Accidentally Buying a Copy: What Should They Do?

I recently bought a doll from the Marketplace that I'm pretty sure is real and not a recast, but after I purchased I discovered that the name plate was missing from the back of the head. The space was there, but the plate was missing. This was NOT mentioned in the sales listing. So I started feeling suspicious.
I wish I knew for sure. Having that doubt has made me lose interest in the doll, but with the missing name plate nobody wants to buy it, so I am stuck with the doll. If I had a way of knowing for sure that the doll is legit, I would probably feel a lot better about keeping it.

What I wish we could have here on DOA is a section where we can post pics of dolls we are suspicious of, so that experts can give their optinion. I really would like to know if my doll is real or a recast, but I have no way of finding out.

 

[MENTION=68795]ParlourGoddess[/MENTION], you can do that in the Ask the Mods section, if you have doubts and really want to be sure.

It's tough not knowing something like that. I have a secondhand body that, for a brief period, I thought might be recast because of something about the legs. I've since learned that the "problem" is actually normal, not a suspicious defect, and had enough time and comparisons to definitively be sure that he's legit, but the way I felt when I wasn't sure was awful and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

Depending on how quickly I found out, first thing I'd do is go after my money.

After that...no idea. Not gonna just up and throw it out the window (littering is bad!) and I certainly wouldn't post pics of it on DoA or take it to events and such after finding out. Maybe I'd mod it to my imagination's content and test out new joints or something. I am rather curious about the effects of certain things on resin but I'd never use it on my dolls because I don't know what they'd do. Having a disposable unit, so to speak would probably end up destroying it while serving an educational purpose.

As annoyed as I would be, I don't like wasting things. I'd find some use for it, even if that means it just becomes a practice dummy or something I look at every day to remind myself to pay more attention to what I'm buying. I know if I spent xx amount of dollars on a fake you bet your sweet cheeks I wouldn't do it again. My money tree* doesn't actually grow 20 dollar bills on it, I don't have cash to throw around on fakes.

*This thing. http://i.imgur.com/B0AKE4V.jpg

 

I would probably keep my doll even if its a recast. It was the first bjd I got even though it's not a legit one. Because of the fact it is a recast, I won't post pictures online, I probably just take pictures for myself though

 

that's a great idea! ..especially for people new to the hobby like me! ...Do you think that is something doable??

 

There is a way to find out if the doll is a recast. It's something that recasters and those who buy them can't ever cover up. ....short of destroying the mold completely.

I have my ideas. But I would talk to moderator first. Finding out would require a camra and afew things. And aslo someone who has the same legitimate sculpt who would be willing to volunteer thier time.

 

I'm curious now. Do you mean the fact that a recast will always be a tad smaller than the original (just like the original is a tad smaller than the master copy)? There are sites with precise measurements of dolls, so that's a good way to check. Or something different entirely?

 

I'd file a paypal claim and only keep it as long as was necessary to use it as evidence. After that, off to the nearest recycling centre with the wretched thing. Then again, I only ever buy from dealers and direct from the company, so I'm hoping informed buying habits will prevent such a situation from ever arising.

 

I don't think it would be wrong to post pics online, if you wanted to. Since there are rules against recasts on DOA that's obviously out, but places like flickr don't have those rules (certain groups on flickr might, though). So I don't see any problem sharing pics of your doll where it's not banned. You just wouldn't be able to label your doll any company or sculpt since technically it wouldn't be.

 

I measured my doll and it checks out. It's exactly the measurements it's supposed to be. So I'm assuming it IS legit. The only thing that caused me to be suspicious was the missing name plate and the fact that it wasn't divulged in the sale listing.

I've kind of lost interest in the doll now anyway, for other reasons. But that suspicion started me losing interest. I will be a lot more careful from now on, and ask more questions before buying a second hand doll. Even though I suspect the doll IS legit, with the missing name plate, it will be hard to sell.

