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Legendary music store Real Groovy has gone into receivership - four months after the business was put up for sale following a bad foreign exchange deal.
While the chain's four stores around the country remain open, trading of second-hand music has stopped and customers are being told they can no longer use vouchers or credit notes.
That has left many feeling frustrated, especially when the vouchers were gifts or had been sitting in wallets for some time.
One customer said he was "kicking himself" last night for not using a credit note - which he received after exchanging some records - earlier on.
An Auckland woman, who was given $30 worth of vouchers in May, said she was surprised to hear she could not redeem her gift.
She said the expiry date and fineprint suggested they would be valid until the end of 2009.
Neither of Real Groovy's directors was available for comment last night and the company's receivers did not return the Herald's calls.
The shift manager at Auckland's well-known Queen St store said she could confirm only that the company had gone into receivership and that vouchers and credit notes could not be used at this stage.
She did urge people to "hang on to them", implying it was unclear what the future held for the store.
A man at the Wellington store was slightly more optimistic, saying staff were hopeful there would be a new owner "within a week or two" and that vouchers would then be accepted.
Managing director Chris Hart told the Herald in July that he had been forced to put the 28-year-old store and its entire collection of associated businesses up for sale after a bad foreign exchange deal left it in need of capital.
Mr Hart said at the time that finance company collapses, increasing online music sales and the emergence of JB Hi-Fi - which had triggered a music price war with The Warehouse - had not affected the business.
Yesterday, many of Real Groovy's regulars disagreed.
Teenager Daniel Faulkner, who bought CDs every two weeks, said he was not surprised the store had gone into receivership "just because there's too many downloads now".
Another customer said: "I can't believe it but kinda can now that JB Hi-Fi is just down the road - it's a whole lot cheaper."
Other loyal customers said they shopped at Real Groovy for the second-hand music and extensive back catalogues - something that couldn't be found so easily at other stores.
