneer site, under better management it might well have become an internet giant and for a while it did very well peaking around 2000 with a turnover in the millions.

Roger fell out with co-founder and developer Jim Hall, Jim was ousted and no one managed the site's creaking infrastructure, GEMM was simply overtaken by sites like musicstack and Discogs, sales declined rapidly.

GEMM took the full payment from buyers, removed its commission and then remitted to sellers, for over 2 years the delay in paying the sellers has been growing and earlier this year the site ceased taking money, referring buyers to pay the seller directly by Paypal, payments of arrears pretty much stopped. "

I hope no one had an expensive order going through ? I'm sure Paypal or Credit Cards will be able to get your money back.

Will MusicStack be next ? . . .

[SirSlim]

I first logged on to GEMM in 2000 and bought this for $7 - my first ever internet record buying purchase and then a long time want.



Many many more followed.

[Big Youth]

I totally forgot about Gemm. Funnily enough I bought my avatar for this site from them.

[Filthy Rich]

I used to use gemm more than any other site for buying music. Picked up things every now and again that seemed to be a very good deal eg this (Persons - Drive My Mustang) for about ten quid http://www.popsike.com/PERSONS-DRIVE...266732859.html

[treeboy]

Going back to the first post, I hope Musicstack won't be next. I do better there than on Discogs.

[DerekJ]

Not that suprised Gemm has gone their antiquated payment methods for sellers drove them into the hands of Discogs.

I still seem to do better in those olde worlde record shop places than i do online.

[bradx]

Used to sell 20 - 30 records every day on Gemm/ back in the pre-Discogs era. It was good business 15 years ago.
Should've sold Gemm when he got offered a lot for it way back.

[Milesago]

I picked up a fair few bargains on GEMM over the years but I stopped using it for the same reasons mentioned. The way it was organised made it more likely someone would list a rare LP without realising it's potential value, something very unlikely to happen on discogs unless it's not in their database. Bad for sellers, good for buyers. My last score was the Guggenheim LP. It worked out at under a tenner including postage: http://www.popsike.com/GUGGENHEIM-SA...665879108.html

[jb stanislas]

Thank you for posting. I was looking for an lp and tried Gemm, this week but didn;t know why I couldn't connect.

[Malice-Cooper]

This is very unfortunate for all the sellers who won't be reimbursed and of course many buyers who may not receive their goods now. Many good sellers left Gemm over the years due to the behaviour and attitude of Roger Raffee. I was one of them. I signed up after Jim Hall poached me from another site and all went well for the three months until it was time to pay me. At this point I was owed over £3000 and Roger invented every excuse not to pay me and was extremely arrogant rude when confronted on the subject. I was told I was then suspended from the site. I went to Jim with my situation and he told me he had been told by Roger not to interfere with his side of the database and to stick with his own. Subsequently I discovered scores of other sellers had been treated the same i.e. Not been paid for their sales and threatened with the legal department if they tried anything. This eventual shutting down was the inevitable outcome and i'm amazed it lasted as long as it did.

My purchases on the site were really good so I can't fault the sellers and the sales I made were exceptionally good, although unfortunately I never received the money for it. I assume it went into Roger's ego fund. This report here is rather typical of how he operated and if he truly has gone bankrupt, it does make me feel that what goes around comes around and it couldn't happen to a better person.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/GEMM/i...nternet-894938