What are your horror stories?

A few years ago, I learned that there's a town called Mill Creek in Maine... when their post-mistress called me and told me that she had a package for me. (I'm in Mill Creek, Washington. On the literal far side of the country. )

It turned out one of my dolls from Soom had taken a bit of a long detour on her way to me. Soom hadn't done anything wrong... The box was addressed correctly, with the proper state and postal code and all that... The USPS had just decided to send it to the *other* Mill Creek for some reason. It all got sorted out and the PO in Maine sent the doll on her way, and she arrived safely here after that... But it was definitely a weird experience. There's no telling what would have happened if EMS shipments didn't require phone numbers.

 

Not so much horror, but disappointing. I ordered a Fairyland Feeple60 Cygne, when I got her one of her fingers was broken off, but no finger was to be found. It wasn't in her protective foam, it wasn't under that in her box, wasn't in the shipping box either. So she was packed and shipped with a missing finger! Thankfully, Denver Doll was quick to send me a replacement!

 

I have had a doll that arrived with large stains from packing papers, a completely crushed item, a few completely wrong items, and two dolls melted by heat (one a resin part melted out of shape, and one a faceup melted) during the time I've been in the hobby. They were distressing, but the companies and artists that sent them were also really distressed about it all and were really kind. It was just bad luck.
I'm sorry to hear you got a wrong doll! Hopefully they can fix it all for you.

 

I’ve had dolls arrive broken but the companies always sent replacement parts, thankfully!

The worst for me was a long time ago when 5Star Doll was a new company and still sorting stuff out. I ordered a doll that was estimated to ship in 5 weeks. It took over 5 months with no communication at all to the dealer. When the doll finally arrived, his head didn’t match his body and the event items weren’t included. I never received the event items at all, the color problem wasn’t fixed and the dealer ended up dropping them because so many people had similar issues. I was so upset over this! I ended up turning my doll into a hybrid because the other company’s body matched better than the one he came with. I’m not trying to hurt 5Star Doll’s business—they did end up getting their business running smoothly, my sister and I have both bought dolls from them since then and the service and quality were excellent! I would never have recommended them back then, but I certainly would now.

 

I have a story similar to @Brightfires. I'd ordered my first doll and had her shipped to my mom. I got a call in the college dorm from my mom's post office, asking for my street address. I told them and went on my day until my mom called. Dream of Doll had my name, phone number and zip code on the package, but not the rest of my address. I'm so happy it ended well.

 

Thankfully I haven't encountered many situations that were so bad they couldn't be fixed. But I have a few tiny annoyances that have happened.

• Ordered a large amount of clothes, wigs, eyes, etc. and a couple of the wigs were the wrong size (I checked the order and I ordered the correct size). I didn't bother sending them back because I had already waited a while for the shipment and it felt like a hassle --Thanks crippling anxiety!.
• I purchased eyes from an artist and Texas heat MELTED the finish off of them in the package.
• I ordered eyes from Russia and then had two months worth of arguing with USPS about WHERE the eyes were. The shipping on Russia's side said they were in the US, the shipping on US side said they were in Russia. USPS ended up calling me a liar (despite the screenshot evidence) and said that the seller from Russia was "scamming" me. At the end of the day, I didn't care if I ever got the eyes it was the principal, and the seller was probably one of the kindest people I ever purchased from. -The eyes SOMEHOW made it to me after 4 months.
• Various transactions of older dolls coming with WAY more damage than I expected or was disclosed. I'm actually really happy to purchase damaged dolls...but like...give me a heads up and don't tell me that they're flawless.
• Purchased a doll from YJapan, someone hacked my account and re-routed the doll to a hotel? I ended up getting back into my account in time to reroute the doll back home...but I was furious.

Anyway, those are the ones I can think of.

 

I had a very near miss with one of my dolls. I had tracking set to text me updates while she was out for delivery and got one text that afternoon that she was being rerouted to a town a couple towns away from mine. Curious, but since she was on the truck already not much I could do, I'd have to wait for the inevitable return to the post office to call them.

So imagine my surprise when I got a text saying "Delivered: signed for by resident"

Thankfully I only had to panic for about ten seconds before the doorbell rang. This godsend of a good samaritan actually accepted the package they were trying to deliver to him and then drove it over to my address to drop it off himself.

I still don't know why it got rerouted lol. The address was written correctly, and the town names aren't anywhere close to being the same. Must've been an error with the barcode or something, it's the only thing I can think of.

 

Hmm in my 7/8ish years of being in the hobby I've only had a couple of things happen to really put the panic in me.

First was when a doll was sent to Austria instead of Australia (where live). The doll was rerouted and sent back to the company. They opened it to inspect the doll as the box had been crushed in transit. His face up had been damaged and they let me know, offering to fix it up for me before sending him out again. He arrived safely two weeks later with a shiny new face up.

