Dear Sainsbury’s,

I’m struggling to find a way to say this without sounding like a Tourette’s sufferer with a paper cut, but what the fuck are you playing at?

Since August, Bitterwallet has covered the demise of Datz Music Lounge – from the initial worry amongst customers, to the unpicking of their finances, to their final demise and liquidation. You’ll notice we’ve underlined that last word, what with Datz now out of business and owing creditors money, not to mention leaving hundreds of customers stranded with a product that no longer works.

The thing is, as we’ve explained to your press department more times than we can count in the past three months, Datz worked by customers buying a CD Rom and USB, and using it in conjunction with the Datz Music Lounge website to download music. Customers paid upfront for a twelve month unlimited subscription; those customers who paid their subs on the day of launch received barely eight months of full service from Datz – anybody buying the product this year was royally screwed over.

And yet we’ve told you this time and time again. Sainsbury’s was the key retail partner for Datz since day one, so no doubt your buyers are aware they can’t buy more stock or return unsold stock. We’d have thought somebody would have sat up and took notice when Datz went into liquidation. We repeatedly asked you to consider your customers and pull the product from your shelves, since it was entirely worthless. We asked you to comment on the situation, and explain why you continued to stock the product.

Last month, after we pointed out your inaction yet again, you called us and promised to resolve the matter to avoid more customers being ripped off. So it makes our piss boil to receive this from HUKD member Boothy, taken in a Sheffield branch of Sainsbury’s this weekend:

Staggering. Seriously, you’re blowing our minds here. You’re charging £50 for a product that doesn’t work, and you bloody well know it. Just because you’ve got a shop in every town and a shiny loyalty card, it doesn’t give you the right to shill your customers. Make no mistake – that’s what you’re doing here.

We’re not sure what else we can do to get your attention, short of once again shaming you in public. We know Jamie Oliver costs you a metric fuckton of money and you’ve got to find it somewhere, but STOP SELLING DATZ.

Cheers,

Bitterwallet

A month on since we warned you that Datz Music Lounge was in serious trouble, the company has officially ceased trading and gone into liquidation. Music Week reports that the company is unable to pay its debts to labels, and that a sale as a going concern is highly unlikely. The Datz Music Lounge site (and that of pay-per-download sister site Datz.com) have now completely disappeared.

Music Week also located Managing Director Michael Richardson and extracted a soundbite from him:

“If Nokia or Microsoft or another of the big players came up with the Music Lounge then no doubt they would be in a bloody strong position. Unfortunately a few oiks from Oxfordshire and didn’t quite have that clout.”

“Oik” isn’t quite the word we’d use to describe Richardson, given that Datz refused to return the emails or phonecalls of customers, the media or even retailers while continuing to allow the sale of Datz Music Lounge CD and USB stick package when he couldn’t provide the product as sold. There’s another word we’d use to describe that sort of thing.

Richardson goes on to explain the company’s problems date back to the closure of Woolworths:

“Datz’ sister company Comment ran supplied Woolworths with mobile phones, and this revenue was supposed to keep Datz on track with its payments to labels. Woolworths’ closure meant that Datz was forced to operate as a stand-alone business and eventually ran out of money.”

In fact we uncovered the trail back to Woolworths nearly a month ago; we also learnt that Comment went into administration barely a month after the Datz Music Store launched. So despite the entire financial security of Datz resting on Comment, it was still launched despite the fact Comment was only a month away from folding. Since Richardson was the MD of both companies, what was he thinking?

According to Music Week, the Datz Music Lounge product has not been on sale since the website vanished a week ago, but this isn’t the case. We found that eBuyer we’re still selling vouchers for Datz on Tuesday; we informed them of Datz’s difficulties and the product was immediately pulled from sale:

eBuyer management also told us that Michael Richardson was not returning their calls either. eBuyer acted quickly and in the interests of their customers – the same can’t be said of Sainsbury’s. We informed their press office of Datz’s situation on August 19th and have been in touch several times since. But yesterday we heard from Bitterwallet reader Geoff Whitworth:

Last night I spent fifteen minutes in Sainsbury’ branch at Leicester Fosse Park. They still had a copy on display in the small electrics cabinet at £49.99. Several times at the customer service desk I reiterated that the product should be removed from sale, but since they have apparently not received any advice from head office and the SKU is active, I presume they have not done this. I’ve now emailed customer services four times, all without anything but automated responses.

Geoff eventually got a refund, but not without a fight. What are Sainsbury’s playing at here? We can’t tell you because Sainsbury’s still won’t tell us. Yesterday we contacted their press office once more and made it patently clear they were ripping off customers by continuing to sell a product that didn’t exist. They promised to get back to us with a statement and a promise that action had been taken. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t bothered. Again.

