The company goes bad - can you still enjoy their dolls?

A temper tantrum thrown by someone old enough to know better is not the way a person behaves if they want to be taken seriously. Or if they want anyone to believe them.

That whole thing struck me as the kind of "I'm taking my toys and going home" drama that we've seen in our other hobby. But I guess it never really bothered me, because I could never afford one of their sculpts anyway.

I'm just as likely to be put off by poor customer service or shoddy workmanship as I would be about blatant copying. But sometimes. . . I really feel that peoples' blind support for any company that treats them badly ruins that company for me, even if I've never actually bought from them directly. If I happened to own any of their sculpts I don't think it would change whether I loved them or not, and I might even buy their dolls in the MP, but I don't think I would ever buy from them directly. I work hard to get the money to buy these dolls and. . . I guess I reserve the right to be picky about who gets it!

 

Idisfrynn, I think the parallel made by the parable of the father/son is the father is symbolically the creator, so the company is the father and the doll is the child. Friend is the owner.
Dollzwise, your screen name is apt because you are incredibly wise. The amazing thing in the CCC situation is that you were the most level headed, not jumping to kill him (figuratively of course) but prudently waiting until it became clear that something was horribly pear shaped. I feel guilty everytime I look at Eva's little Elfina, so I guess the truth of the matter is that I am affected by the publicity. And I do feel sad and protective of my LS dolls now. Hmmm, OK, got it.
Tumble I'm going to print out your reply so I can prove that somebody thinks I'm nice .
One more thing, I will never stop buying Elfdolls. I love them, they one of my favorite companies. I have five with number six on layaway. Rainman is incredibly talented, an amazing artist. If he handles his business with less than perfection, or his agents do, so be it. That's not really my business, and since I have no first hand knowledge of the situation . I also really don't get why there is so much outrage over the closed membership situation, and no, please no one try to explain it to me, I've spent too much time already on the Elfdoll Whining and Moaning About Nothing thread. I've heard (read really) fifty different explanations of such and not one of them made sense.

 

(Since I do not fully comprehend the complete thread *yes I am daft* I shall just place my opinions on the situations I can think off and stuff like that)

Situation One : (Doll company re-casts dolls few weeks/months after the purchase of my doll) I will still love the doll, after all the reputation of the company doesn't matter to me as long as I have the doll then its fine, seeing as the doll isn't a counterfeit as far as I know.

Situation Two : (My doll is actually a copy of another) Well...okay fine I'd be a tad disappointed but then this disappointment would just ware off cause I'd still love the doll, no matter what its not like the doll WANTED to be re-made or stuff like that, the only thing I'd do is be wary of the site, won't exactly cut off my enjoyment of the doll.

 

There are any of a number of things that will prevent me from buying from a doll company. Poor customer service, bad selling practices, low quality, questionable morals, poor public behaviour, the list is fairly extensive. I do a lot of market research before buying a doll and I stick to a few well known brands that I have personal experience from for the most part, so I don't see myself becoming the victim of any of these anytime soon. But, should the reputation of my fave companies change, I would definitely be put off from buying them as it would compromise part of why I love Volks and Bluefairy so much, even beyond not wanting to play buyer's roulette and hope I'm one of the lucky ones. It wouldn't affect my feelings towards the dolls I already own, though.

If it came out that one of my dolls was a recast, it would definitely colour my feelings towards the doll. I have very strong feelings towards doll recasting and copying, and once a company loses my favour, it's never going to get it back. I refuse to purchase Dollzone products of any kind because of their copying, for example. I would heavily consider having the doll destroyed. I wouldn't want to promote the copying by displaying my doll, and I can outright say I know I wouldn't like it much anymore knowing it was a distasteful recast. I would not be able to sell it. Disposing of it seems to be the best option.

I suppose I could forgive a friend who purchased a recast unknowingly, but I still raise any eyebrow at the lack of forethought and research and would want them to get rid of the doll. Someone who buys one intentionally is not someone I want to be friendly with.

 

I'm curious as to how many people posting that it would change their opinion have Luts dolls...? It seems odd to me that the Nono/Ari recasting thing gets glossed over, while other companies get crucified. Not that I think Luts should be crucified, either, the lack of consistency comparing, say, Lady Saiyuki to Luts or Dollzone confuses me.

