Ian Rankin's deluxe King of Limbs is signed for by a stranger

The novelist Ian Rankin has written for The Quietus about the deluxe vinyl The King of Limbs he ordered from the band's website in February, for £30, and never received. The courier's record says someone called Macrury signed for it at 3.05pm on 9 May. Rankin says he signed for nothing, and nobody of that name lives in his house or his street.

Buyers had been told the edition would ship on or about 28 April. By mid-May vinyl copies were in the shops and second-hand deluxe ones were on eBay. The album site's non-delivery button told him automatically that his parcel must be lost and another would follow, and later said only “matter pending”. There was no email address or phone number, and his messages on Twitter and through the fan club went unanswered.

Through The Quietus he learned that the courier had tried on 28 April, Rankin's birthday, when he was at home, and that the parcel was signed for on 9 May. DHL passed him to its subcontractor, Yodel, which gave him the signatory's name and a mobile number for a local courier that rang and rang. Another buyer in Edinburgh had the same trouble.

We are not consumers; we are fans - music fans.

Ian Rankin¹

Radiohead, he writes, are Radiodead to him now. Once he had said he would publish, an email arrived promising his copy the next day.