Meanwhile, if it’s any consolation to those of you who are out of pocket, Datz director Anna Cole-Morgan told Billboard she feels “very guilty” about people who bought the product in its latter days. There you go – take that to the bank and cash it.

Nearly three weeks ago, we updated you on our investigation of Datz - heralded at launch by the technology press as a new eat-all-you-want subscription model for the music industry. It involved punters buying Datz Music Lounge – a CD ROM and a USB stick combo – for £99.99, either in-store at Sainsbury’s or elsewhere online. This entitled the user to download unlimited music from tens of thousands of artists for a whole year.

Then it all started going wrong. Last month, a reader told us that the major artists promised by Datz had disappeared from the online store; Datz seemed to have lost the rights to libraries from EMI and Warner. We then went digging into the history of Datz and uncovered a spider’s web of debt and administration – at the centre of it, the man on the right, Datz MD Michael Richardson. Despite been unable to provide the service as sold, Datz continued to sell the product online for full price, while Sainsbury’s continued selling it at a discount.

So three weeks on, where are we? The only update is that the Datz Music Lounge has now shut down altogether. We’ve made several calls to their offices since our last post and they continue to go unanswered. Their former press representative at XL Communications won’t provide any information as he no longer works on behalf of Datz.

What about Sainsbury’s? We initially contacted the press office on 20th August and raised our concerns – that the product was unable to satisfy its own claims as sold, and should be removed from stores as to sell it would mislead customers. In total we have now contacted Sainsbury’s three times – each time explaining the situation to their press office to determine what action they were taking and to provide a statement, and each time they have failed to return our call. Today we read in the HUKD forums that a branch of Sainsbury’s was still selling Datz Music Lounge last Thursday, although it had been discontinued and heavily discounted. Sainsbury’s had been aware of the product’s misleading claims for a fortnight – the supermarkets had no right selling the product at any price because it didn’t work.

Since Datz Music Lounge only launched at the end of last year, everyone who has bought it has lost out on their 12 month subscription. The scandal is that nobody involved in this seems concerned that Datz have probably taken tens of thousands of pounds and ran, least of all Sainsbury’s. You could try returning it to the original retailer since it clearly isn’t fit for purpose for the duration of use. And keep an eye out for Michael Richardson – he’s no doubt keeping a low profile.

Yesterday we told you about the Datz Music Lounge, an all-you-can-eat online music subscription costing £100 for 12 months. Except instead of allowing you to download tracks from world-famous artists, most of the popular material has disappeared from the store in the past week, leaving nothing much but dregs and karaoke tunes.

Sometimes we report on a story like this once and let it go, but we don’t feel we can do that here. Given the enormous amount of press Datz received at launch last year, and given that the likes of Sainsbury’s have been a high-profile supplier of the product, it’s likely that thousands of consumers have paid up to £100 to subscribe to a service that simply isn’t there.

As we’ve tried to find answers, we’ve began unpicking the story of Datz, and it’s rather interesting:

There are two sites – the Datz Music Lounge and Datz.com – an online music store where you pay-per-track. This was the first of the Datz companies; it was registered as a limited company in March 2007 and launched the following October, but owned and managed by Comment Retail Services Ltd. Datz Music Lounge was launched last October by the MD of both Comment and Datz Ltd, Michael Richardson.

At the end of last year, Woolworths went into administration, and several of their suppliers hit the wall as a result. Comment Retail Services Ltd was one of them – they went into administration in November, barely a month after the Datz Music Store launched. Comment were based in the same offices as the address currently held by Datz – Unipart House on Garsington Road, Cowley.

Of course it’d be easy to draw conclusions based on these facts, but we’d rather hear an explanation from Datz themselves. That has proved far easier said that done – we already know that Datz is refusing to answer customer emails, and we’ve tried to contact them again on both their corporate and technical numbers without success. We’ve also called Unipart House reception – according to the receptionist, there are staff working in the Datz office, yet nobody will answer the phone when put through. We were given a direct landline – 01865 383316 – and nobody answers that number either. We’ve called Datz’s PR agency XL Communications twice and emailed – they should be managing this situation on behalf of their client, but they won’t returned our messages. Datz’s digital music distributor 24-7 Entertainment also refused to comment.

In the meantime, not only are Datz potentially sitting on hundreds of thousands of pounds of customer subscriptions, and not only are they failing to supply the service as sold, but they are still selling it: their product is still available in Sainsbury’s stores across the country, and Datz are still taking payments for orders through their own website:

We’ve now contacted Sainsbury’s and asked for a statement on the matter. Until then, unless somebody at Datz or their PR company wants to do their customers the courtesy of explaining what’s going on, we’ll keep asking questions.