//ETA: please forgive me if I got this wrong. I have a clear-ish memory of Ari being Nono, and Luts removing her from sale after a dispute from Volks. But I've just googled and can't find any mention of it. The do look, however, very VERY alike, to my eye.//

Myself - well, I never thought I'd own anything associated with Leroi, after having been burned by Mythdoll. But I have to admit Himeko's AA body is staying. It's not the prettiest body in the world, but I'm enchanted by the way I can just dump her down and she looks natural, and it's so sturdy. And I didn't give any money directly to Leroi. SO I don't love her any less.

Oh, wow, I'm not the only one! I've banned myself from the CH waiting room because the excuse-making for CH and the nastiness towards people who expres anything but wobbly-eyed fangirling makes me hate the very idea of my dolls. The CH fans ruin CH for me more than anything the company could pull. There's nothing that gets to me more than blaming the victim, which is all too prevalent on DoA; I just get so cross and oppositional, it risks dooming me to reject my dolls before they ever arrive. Away from the one-eyed fanatics, I can come closer to remembering why I wanted them and their dear little faces in the first place.

 

I don't know all of the details of the CP vs Volks case with Ari. I would love to hear them, though, so I can be informed.

 

For me it depends on how the "company goes bad". If tomorrow the companies my dolls came from starts treating their customers poorly, copying dolls, etc... I would still enjoy the dolls I have now, but it would turn me off from buying any more unless their reputation improved-- but that is so hard to do. The best way to lose customers in any business though is to lose trust. In this hobby, when I'm spending hundreds of dollars on a doll, I have to have that trust.

 

This kind of nonsense happens in every hobby. Every. Hobby. I used to be an enthusiastic handbag collector (then dolls came back into my life, etc etc, and most of the bags are sold off to pay for dolls!), and forums would go *batshit crazy* over counterfeits. Those who were fans of a particular label would take it personally if someone else didn't like it, or the designer copied another (really, how many ways can you make a purse OR a doll?), or the company's founders or owners turned on each other.... And lord help you if you innocently posted a pic of your newest acquisition and someone spotted it as a fake. *noises of wolverine fight* Sweatshop accusations, some big pricey name moves its factory to China but raises its prices, a certain country-of-origin's products are always superior.....same old songs, just different nouns.

My son collects Gundams. Same song. My husband is an Apple (computers) evangelist. Same song.

Anything that involves egos and money changing hands is going to have these same problems. Humans are flawed, and money combined with ego brings out the worst in almost all of us. All you can do is control what you can, try to make ethical and informed purchase decisions, and let the rest go.

Re: CCC--I'd love to have a Firefly Fuuga, and if I'd ordered one and had been lucky enough to have gotten mine when others still waited.....really, that's neither my nor the doll's fault. I'd feel very fortunate, take good care of that doll, and not try to pick at other people's feelings--but there would be no reason whatever to take any of that personally.

 

Yes, so would I, really, I only have foggy memories! But I just searched for both on Flickr, and yeah, I'd put my name on the line and say they're the same sculpt, with slight modifications. And as far as I recall, CP/Luts pretty much indicated that they knew they'd been caught out.

I feel kind of bad, because actually, I'm a bit more relaxed about this stuff than many people posting - I think what's important is a company's current behaviour. But it's not the first time I've wondered why Luts so rarely gets mentioned in threads like this, except as the injured party. I've never once seen anyone say "I'd never buy from Luts because..." like they do with Dollzone.

Not every hobby. The Transformers forums my brothers hang out on have subforums for knockoffs, and they are enthusiastically discussed and collected. Not posing as originals, but as passionate collection of the knockoffs themselves. For my own fandoms, there are corners that hunt down Jem doll knockoffs, and there are MLP knockoff collectors. In a lot of corners of hobbies, there is an important distinction made between knockoffs that try to defraud buyers by posing as the real thing, and knockoffs sold as such and enjoyed for their own sake. This is very definitely not true of bjd fandom.

