"Do NOT purchase anything physical from Direct Song unless you have a tremendous amount of patience and have lots of luck on your side. It’s a complete gamble and not favourable in the customer’s side. I'm sure digital downloads are fine but anything physical that requires Direct Song to actually post to you is just a nightmare.

Ordered the Skyrim soundtrack about 9 weeks ago and still haven’t received it. They stated it would take 4-6 weeks before the item is even dispatched which is a very long time but I accepted this when I purchased. The main problem is that you receive no confirmation at all that your order is in hand, it just says card approved and you get your order number and that’s it, no way of tracking the order or anything. After 6 weeks I emailed them many times through an email address I got in one of the forums (there is no email address on their site), but got no response. I raised a support ticket on their site and eventually they responded with a generic response saying they will dispatch after 5 days. It’s now been another 2 weeks and nothing at all from them, despite me constantly pleading for them to at LEAST respond.

I had to open a PayPal dispute with them as I was on day 44 and if I waited another day it would be too late to file a PP claim. I didn’t really want a refund but more hoping this would urge them to get back to me but it didn’t do anything, they didn’t even respond to PayPal. It’s now been over 9 weeks in total since I ordered and I have been very patient and my claim was coming to an end so had to escalate to PayPal for a refund and still no response from Direct Song. It’s a shame because I’m a big fan of Jeremy Soule but this business he is running just puts a black cloud over his music. This is not good customer service and if I didn’t raise that PP claim then it would be theft, my money could have disappeared into oblivion.

It’s extremely disappointing to wait for 9 weeks and then just have to get a refund because Direct Song will not sort out all these problems or at least let me know what is happening with my order. It’s the communication that is the worst, I could honestly wait months if I had to as long as I knew what was going on but you don’t get any reassurance that your order is in safe hands. I managed to find someone on eBay selling the Skyrim soundtrack, it was of course much more expensive buying it from someone else who was lucky enough to get a hold of it but at least I know I will be receiving this in a realistic amount of time and the seller has advised he will be giving me a tracking number.

Direct Song should not be a business, certainly not selling physical CDs if they cannot ship for months. If they are just far too busy and have so many orders they take customer’s money and leave them in limbo for what feels like an eternity and are too busy to respond to them for months they should not be online selling.

I’m really stunned at how bad the service has been, it’s just been hopeless ever since I placed my order. I would advise anyone who wants to buy the Guild Wars soundtrack or Skyrim soundtrack to simply keep checking eBay until someone is selling it. It will cost a bit more but at least you’ll get a much better service. Anyone who decides to ignore all the bad reviews for this site and purchase a physical object from Direct Song I wish you a lot of luck and hope the Gods be watching over you.

"

"Placed an order 5 months ago. Order status still only says "card approved" instead of "order shipped". Submitted a ticket, received a reply a week later saying exactly what has been said to other reviewers here: "I completely understand your concern and apologize for any Inconvenience. Unfortunately there has been a hold on shipping due to manufacturer delays. We are expecting the arrival of product any day now, Once received they will be ready for a signing session with the composer. Your patience understanding and cooperation thus far has been greatly appreciated. Once your order has been dispatched you will receive a confirmation email and USPS tracking number". Received nothing. Sent several replies to my ticket, one even asking for a full refund if they weren't prepared to send me the item, received no response. Have opened up a new ticket as that seems to be the only way I might attract attention from them. Absolutely atrocious service. I will never buy from DirectSong again."

"DO NOT BUY from DirectSong. Short version of my experience:

Ordered Skyrim CD set from them early April, 2013.
4 weeks with no contact I open a ticket on their support website. They claim manufacturing delays. No word from them after that.

4 MORE weeks later I open another ticket. They apologize and say it will be in the mail withing 5 business days. No word from them afterwards.

ANOTHER 4 weeks pass and I open another ticket, saying if they don't refund my money or ship my CDs I will have to take further action. They didn't even respond to this ticket yet, so I took another reviewers advice on this site and opened a dispute against DirectSong with the Better Business Bureau. Let's hope this works

All in all, over 3 months of waiting, still no sign of my CDs or a refund."

"Extremely bad customer service. I ordered a Guild Wars 2 soundtrack about 5-6 months ago and I have been told manufacturing delays time over time. I still have not seen the CD at all. Do not even BOTHER buying from this company at all. They do not seem to care about their customers."

"Ordered GW2 soundtrack and never received a thing (it's now six months, not weeks). No contact data or any way to contact them on the website. Order status only says "card approved" with no indication anything was ever shipped. Sure wish I'd checked this site before ordering! Buyer beware!"

"Hi everyone,

I too have been waiting an inordinate amount of time for the Skyrim soundtrack, almost two months. Apparently this is due to manufacturing issues. To me, that is beside the point, especially having read all your complaints. Seeing as DirectSong is the composers' site, too, I'm flummoxed. Not in their best interest to provide unreliable service, from the manufacturer down, for one of the greatest games out there and one of the best scores I've ever heard.

This is what I did: http://www.bbb.org/western-washington/business-reviews/music-distribution-service/direct-song-in-lake-stevens-wa-22685930/file-a-complaint.

You can too."

"I am in the same boat as many others, waiting impatiently for the Skyrim soundtrack CD's, 11 weeks now.