 

If i did accidentally get a copy of the same sculpt i would either keep him/her as a twin if not i will modify the head into a different version. If not i will sell him/ her away to another owner, it really depends on what i have on store for that doll

 

It might not be "Wrong" but it still damaging to the doll hobby. Every photo of a recasted doll online is advertisement to people that Recasts are acceptable.

People who post photos of, or keep recasts are just as guilty to a crime as criminals who made them.

All Recasts should be destroyed.

 

You could ask the mods, ...questions like this. They will try to help you. If you are asking in the mods section, nobody else except out mods can see it, so it would be okay, I guess!

 

It should go without saying that everyone should do everything in their power not to purchase a recast (All the reasons why have been covered over and over). That being said, crap happens all the time no matter how careful someone is so in the situation that the doll is purchased and can’t be returned I would find something as inoffensive as possible to do with it. I do a lot of work with the environment and I just can’t justify throwing anything away willy-nilly given all the trash I pull out of the local parks and waterways on a weekly basis. So in short, not buying > buying than returning > keeping and finding something to do with it > throwing out.

 

Well first of all, I would research the heck out of each dealer before even thinking about buying a doll from them. If it's second hand, I require an original box, face-up and papers or I'm not buying the doll. So to begin with I have a really small chance of ever owning a recast. These dolls are expensive; I am going to do whatever I can to ensure that I'm getting a doll that was made by the company.

If by some chance I did buy a counterfeit, I would have used Paypal so I would A) Start a dispute and send back the doll for a refund, or B) start a dispute and get at least half my money back and then demolish the doll on camera. And if they were in a country with copyright rules, I would report them for the selling of counterfeit goods.

If I was feeling crafty, I would take the pulverized doll and make it into a big mural of broken body parts as a symbol of how much damage recasts do to the hobby or something like that. Otherwise, in the trash it goes!

I'm sure some of you are gasping at that, but I think recasts are abominations created out of greed and disrespect for this hobby and if I got one by accident, I would take a hammer to it with a smile on my face-after shaming the seller on every media outlet.

 

I don't think I'd ever be able to keep a doll I found out to be a recast, no matter how much I 'loved' it. It would probably be thrown away or subjected to experiments.

 

That's a rather extreme position particularly if someone bought such a doll unwittingly. I personally don't see the point in destroying such a doll. It's pretty harmful to the environment just tossing away a pile of broken up resin. If everyone who has a recast were to do that it would not be good in the long run for the planet. We've got a pile of garbage that won't dissolve in the oceans now that's hundreds of miles wide. It's mostly plastics that won't decompose. I don't want to add to that. I don't want to put something in a landfill that will just sit there for centuries. I feel guilty enough as it is when I have to toss anything that doesn't decompose into the garbage. That's a rare thing these days. I recycle almost everything now but the rare time I have to it really bothers me.

I would not share any doll I have doubts about on DOA. That would be rude. But I won't destroy it either. That's just wasteful IMHO. The doll is made, and is unfortunately mine. I can't legally sell it but I won't destroy it either. I'd just keep it for myself only. At least that way it would be far longer before it would end up in a landfill or worse yet in an ocean where it's presence would be toxic to the sea creatures. Every time I think of that enormous pile of floating garbage I wince. I just cannot bring myself to add to that and unfortunately I don't think the local recycling center takes bootleg resin dolls. Not yet anyway. It's a fact that bootleg resin dolls exist. A lot of people don't like that fact. But once a doll exists, it exists, whether we approve of it or not, it's a physical object and moreover one made of a material that is not exactly great for the planet and that is hard currently to recycle. Just destroying them and dumping what's left is not the answer.