 

I don't think it would affect the way I felt for my existing resin family members but it's possible it would taint the enjoyment of any new sculpt the company would release after the "incident". I haven't had any experience like this and I hope that the companies I will have future contact with will be just as wonderful as the ones I've already done business with. ^_^

 

I'm one of those CCC "unfortunates" still languishing in The Waiting Room. I've been following this thread and have tried responding a couple of times but, because of the insane emotional roller coaster we've been put on (and not allowed to get off short of jumping and giving up), it's hard to respond to this thread objectively (okay, pretty much impossible). DollZwize gave such a magnificent description in her long post on page 5 of what craziness has gone on for us. For myself, I will sum it up this way: if you bought from CCC, you "knew" Charles. He e-mailed you; you e-mailed him back. He'd stop in our threads to say hi and chat a little and let us know what he was working on. You kind of felt like he was a friend. Maybe not a "I'm going to add him to my Christmas card list" friend, but someone you felt friendly towards. And when he came to us telling us of personal troubles and then divorce, as good "friends" we were sympathetic and did the right thing for our friend, didn't demand anything too hard for him to deal with while all that was going on - take care of yourself first, Charles. And then we were utterly betrayed for being compassionate (and not filing with PayPal as soon as the word "divorce" came up) and our dolls have been "held hostage" for 10, 9, 8... months only we don't know what the hostage demands are because he pretty much ceased all communication with any of us back around April. (We had a member just give birth - she became pregnant while she was first waiting for her doll and had the baby before the doll has gotten to her!) You cannot begin to imagine until you have been in a situation where you are personally affected what it feels like. How hard it is sometimes to even be able to look at or handle those dolls. Fortunately, our FireFlies were spared most of this because we made a conscious decision not to let him take that away from us too and partially because our FireFlies had kind of evolved their own little lives completely independent of where they came from (and our Fidelias were released long before any of this started, thank heavens). But every day we expend effort to keep that in mind. It is not so cut and dried a thing. It is very complicated when the company does something bad and, until you experience it yourself, you cannot quite understand how it is impossible to entirely divorce the doll from the maker. "Taint" may be too strong a word; but it definitely always colors your perception as hard as you try not to let it. For all of you, I hope you never have to experience anything remotely close to these situations we are discussing.

 

Wow Darkstar. Thank you so very much for pulling this right out of the conceptual, and so eloquently describing what just is so excruciatingly indescribable. Thank you

 

I agree that no doll wants to be a recast. Dolls are objects, they don't want anything. I would not be disappointed if I discover that a doll I bought thinking it to be an original is actually a recast. I'd be pissed off. On one hand I'd be mad at myself for not doing better research, but on the other hand there are so many dolls out there, it's impossible to know and recognise them all. I've seen auctions on eBay from companies, but also private sellers that looked suspicious, but it is possible to find something that looks right, is advertised as an original, is prised right, and then turns out to be a copy.
I'd be angry at the recasting company and it would reflect badly upon the copy doll, as it is not what I paid for. It's like paying for dress shoes and getting sneakers. They are both shoes and the sneakers didn't ask to be sneakers. I'm sure sneakers would fit just fine, but they aren't the dress shoes you paid for. Although, this is not the original discussion.
Base line: I do not like to be lied to and I like to get what I paid for.

 

And that's the danger, isn't it. When the line between friendship and business blurs it becomes easier for them to take advantage of your good nature. Maybe it didn't start out that way, but sometimes the "easier" road is too great a temptation to pass up and cheating or manipulating people doesn't seem so bad. Karma has pretty strong jaws and an excellent nose for the hindquarters of cheaters.

 

I company going south wouldn't change the enjoyment I would get from any of their dolls I already owned. By that time I would've bonded with the doll, and put my own stamp on them. They would have characters, and stories, and to me not just be merely objects anymore. However, a company's behavior will determine whether or not I'm going to be a repeat customer.

I have dolls from a lot of different companies, and I enjoy the variety. However, at this point in my collecting, I find myself being drawn more and more to the same few companies, and a lot of that is based on their reputation and customer service. There are a lot of beautiful dolls out there, but a company that treats their customers well and makes a good reputation for themselves is going to stand out from the pack. I also do a lot of second hand buying, but I find that a company's reputation still influences those purchases as well.

So old purchases have no effect, but new purchases (even if second hand) are effected greatly.

