Welcome to our abandoned equipment page.
The idea for this page came from an FAQ about unpaid bills, though I must confess a slight ‘guilty pleasure’ in dealing with abandoned equipment. Most of these cases are strange, as you’ll see, and most have an element of humour, even the ridiculous, related to the circumstances and to abandoning beautiful equipment rather than just collecting it, and everyone being happier and better off! This page also provides abandoners with a final opportunity to unabandon equipment before it’s too late. Enjoy!
What
Abandoned equipment is hi-fi gear that has been left at a business after some work has been done on it – in other words, dumped – without permission, beyond a collection deadline and often with unpaid bills attached.
Abandoned equipment incurs additional costs by occupying otherwise productive space and requiring administrative actions such as follow-up communications and invoice adjustments. Abandoners generally don’t consider these concerns.
Every square centimetre here @ Liquid Audio is valuable, and we can’t afford to store equipment for customers who aren’t paying for it, any more than you can. Free storage facilities don’t exist for a reason! Fortunately, and due to good management, we deal with very little, but some of my colleagues are less fortunate, or more tolerant. One in particular has hundreds of abandoned pieces of equipment- a nightmare scenario!
Why
Why does someone abandon their hi-fi equipment? I truly don’t know, but lack of money, divorce, imprisonment and mental health issues are all possibilities. Reasons like these should be accompanied by explanations and apologies, but our cases rarely involve any information at all, almost as though the owners lose the ability to communicate, so I’m often left none the wiser!
Abandoned equipment usually works perfectly, too, but some pieces need extensive, expensive work, are in poor condition, and are damaged and neglected. We may decline to work on equipment for various reasons, including poor condition caused by bad previous work.
Functional or not, declining to collect or pay for equipment, whilst amusing in the sense that those doing it think it’s acceptable, is really just dumping and theft.
The Process
Businesses are supported by legislation dealing with abandoned equipment, and we have processes for dealing with it. At Liquid Audio, equipment is due for collection within 7 days of the invoice date. We deem it officially abandoned once it is 30 days overdue for collection.
After 30 days, collection is still possible, of course, but overdue equipment accrues admin/storage charges at a rate of $2/piece/day, as outlined in our terms and conditions. These charges must be paid before equipment is collected.
People know they have abandoned their gear; nobody ‘forgets’ to collect a giant amplifier, for example, but we send reminders and offer discounts to encourage collection. We also now send a monthly invoice updated with the current total owed. At three months:
- Discounts and efforts to arrange collection are abandoned, quid pro quo
- Abandoned equipment may be moved into uncovered outside storage
- We dispose of/sell equipment per the Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act, 1970.
Nothing is disposed of until all reasonable efforts to arrange collection have been made.
An Example
We recently offered a very generous 6-month storage charge waiver – the entire amount owed – to help a customer and encourage the collection of an abandoned piece. Did they accept this offer? Not by the deadline, and we received no request to extend it or waive the additional storage costs they generated, but they eventually arranged collection of their equipment.
I’d love to tell you that acts of goodwill and generosity, like this waiver, are appreciated, but that’s rare in abandonment cases. The expected “Sorry for the inconvenience” and “Thank you so much for waiving the storage charges” are frequently missing. Thankfully, these rare instances are overwhelmingly offset by the positive interactions we have with appreciative customers and visitors around the world 🙂
For Abandoners
Abandoning equipment is egregious, and there should be no surprise about how it impacts those you dump it with or the results it generates. Genuine reasons for abandonment should be communicated. We will do our best to arrange a mutually satisfactory resolution because we want customers to have their equipment.
Owners who want their abandoned equipment back should contact us ASAP. If it is still available, they must pay their equipment’s accrued storage charges and arrange collection/packing/shipping within 48 hours. Owners who don’t want their equipment or to pay their bills should let us know so we can convert their equipment into cash.
