Murfie ceased operations

A few years back, I had Murfie copy my collection on an NAS device (they supplied one). Unfortuantely, I didn’t have it upadated so my newer discs not available.

I’m not optimistic that our collections will be returned but if users are willing to pay, one option would be for Murfie to return collections on a NAS device. 

seems like a lower labor cost to Murfie than shipping CD’s.

Is there anywhere else we can stay in touch and perhaps reach out to the Murfie execs?

Just rcv’d the following email:

Hello, This email is to solicit your instructions for return of your CDs held in Murfie's secure storage facility.   Murfie, Inc. has terminated all business operations to include the website, streaming services, marketplace activities and downloads.  The company is insolvent (has no money) and has been dissolved. Assets remaining have been assumed by Murfie's secured creditors.   Murfie appreciates and values your participation as part of the Murfie community of music fans. While Murfie sought to build the company around the quality and license rights associated with owned physical music formats, customer preferences have shifted to predominantly favor purely digital music.     Unfortunately Murfie's financial situation precludes any ability to reimburse customers for unused portions of subscriptions or for any Murfie credits that may have accumulated.  Murfie' secured creditors  have joined together with a few former Murfie customers to informally aid customers seeking return of their CDs.  Since Murfie's debt obligations far exceed cash on hand, any return of customer media must be funded by the customers themselves.     A process to implement timely return of customer-owned CDs is now being formulated and will be in place soon. This email is to solicit customer requests for CD return.   To receive CDs that you stored with Murfie you must notify the company by close of business December 2 that you elect the return of your physical media. Complete the return request form linked below:   https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWcsfu-xhcpB_Evf0xVasy4bGCGGoD9fBzO7Rx1qH_v9PhOA/viewform?usp=sf_link   Upon receipt of your request the CD return team will send you an invoice for payment based on the size of your collection along with information on how to make payment online.  Cost of handling is significant as it requires a manual effort to pull your CDs from the nearly 1 million CDs in Murfie's Storage.  Cost will vary greatly depending on number of discs and degree of physical dispersion of your collection (due to your buy/sell activity in the marketplace). To estimate your approximate cost use the formula: $100.00 plus $0.45 per disc. Actual cost that will be invoiced to you will vary as it is subject to the labor required to extract and assemble your discs. Please note this is a limited time offer. Due to the company's dissolution, if you do not reply to this message by COB December 2, the team cannot put your request into the shipping queue.  Also your non-response to this message will be taken as your authorization to consider your collection as abandoned.  Abandoned discs will be recycled by the end of December when the storage facility must be vacated.   Murfie apologizes for the inconvenience and the short time fuse for this process.  Thank you for your patience in this difficult situation.   The Murfie Close-out Team

You received this email because our records indicate that you have, or have had, content processed or stored by Murfie, Inc.

This is extremely frustrating!  We need to pay hundreds of dollars to get our own property back?  

In my case, I have to pay $ 16 for the shipment and from there adding $ 3 more for each following CD, Murfie has done it on purpose, notice that they themselves say they have more than 1 million Discs and I think more, so that the profit would be more than 1 million dollars to return all CD shipping.

Murfie Users, alone we may seem powerless but perhaps we should be considering banding together for a class action.  Has anyone sought legal advice?  I have 10,000 cds there and had over $400 in my account from cd sales.  The financial impact for me is significant in the short and long term.  I’m beside myself right now so please chime in if you have any ideas.

I never sold CD in Murfie, but how was the play? The CDs you sold in Murfie, did the money go directly to your Paypal or Card Bank account? or I was going to Murfie's wallet, I bought several CDs and listened to it via streaming, I could not download some in digital format, the point is that that day you could still log in and the message of Murfie's farewell came out, I would I gave the button to download in FLAC, so that I can even have it in digital format, the ridiculous thing is that, for the shiping and the return of the CDs it costs me more than triple that I bought it.

A class action is always a possibility but they are expensive and the lawyers want their money up front, form the class members, when there is little possibility of recovering it from the company being sued. If Murfie is truly broke what would you gain from suing them?

The CD return operation is not being run by Murfie, they are gone as a going concern. It is being run by the folks Murfie owed money to and a few customers. If you object to them making money for the work of returning your CDs that is fine, don’t hire them but also don’t be surprised to see the CDs go to a landfill if they can’t be sold off by the bankruptcy court’s agents.

hire a lawyer for just one scam case? , that is totally lazy, first there to gather signatures and settle the demand, it is ridiculous not to know a little bit of laws, and Murfie does lose credibility in thousands of North American companies, not to trust contracts with any streaming company, not even Apple music , tidal etc, we are hundreds affected and if he can not pay the damages, the minimum that Murfie deserve is jail, for fraud and property damage.

If you want to do a class action case it will be difficult (I’d say impossible) to get a judge to certify the class without a licenced legal professional as the lead.

Even if you got a judge to certify the class without a lawyer you’d not get anything in the way of jail time for the Murfie folks, that has to go through the criminal courts, not civil. You’d need to get a District Attorney or the like to press charges there.

I didn’t read the original or amended contract with Murfie so I can’t say what they promised in the main section or limited in the fine print. Reading that and picking the applicable laws and precedents is a job for a legal professional with a research staff behind them.

Civil or Criminal there are rules and hurdles that must be met.