Selling someone else's doll?

This is a very interesting question. I would not personally feel comfortable selling someone else's item, whether or not I had the legal right to. Frankly, I don't have issues with others doing it, but I'd rather keep the item around incase the person contacted me again. If not, then I guess they don't want it anymore, and that's fine too. Maybe they quit the hobby and didn't want to bother with having things shipped to them, maybe they lost their internet, maybe they passed away and nobody knew to notify folks on forums. Who knows. Even if it were such a case and I ended up keeping it, I'd feel better that way. If a year or two down the road they showed up and said "oh hey do you still have that doll head etc", I'd be glad to reunite them... but yeah. I don't think I'd ever sell one.

 

In a variation of the theme: let's bring up group orders. Let's say someone participates in a group order, and then drops off the planet after the initial goods are paid for, during the waiting period for them to be produced and delivered. The group order leader then has this person's goods, but is unable to get a response from the participant to get shipping payments, confirm shipping address, etc.

Should the leader ship the items anyway (to, say, the address on the member's paypal) and eat the cost (since the person has paid for the goods, just not the shipping), or should the GO leader be entitled to resell after a certain period of time with no contact from the participant? If so, how long?

To take things a step further, how about members who are banned from DoA after they pay for the goods but before the goods can ship? Since the rules do not allow conducting of transactions with banned members, how would one finesse this kind of situation?

I have seen both of these variations pop up in the problem transactions thread and both, to me, are very delicate situations. I'm curious how people would handle them.

 

Sending an item back COD costs money itself, but would be an interesting way to try for a response. I'm kind of curious if it works.

 

If I were a commissions artist, I'd have that as a disclaimer on my page and make sure to reiterate it to the doll owner upon their payment. If I lose contact with them and am unable to get a hold of them for six months while the doll is still in my possession, the doll would become mine and I'd sell it.

of course, I wouldn't be cruel about it. I'd just have that there for legal purposes. I'd try with all of my might to get it back to the proper owner.

 

i totally agree with this. i did see problem transaction threads with such senerios, and frankly i think if the customiser waited so long, attempting to their best ability, with whatever information they could get or already have to contact the person, it is in their right to sell the doll off to get back money for the customisation. afterall, they're not obliged to hold on to the doll forever if you as a "buyer" lose contact with them. unless something really drastic happens, the people who commissioned the customisers tend to be quick in replying. sending their dolls out is a huge risk. i would be checking as often as i can for updates. the inability to do so would suggest a major problem happening in real life.

 

There is one who's waited 16 months for the owner to return her PMs, and even letters. She's giving her until around this time next year to claim her doll pieces. Frankly, I think the customer has died or something. Even those who knew her in RL can't seem to locate her! It's just odd.

 

I think you are more or less legally obligated to try to contact the GO member and get them to pay shipping so you can send them their property. They paid for it and so it is their property, DoA ban or not.
[edit] I'd like to add that I would feel the above is the case if the reason the GO member was banned has nothing to do with the GO, that the items are paid for and the GO member does not owe anyone one DoA money.

 

I couldn't sell something that belonged to another person. I'd put the doll/head/whatever in a cupboard and let it gather dust, with a lot of other stuff that hasn't been picked up by certain relatives.

 

I conducted a group order with a super long wait time (Everpurple eyes) and in the course of waiting for the order one of the people in the group order was banned on DoA. (I do not know the reasons why and it is really not any of my business, I read Problem Transaction threads on a fairly regular basis though and she did not have a paging thread.) I had an email for her so tried that and fortunately after about 2 weeks she responded. After she paid shipping I sent her the eyes registered. I never heard back from her and have to hope they arrived since registered is one of the most reliable shipping methods.

Personally, I suspect the rule about transactions with banned members is after they are banned, not before. In the case of a group order, the main part of the transaction occurs when a member joins the order and pays their share and the order is sent to the company. This would all presumably occur before the banning.

I personally, don't know what I would have done if I hadn't heard back from the banned person via email. I did not have a phone # and even if I had, she lives in Australia and I live in the US so calling would have been rather expensive ignoring timing issues. I did have a mailing address but I would not feel comfortable sending out merchandise without confirming the address is still valid. (particularly since any method that involves tracking internationally is going to cost you at least $15 out of pocket) I might have sent a letter though. I probably would have held onto the eyes for at least 6 mos to a year with occasional emails and possibly after that time just refunded their PP and tried to sell the eyes for cost, as they would be in my possession.

 

I think Jenny may have put this better than i can.
But I've been on two pieces of this kind of problem. I've been stiffed on commissions before, my policy is if the payments aren't complete on time, i give a max of 3 extensions (averaging usually 1-2 months extra for payment time) before i cancel the transaction, refund a majority part of it (minus supplies and deposit) and resell the item. After such occurrences i bar people from commissioning me, it's actually in large part why i rarely if at all take on commissions anymore.

I think after having to rehome a doll myself after a 2 year lapse of contact, it is justified to sell someone else's doll. In this modern age of internet cafes, libraries with unrestricted internet access (yes they are very easy to find) neighbors with computers people with cell phones and hand held game councils that can go online and view web pages it IS possible to get in contact with someone over the internet, and if you say otherwise you are not trying hard enough.
If you must, stop people on the street and ask if their phone has web access, and pay them $5 to use it for just TWO minutes to type out a quick pm to someone that has your roughly $500 doll in their care.