Just so you know how long this stuff can last. I found a little resin toy in my yard once from my childhood. One of my friends apparently dropped it when we were playing years ago and it ended up in a garden bed. I recognized it because it was a favorite toy of his and as a little girl I played with it often myself. It was yellowed to a honey brown color and it had lost all it's paint but it was still very much intact several decades later. That toy was only a couple of inches big. Now imagine a resin doll or the pieces there of in the same place. It could still be there hundreds of years later. It probably wouldn't look very good if some archaeologist found it then, but they'd still find it. All those centuries, all those chemicals, oh yuck, just the thought makes me wince. Better a bootleg doll gets passed down in my family with strict instructions not to sell and why then it ends up like that. There are way too many unwanted dolls in the landfills and oceans as it is...

Besides the recycling dilemma there's also the fact that it's still a doll. I'm such a sucker for dolls that I still can't even toss the drink and wet doll I've had since I was four. Or my one Barbie who is the only one of my beloved Barbie dolls that survived my Mom's toy purges when I was growing up. I go to Goodwill and I see old dolls and no matter how abused they are I can't leave them there. I take them home, rehab them if at all possible, throw them up on a shelf with the other toys or if I don't want them give them to a kid to play with. I'm always rescuing some beat up doll from obscurity and being thrown into a landfill. Even the idea of a recast doll being destroyed just gives me the shudders. I just cannot stand that idea. The only dolls I have ever willingly destroyed and just thrown away were leakers, dolls that were so far gone they were leaking potentially leaking toxic chemicals and even then I tried to recycle them only to be told it wasn't possible. I don't like to think about that much honestly. I had no choice really except to get rid of them but I hate, hate, hate, that I had to.

I could not destroy a perfectly good doll like that. I would keep it, not show it, but that would be it and if that makes me a "criminal" in some people's eyes, well so be it. Sorry, but I feel rather the same way about people who willingly add to that huge pile of garbage that's totally polluting our planet. There is such a thing as a lesser of two evils. It's better of course not to make such dolls in the first place, but once one is made and I have it the responsible choice for me is to keep it. Keep it intact and not polluting the planet for as long as possible. I think people who sell recasts as legit dolls are wrong. I'm not too crazy about the recasters either, but people who insist that all recast dolls should just be destroyed, that's not totally cool with me either. That's just a waste and a bad thing for the planet I live on. I think it's just as criminal to destroy one as to own one. It's a hard choice if you don't approve of recasts but at least when you choose to just keep one you're not adding to Mama Nature's woes....

 

The way I see it the only way "Mama Nature's woes" can be ended is if humanity becomes extinct. As long as we live here we'll be destroying nature in some way or other. As long as ANYTHING lives it'll destroy nature in some way or another.

If I had accidentally bought a recast and couldn't send it back to the seller for whatever reason I sure as heck WOULD destroy it. Your recycling center doesn't take recast dolls (well, probably not since they very likely never have heard of BJDs before ...)? Fine, ask them about plastics. They're bound to take those, right? And resin's just another form of plastics (hint: plastics are toxic, too, that's why you're not supposed to just burn plastic wrap). Or ask them where you can take that kind of stuff. And make sure before you take it there to hack up that doll so that no one will "rescue" it and keep it and maybe unwittingly sell it for a legitimate.

 

FYI, I actually asked at the center here. Resin actually wasn't on their list of allowable plastics. I have a couple of resin things that are broken that I did want to get rid of. Partly it was some old toys and magnets that were made of resin, but also it was BJD doll test thing. I was going to chop up a chipped Miro torso I had to try dying it. That tutorial I saw on here had me curious as to how dying worked. I want to try dying a whole doll soon and I didn't want to use the actual doll until I got the idea of how it worked so I decided to break the torso up into pieces with a dremel saw and try a test dye for myself. But I didn't want to try it until I knew I could properly dispose of the parts. Not just toss them. Like I said I am anal about recycling and toys not ending up in landfills. They do not take resin things at all unfortunately, in fact they don't want to take any plastic toys at all. The only plastics they take here are jugs like for milk, soda bottles, stuff like that. Anything else they tell you to take it to the city dump which is a landfill. Real helpful that...