For Prospective New Owners
We love rehoming abandoned equipment. The equipment status provided for each piece below conveys key information and is hopefully self-explanatory:
- Status: Available – the equipment has been abandoned, probably owes us money, and is available.
- Status: Reclaimed – the owner had a change of mind or circumstances and reclaimed their equipment!
- Status: Sold – the equipment was abandoned and has been sold/re-homed.
If you see something you like and it is available, get in touch.
Abandoned Equipment
You might note a couple of common threads in these cases. One of them is Liquid Audio always offering abandoners a way out, a discount, an olive branch. Should we always try so hard to work with these folks? These days, I’m not sure.
Technics SL-23 Belt Drive Turntable
Our first piece is this lovely Technics SL-23 belt-drive turntable from back in 2019. The customer engaged us to repair and service the deck and wanted the work done quickly. We did everything he requested, of course, and had it running beautifully again, but there was a problem: the customer never responded to our calls and emails regarding collection and payment, and disappeared
I recall that I only tried to contact the owner for a month or two before deciding that this classic turntable deserved a new home and a respectful owner, so I listed her for sale. It didn’t take long- just days- before a lovely new owner adopted her. She sold for $500, with a 3-month warranty, roughly twice the amount owed. This was a bargain, too, given the condition, precision service and quality new parts she received, and I’m sure this SL-23 is still running well today.
This case amused me because even if the owner decided he didn’t want the turntable, he could have sold it and made money. Instead, he left it for us to make money from!
Status: Sold!
Mitsubishi DA-P10 Power Amplifier / DA-A10 Preamplifier
Our second abandoned piece is this absolutely stunning Mitsubishi DA-P10 and DA-A10 preamplifier-power amplifier combo that I resurrected back in 2024.
I had this pair repaired and sitting in the workshop awaiting collection for months beyond the agreed collection timeframe. Worse still, the invoices hadn’t been paid, something I had tried many times to arrange, with no success.
After six months, I eventually wrote the pair off as abandoned and listed them for sale in our store. We had already received several expressions of interest when, out of the blue, the owner appeared unannounced on my doorstep to reclaim the pair!
My goal is always for owners to have their equipment back, and this owner is a nice guy, so I was thrilled he turned up and was genuinely happy to receive them back. Why did he disappear for so long? I don’t know, but as a gesture of goodwill, I even waived the storage charges on this pair. I did explain that the warranty on my work had long since expired, which he understood.
Status: Reclaimed!
Technics SL-15 Direct Drive Turntable
I mentioned that these cases amuse me, and item #3 is certainly our most egregious and amusing abandonment case to date, due to the bizarre owner, the long period of abandonment, and the inevitable outcome. To be fair, I was warned about this customer by several people, but only after I’d relayed the story to them.
This gorgeous Technics SL-15 direct drive turntable came in for significant service and repair work back in 2019. As always, we completed the work to the highest standards and had the turntable running beautifully again, likely better than it ever had. Unfortunately, the owner disappeared and refused to communicate for over a year!
I followed up for months and finally let the owner know, some 15 months past the due date, that his fine Technics SL-15 would be sold to recoup what was owed and free up space. What do you know, the owner suddenly wanted to collect it. Hallelujah – a miracle!
The collection was very dramatic, with a screaming baby, an aggressive partner who clearly didn’t know the real story and an angry man who absolutely did not want to pay any storage charges for his 15-month equipment layover.
The partner initially had a go at me, which was funny enough, but then when I explained what really happened, how long the equipment had been abandoned and how much the dude owed, she couldn’t believe it and went nuts at him! This made him angrier and made me laugh even more . The whole thing remains my strangest and most amusing case to date.
This customer was so ungrateful that I enforced 100 days of storage charges- a mere 1/4 of what was owed, I might add. He wanted to pay by credit card, but I wasn’t comfortable with that and refused. Instead, I made him withdraw cash from an ATM, and he returned with the cash, paid, before vanishing once again.
Status: Reclaimed!