Everyone has problems. And i don't meant to come off as insensitive to that, but i don't buy it when people say "i'm too busy/ill/emo". Having been in similar positions before, i can say it's ENTIRELY possible in just about any situation, short of death, coma, or extended hospitalization.
It all depends on the person i suppose.

 

Im ill and drop dead tired atm (got up at 8:30, really need to get back to bed to get some sleep at 9:45) and i can still use the internet. Hell, my dad used the internet on my laptop within hours after cardiac surgery (yes, they did allow him).

I must admit that, if i would pass away, (which isnt likely, im far from that ill) i would far prefer getting my doll sold to someone who enjoys it or be kept by a modder than to have it send back to my relatives, where it probably will lie in an attic till they die or be tossed in a dumpster. I hereby declare that if anyone still has property of mine and has not heard of me in six months, its their to enjoy.

 

On the subject of selling a head, Say you have taken a commision for a doll head that you really wanted to own, and had taken the commission for the fact that you wanted to see what the head looked like in person.

And say the commission came to 6 months later and abandoned.

If you sold the head, and then bought a different one for yourself, say two months later (so 8 months total no contact) and then later, after a year from their commission, they came back and saw you had 'their doll'. As stated earlier in this thread, someone suggested that it would be THEFT to keep an abandoned item and not just sell it off, but if they came back and said they wanted their item back, how would you deal with this?

Alternately, if the commission itself was worth the price of the head, and it was 'abandoned' (meaning the proper amount of time had passed) And you had wanted a doll of that type, would it really be wrong to keep the doll, seeing as it then became your property to sell?

 

For me this would be very simple. I would explain rationally, that after such an extended period of time i had assumed the worst had happened to them, and having exhausted all forms of communication available at the time to reach them and warn them that i couldn't hold or store their item anymore, if they didn't step up and claim their item it'd be sold. And if they went over their Pm's/emails/etc.. they'd see thats true, and i'd try and link them maybe to a box opening that proved i had received a new one that was entirely different from theirs.

And the law would likely be on my side since it would technically be abandoned property after such a long period of time.

 

Um, like someone else said, wouldn't you have their address? So you could just... send it back.

But if it did somehow come up that I couldn't send it back and they just disappeared off the face of the planet, I probably wouldn't sell it. I'd just keep it stored until hopefully they come back one day? If they don't come back after some ridiculously long time like a whole year, I'd either claim the doll for myself or sell it.

 

I think in the case of a GO member who disappears, I don't think the GO leader would have the right to sell the item, unless they waited at least a year.
In the case of a faceup artist or modder, they might be out money, waiting for someone to pay, and want to sell the head to recoup costs. But unless the GO leader allowed for layaways, then they are not owed any money and should not assume the right to sell the forgotten items.

And in the case of banned members, I would not consider it preforming a transaction with them, so much as completing a transaction, which I hope the mods would see as perfectly acceptable. Just because someone is banned from DoA doesn't mean other members here are no longer obligated to follow through with items or payments if a transaction was already in the middle of being preformed.

 

Whether as commisioned artist .. as GO leader, I probably won't sell the doll at all or might just mail back after a while. It just feels weird to me to sell someone else's item when I don't know why the person disappeared on me. I might rather eat the loss then be bothered with that kind of feeling ^_^;

 

I'd say waiting six to nine months would be a good idea. And, if I were the commissioner, I think I would want the person I commissioned to have multiple forms of contact, including my LJ, Email(s), and my cell number, as well as anywhere else they'd like. That way, in case I could no longer get on a few of these, they'd still at least have one way to contact me.

I understand wanting to sell it after a while, anyway. The person may not have any room to keep the extra piece, and.. well, I'm not sure how commissioning works on this site. I guess if you pay half-and-half, you'd want the rest of your money for your time and work? I dunno.

 

Well, two months is a really short time to consider a doll piece abandoned, considering the fact that some customizers would bite your head off for "bugging" them for info after so "short" a time (At least that's what I've seen happen a few times in the problem transaction soap opera!)
However, it is also unreasonable to expect a customizer or GO leader to keep items until the end of time with no idea what's going on. It's all about communication, and all reasonable efforts should be taken to find out what's going on, which would include such things as multiple PM's, a paging thread, maybe even a note in your signature. If you have a return address (and it's beyond me why they wouldn't give you one if they're mailing something to you) then by all means send a letter or two. As to phone numbers, I know some people are reluctant to give theirs out, but you'd presumably have theirs in return, and you'd have already given them an address....
And if worst comes to worse, and after 6 months or a year or longer, and the doll parts are declaired abandoned, let the buyer know the situation. I know it would make a few people back off on buying the doll, but I know I would really like knowing the history of a doll I'm buying if it has the possibility of turning up and giving me a headache.

 

I don't do dolly commissions, but when I first started taking art commissions (mainly at AA tables) people would commission me and I'd complete they're request and they'd never pick up. I'd wait until the last half-hour of con before offering them up to other people. Of course now that i'm more experienced I know to have them pay me up front and give me at least 2 ways to contact them. If it was a doll I would do the same thing. As someone who is both a buyer and a seller, something with that big of a price tag is something that you would remember. (of course this is not in the case of dire situations) If you can't contact them it could mean that they've lost interest or something along that line, and unfortunately people are cruel and will just leave things for others to clean up. I think it is okay to sell someones doll IF AND ONLY IF contact was attempted multiple times over the course of 4-6 months. I doubt it is ever the fact that someone simply forgot about their doll.
But regardless, I would let the person know up front that I only hold on to things for 4 months or so before putting it back on the market. This way they can't hold you for anything if something like that does need to be done.