 

On the contrary. The child is the "creation" of it's father. I am a professional graphic artist - it's what I do every day for a living - and I am also a fine artist/illustrator. I consider every painting I create to be a "child" of my mind, heart and soul. If, tomorrow, I went out and did something horrible I'd like to think that my artwork would be appreciated still for what the painting is and not for what I had become.

and St. James - just because something has happened historically doesn't mean we need to keep repeating the error. Human beings are not sheep - they can change their perceptions if they really want to.

 

Not saying Charles did one thing or the other, but in general many scammers pretend to be friends at first. They are charming and nice to create goodwill that they will later abuse. Some are calculating people who do this on purpose and some do this automatically without giving it much thought. It hurts much more to be scammed by a "friend" than by some faceless company or seller who disappeared with your money.

Who was friends with Dollzone when they made their recast? The taint of making a copy is bad, but Dollzone's apology and professional introduction of original sculpts covered the taint of their copying. The taint of not only CCC cheating on customers, but also Charles cheating on those who considered him a friend will be harder to get rid off from both the company itself and the CCC dolls people own.
Still it remains a personal issue how much you are (emotionally) affected by concepts as "taint".

 

This is true, there are only so many ways one can design a doll. An artist can be stylistically influenced by the work of others. Sometimes subconsciously one may emulate another's work, but does that make it a copy? I'd want an actual accusation from the aggrieved company about a copy or recast rather than rumor or innuendo or crazed fans. But as has been pointed out by others, plenty of other companies have engaged in dodgy practices without any attempt to apologize or make things right. Why are they not crucified? Any company that did own up to their mistake, worked to correct it, and their track record from then on was good, well I'd consider buying from them. On the other hand I do stand by my desire to avoid buying from a company that treats their customers like dirt. But I won't hold it against people who do.

I come from the garage kit collecting hobby and recast/bootlegs were everywhere. Of course it was really easy to tell from the photo stuck to the plain brown box and the low grade resin. But there was never any attempt to cover up what they were and pass them off as genuine. I never bought any myself, mostly because they were of busty females, but also they would be more work that they were worth.

Hear, hear.

Yup. I think that would be the only case where if I owned any of the dolls I'd want to sell them. Normally, once I buy something it's mine forever.

 

Having worked in an art gallery and known quite a number of artists... I can honestly say some artists (such as Tumble's example Gauguin) are rather unsavory, but that their works can look quite beautiful. Would I go out of my way to purchase from them? I wouldn't because I felt like that factor often tainted their work (for me personally, as I know some people are able to separate the emotion from the aesthetic value of a piece of art): that is my choice as a buyer to not support them or their work.

In terms of past recasts from companies, I agree with a lot of people that whether an artist and or/company sinks or swims has a lot to do with their damage control after the incident. Some companies have come back from this and there are quite a few that have not. I don't think it would affect how I felt about my own doll if I had purchased it before the company began recasting, but it certainly would if I found out what I had was a recast. It would really sicken me and upset me to find that out, but threads like these have been good as I was on hiatus for a while and I like to be informed about company practices.

As for poor customer service or shady practices, it really maddens me because this is one of the hobbies that I think brings a lot of joy to people. It's such a creative and wonderful hobby to be in and it's disheartening to see people who will take advantage of people emotionally and not hold up their end of a sales contract. I was admittedly really shocked when I came back from my long hiatus last year to find that Custom House was a completely different animal: the one that I remembered had absolutely stunning LEs and gorgeous faceups by RollingPumpkin, Heavybomb, and other fantastic artists. I came back to find the company was a former shell of itself and that was not only sad, but horribly frustrating (as I really was a fan of their work). Knowing what the company had become, I ended up taking them off my wishlist altogether. I feel really bad hearing about the CCC issues as well--I also initially thought he seemed so friendly and whatnot with his posts around the forum (it's always nice to be able to be in touch with artists who are sculpting works that you enjoy). It's really disturbing in my opinion.

Suffice to say, a lot of my dolls are actually from the secondary market, but I have ordered dolls from over a dozen different companies and artists in the last 8 years. I always end up going back to the places that have offered what I was looking for in terms of quality of product and customer service. I was saddened to hear this year though that a few members were having issues with a company I bought from last year (without any issues). I felt really bad because I had a normal experience with the company and only several months later people were having issues with the company.