I have received a couple of form emails in response to my support requests, the last one literally says "any day now" they will get the product in and then send it to the composer for signature.

I do not care about the signature, but I will wait a little longer before opening a dispute with my bank"

"not feeling confident having read the other comments. ordered skyrim discs on 6th december, still not here, no response from directsong. cant even claim a refund from paypal as i waited until after their magical 45 day claim period, having been told the discs would take 6 weeks to get here. not happy. anybody have an idea what we can do about this???"

"Ninety days later, multiple messages sent to Direct Song, and still NO product. I ordered Skyrim CD's in October 2012. First, they claimed a delay in shipping. Now they claim they never received my funds through Paypal. I have proof that the funds cleared my bank AND PayPal. The lack of professionalism and customer service of this company is enormous. This transaction has been nothing but frustrating. It remains to be seen whether I will receive either the CD's or my money back. I highly recommend NOT doing business with this company!"

"I have but conptempt for DirectSound as they keep you in the dark for weeks and do not warn you that you are in a backorder.
It take multiple tickets in there forum to get asnwers that they close before anything is resolved.

I even ask for a refund because they where keeping me in the dark. Never came true.
A month later I get a notice that I will eventually get my shipment.

To top it all off when I started to play the GW2 CDs I bought there was no track list information at all. I had to manualy punch all the information for them.

Real professional ..."

"I have ordered 2 soundtracks with Direct Song in the past and had to wait at least 12 weeks just for them to be sent on both occasions. Delivery time took another 4 weeks on top of that for the order that did arrive, the other did not arrive at all.

Customer service reply times take weeks and on one of my many attempts to contact them they replied with the status of somebody else's order, giving me all of their personal information along with it.

They do have a nice product but in order to deal with this company you will need to have great patience, luck and not care about the possibility of giving your personal details to strangers. I could not recommend anyone purchase anything from Direct Song."

"Ordered the Guild Wars 2 soundtrack 5 minutes after receiving my collectors edition, was told 4-5 weeks estimated for delivery.
After 4 weeks I contacted them, and it was nearly a week before the response came "10 work days" before they were shipping..
I then waited another 4 weeks before I finally received my sound track in a very crushed state... Discs too damaged..
I have tried to communicate with directsong, so far without a single response in 17 days!
When I received it, it was too late to open a paypal dispute..
All in all.. directsong has sent me crap and stolen my money...

What good is a soundtrack, personally signed, when it's been crushed due to not being protected in any way for shipping?
DO not EVER buy from directsong.. You will not get what you pay for!"

"Never ever use DirectSong if you live outside of the USA if you can help it. I cannot speak for their digital DL service, but their shipping is terrible, the estimate of 4-6 weeks was way off, the customer service was next to useless. They gave no help, no support. Nothing.

I ask for information that they should have (where my package is), I get told to go find out for myself. However, this was not possible (which is why I was asking them) as the US Postal Service does not allow for people to submit questions if you are outside the US (the final form asks for your address and provides no option for 'I live in ____' - it has to be an American address...).

So I could get no info from the USPS, Customs in the UK and US were slow to respond (as expected), so I asked DirectSong and nothing...still waiting."

"I have bought several soundtracks from DirectSong and have always been very pleased. The Skyrim CD's took a little while to arrive but that was expected. Most of my soundtracks from DirectSong are downloaded, extremely high quality and greatly enjoyed. I will be happy to do business with them in the future."

"Excellent. I have no affiliation with DirectSong (nor Skyrim's BugFesta). I acknowledge the other reviews re the Skyrim CDs, but I believe this is the correct rating now. Reasons below, if of interest.

1. I e-mailed DS before ordering, to check their Skyrim shipping backlog. They replied promptly, and said maybe six weeks, but would be trying for two before shipping. My U.S. address RECEIVED the order by U.S. mail (USPS), seven days after placing. Perfect condition, no "scratches" or other problem.

2. I think DS are good people who got overwhelmed before. Skyrim sold 10 million copies just in November, 2011. If 1% ordered the CDs, and 1% of those 1% a day sent emails asking about status, how would YOU do answering 1,000 emails a day? Plus how many more in December, etc?

3. One reviewer has gotten his wish, that now others are selling the Skyrim CDs. Go on, check the price at Amazon.

4. Regarding long delivery times to non-U.S. addresses... I order stuff from the UK, and my fasted international time, via simple RM-to-USPS, has been two weeks in transit. Several packages have been close to destroyed, presumably in U.S. customs. For a shipping story and tip, check my Lansdale review.

5. Some other .MP3 downloads from DS also were perfect, 320kbps, 44.1kHz suitable for writing to a CD if you like, or typical uses.

(Tip: Writing an audio file to make a normal audio CD, you want 44.1, not 48kHz. Analog sampling at 44.1 is fine for almost everyone. And digital conversion to 44.1 can produce artifacts. Especially when done by most "free" audio programs, listeners notice, including me. However sometimes you end up with 48kHz, say from an s/pdif recording. Then the free audio editor Audacity does a decent job downconverting.)

My only DirectSong complaint is that DS enclosed no invoice with the USPS shipment. However this happens with many sellers now.

Cheers. M."