Discussion Forums - Questions about SwapaCD

A disc I ordered with “Front & Back inserts” arrived with the front and back remains of a poorly cut-up and torn apart digipack covered in library stickers. The booklet that originally came with the disc is missing. I would have never ordered this disc if I had known that it would arrive without the booklet and with the remains of a torn-apart digipack substituting for the full artwork. What is SwapaCD's policy on this? Do I mark it as received without a problem?

Update . . . The disc was quite rough looking and not too surprisingly skips when I play-tested it. Unfortunately, when I was exploring the options SwapaCD gives us to report the status of a disc's Front & Back inserts (before I had played the disc), the system must have somehow logged my clicks as a report that I had received the disc without any problems. I certainly never intended to report this disc as received without any problems before play-testing it (given how rough the disc looked) and I never clicked through the screen where SwapaCD asks about the postage date, packing materials, etc. Yet, the disc now appears in my transaction archive as successfully completed.

Send a message to the site using the Help Center drop-down menu item Contact Us, and explain the situation.  They will most likely change the status and return your credit.  I found out the hard way that once you click the Received Okay button, the system stores it regardless of the info you would enter after that.

Personally, I agree with you that destroying the digipak should not qualify as front & back artwork.  But I don't know the site's policy on that.

The site's policies are contradictory. 

In the help center topics "Does the CD have to be in a case" and "Is My CD okay to post here", the site states

If your CD is in a Digipak (cardboard style case with plastic tray(s) attached to the inside to hold the disc(s), please DO NOT remove the plastic trays before sending out the CD. Either send it out all in one piece, or post it as 'Disc Only' and only send the disc by itself.

A digipack cut in two is clearly not all in one piece. 

However, under "What can be swapped here?" the site states
If you receive a disc that is playable from beginning to end and one or more of the inserts are damaged, you cannot report the transaction as damaged. You are only guaranteed to receive a disc that is playable from beginning to end.

The same topic also states "Any extra items that are specifically mentioned in the CD title on SwapaCD must be shipped with the CD."  but per the previous statement, if such items aren't included and the disk plays, you were only ever guaranteed the disc and may not report the transaction as damaged.  It logically follows that missing or damaged artwork also may not be reported even if the sender indicated they were included.

But on the other hand, the topic "There is a problem with a CD I received!" lists four "Official" problem options, the fourth is

Missing Request Options

• This means the CD did not come with the artwork you requested.

However, the topic "A requestor sys there is a problem with a CD I sent!" only lists the first three of these "Official" problem options; it does not include the "Missing Request Options" problem,

Some 12 years ago, the Team posted in the "Questions about SwapaCD" forum some clarifications, but the information has never been fully incorporated into the Help Center documents.  These clarifications included:

Regarding Digipaks, the actual cardboard case is what we consider the front and back inserts. If there were liner notes as well, they should obviously be included. But as mentioned above, just because there is a space for liner notes in the Digipak does not necessarily mean that it originally came with them. If you have any doubt when posting a Digipak, just post it as Disc Only to be safe.

It is unclear how members are supposed to determine if a CD in a plastic cae or Digipak originally included a booklet with liner notes as a seperate item from front artwork.  But again, you are really only guaranteed a disc.

It is all rather confusing, but appears in the end to come down to "You are only guaranteed to receive a disc that is playable from beginning to end."  

I think I remember when the part about " Either send it out all in one piece, or post it as 'Disc Only' was added.  It was for this very kind of situation.  The verbage in other places in the Help Docs is left over.  I think the rules' spirit is to send the artwork, or digipak, intact.  Mangling the digipak is akin to ripping the front booklet in half, or removing pages, and only sending part of it.  Clearly not what should be done.

So in the case of the original poster, he did not receive the digipak in it's original usable form as a substitute for normal artwork.  So it was missing things that should have been included.

Thank you for the replies, djtal and Advertisement.

Swap gave me my credit back.