So when I say the doll would only end up in a landfill, I mean it, here it would, and I will not do that. Yeah, we destroy nature every day, and that's a shame, but I make a real effort to have as little of an environmental impact as possible and throwing toys, including resin doll parts in the landfill is just not excusable for me. The toys are here, whether we like it or not, but they don't have to end up like that. We can choose to do something else with them and not deliberately add to the problem. I seriously doubt that there are too many resin dolls being disposed of like that, even recasts would be far too expensive for that, but overall the landfills are full of old toys, old plastic parts from computers, other electronics, it's not all being recycled, even the stuff that could be and it's making an enormous trash problem, one that's going to hugely impact our kids and grand kids.

Have you ever seen pics of a the landfill for a major city? Or pics of that huge garbage zone in the ocean? I hadn't until a few years ago but once I had it totally shocked me right out of my complacency about not recycling. I can't just say "Oh well humans will impact Nature regardless." and just shrug it off anymore. Our personal garbage before recycling was outrageous. I used to put out 5-8 30 gallon bags a week and that was just for 3 people because by then my siblings had all grown up and left. I didn't have a large family growing up, but back then there were no recycling efforts here, all trash went to the dump. Now, I put out one maybe. I try to recycle everything. I have a friend with a house who composts so I even take stuff over there rather than throw it away. I'm not allowed that here, otherwise I'd be doing that too.

All total I have something like 3000 dolls. I have been collecting dolls for years. They are willed to various doll people I know. If something happens to me ideally I want none of my dolls to end up in a landfill, particularly my BJD's, which are resin and not nearly as likely to decompose. The idea of my doll collection ending in the landfills horrifies me. I know the ecological impact a collection like mine might have and I just don't want to see that happen if I can prevent it. Far better they get passed down and kept out of there. I could not justifiably destroy a doll because it's not legit. I would not like to see it made in the first place but once it is it's here, and if it comes to me by some means, I end up with it unwittingly, it stays. I will not just destroy it and allow it to pollute the planet if I can help it. That's just not a legitimate answer to me.

It's by far a lesser of two evils for me to keep that doll, enjoy it privately and not see it resold as legit. Destroying it does nothing to solve the problem of recasts. It's just adds to a huge pollution problem and that's actually more important to me than the morality of owning a recast. Once it is made it's there. The only reasonable solution I think, the one that won't compound the problem of the recast or pollute the planet is to clearly mark the thing as a recast, so it can't be resold to some other unwitting soul on DOA, and keep it. Also, like I said, I have a real problem with destroying any doll that is not disintegrating on it's own past the point of saving it. Recast or not, it's still a doll and I love dolls so much that I just could not bring myself to do it.

I don't want a whole bunch of recast dolls. I want my own collection to be legit but if I ever did end up being sold a recast, well, I just could not sacrifice a doll that's perfectly usable and lovable because it's illegitimate. I would not parade it out of respect but no way I'd just reduce it to dust. It would be hard to live with the fact that the doll might be a recast. Not being able to share it would make me sad, but living with myself knowing I did that to a perfectly good resin doll that would be worse.

I'm bad that way. I totally get the guilts when I steal parts from junk dolls to repair better ones. The whole donor doll concept is very hard for me. I want to love every doll I see. I never want to see one hurt in anyway. It's stupid but it's like they are like my kids or something. How could I look at a pretty dolly face like that of a BJD and do that. I'm supposed to destroy a dolly child just because it was born out of wedlock so to speak? Is the doll's fault it's illegitimate? NO! I'm not going to take the fact that I am indignant that it is not legitimate out on the doll. I'm not going to destroy a doll because I am ticked at it's origins. That's just.....MEAN....(shudder) I just love my dolls way too much for that. I'd rather just love the doll anyway and keep it to myself.

 

Name plates do fall off, though. I recently cleaned a drawer and found the name plate for a Dollshe guy I sold years ago. Have you asked your seller if they could look for it?