Aus Vinyl Company Calls Out ‘Insanely Entitled Behaviour' As Customer ‘Blacklisted’

Aussie vinyl distributor Summit Distro has used its social media presence to call out “insanely entitled behaviour” that’s gotten a buyer “blacklisted”.

“We want to thank the incredible number of people who have shown us so much love since we started, and have thrown their support behind such a small yet ambitious venture that set out to support some of Australia's amazing bands that have deserved to be pressed on vinyl for some time,” Summit Distro posted on Facebook yesterday.

However, they note that “there have been a small number of instances which we feel that we need to address on a larger scale, as they have caused some disappointment and frustration in the camp,” before going forward with a post that offers “full transparency”.

Summit Distro recently blacklisted a customer for the first time after they demonstrated “insanely entitled behaviour”. “We had been in contact several times to replace two records which had 'excessive surface noise' and we had yet to respond to their last message which was sent on Sunday afternoon,” Summit Distro explained.

The statement added, “Thankfully there have only been two or three instances similar to this in the last two years, but this one in particular felt extremely unfair to us, considering we had gone to every means necessary to correct the issue which we felt wasn't a significant issue to begin with.”

Summit Distro pointed out that, unlike UNFD or Sharptone, Summit is “not a well-established, well-funded and well-staffed business,” but rather two guys who run a distribution company as a “hobby” while working full-time jobs, all for the love of music.

The statement continued: “This is literally all being done out of my (Jacob's) garage. We understand that occasionally we can be slow to respond, things might take a little longer to post out, and that we aren't always as efficient as we can be, but the reality is that this is a hobby for us, and we do our absolute best to deliver the highest quality vinyl releases possible with what we can work with.

“For anyone who does not understand the logistics of pressing vinyl, we literally supply the highest end audio possible to our pressing plant, who then manufacture the plates and test presses for us to proceed with the pressing.

“We DO NOT accept test presses where there is excessive surface noise or cracks/pops (we have rejected several tests which have had issues). We assume that it is common knowledge that records with intense splatters, smashes and colour variations introduce increased surface noise, but we will be updating all of our future releases to include this for anyone who is unaware. Quality is our number one focus, and we feel that anyone who has our releases will appreciate the effort that has gone in to each individual release.

“Unfortunately in some cases, our wild and whacky vinyl pressings may introduce additional surface noise, but there has yet to be a record that we have listened to that we would consider ‘defective’ (however we also understand that some people will receive records that do have defects, which is why we hold on to spares to replace these with if this is the case).

“Following this, Jacob will be taking a break from Summit Distro stuff until our next release is due to come out in late June. We will still be working on projects behind the scenes but we feel that these recent events serve as a good time to take a break to refocus.”

Last month, Summit Distro released a “crazy” limited edition vinyl of Kisschasy’s United Paper People – only 25 units were available and sold out immediately.