Second, was my absolute horror dealings with a particular "dealer". Said person is popular within the community, as they deal in legit dolls, but they're not an official dealer for many of the companies they order from. I used their service to order a head that'd been discontinued by a certain company. Everything went well until the head arrived in the wrong colour. Not a problem, I sent them an email advising them of the mistake and asking if I could get it changed. They said that the resin colour was correct. I compared it to a head already had from the same company in the colour I ordered, and said again, that the head they sent me was incorrect. They then sent me a passive-aggressive email back with a screenshot of the company's Chinese site and their explanation that what I was sent was correct. Google translate disagreed with me, and I ended up emailing the company directly to confirm.
The company informed me that this "dealer" was not an authorised dealer for their dolls and this is not the first time they'd screwed up an order and tried to blame the customer. They confirmed my translation, and I emailed the "dealer" back with screenshots of all translations. They relented, and I got a full refund and sent the head back to the dealer. I then re-emailed the company to thank them for their help, and they informed me that because I have bought from them directly before, I am allowed to request any head sculpt to be cast if it's discontinued (within reason of course).
I then put in a formal order with the company, and a month or two later, the new head was sent to me. But it was in a second, different, completely incorrect resin colour! I sent them an email back, and they apologised and had a new head in the correct colour to me within another month. They also allowed me to keep the incorrect head for all the issues I'd been having just trying to order a single head. So now I have twins in two different resin colours. I plan on modding the accidental head into an elf.

 

I just made a board about this in the Customization & Maintenance section but I'll post about it here too since I'm still upset. I bought a Doll Family-A Luca second hand and while the seller was wonderful and he arrived perfectly, I found out while doing a light cleaning of him that his top layer of makeup was not sealed at all. All of his gorgeous black eyelashes turned into a giant mess and I had to continue cleaning it off because I was afraid it would stain his white resin.

 

That's terrible, but I get it! I did however; get my most favorite quote from the worker who called me a liar. He said "I AM THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE!"
So apparently, the issue is that because HE is the soul of USPS...they lost a box. I was pretty annoyed at the time, but now I *also* enjoy yelling that I'm the USPS to my husband when things don't go right.

I'm glad that your box got to you too! I mean...honestly though I feel like they *may* have been able to put 2+2 together on your box and figured out where it should have gone. But that one was a little more challenging.

 

I never really had huge problems, just some small ones.
•I ordered a picasso bean from dearmine and got 20mm eyes, the dolls wears 14mm. I e-mailed them and they promptly sent me the right size eyes.
• I orderd a fairyline body+fantasy parts on a split and fairyland sent a body full of issues and forgot to send the fantasy parts. They also promptly fixed their mistake.
• Ordered a wig on etsy and though it would have good quality since the price was a little but mor expensive than usual. Guess what…the wig had a super poor quality and came all dirty. I gave the seller 2 stars and they got mad at me! haha

 

I have one doll that was a little cursed to put together. I ordered the head from one company and the body from another. I ordered the head first so it was the first to arrive, but it was the non-elf ear version and I had ordered elf ears. I contacted the company and they said I could keep it and they'd send the right head.

So it was the perfect opportunity to order the body with resin matching. I took the head cap from the wrong head and sent it off to China and ordered a 1/3 girl body for her. During that time the correct head arrived so I was excited when the body came to me. I opened the box and kinda just sat there looking at it for a few minutes. The resin was a perfect match but... it was a boy body. I contacted them and once again was told I could keep the extra body and they'd send the right thing. I asked about the resin match and they said it was on file so I wouldn't have to send the head cap again.

So I waited, and finally, another box arrived. I opened it, and it was a girl body, but instead of the beautiful tan, it was pale. At that point, I figured it was close enough. I took her apart, dyed the body, put her back together and finally have the doll I wanted. The dye wound up being a near-perfect match. I sold the extra head and kept the boy body for a male character I was putting together.

There was another time I opened a box to find a doll with a broken finger. Luckily, the finger was in the box and a bit of super-glue fixed him up. I don't even remember which finger it was and you can't tell by looking, so I'm glad it was a good clean break that went back together easily!

 

I ordered a fairy doll fullset meant to come with wings and because I ordered their alternative body with different legs(an option in the drop down box!) they just didn't think I wanted the wings. You can't order them separately, so I never got them. It was a difficult shopping experience all around, I had to ask if my doll was even shipped because the company wouldn't give me a tracking number. Ten months of stress for nothing and I don't like the doll anymore.

 

I only am a year and a half in the hobby, so I still have time for gruesome stories! XD

So far, the worst things I can think of is that my first doll was sent to me in the middle of the worst of the pandemic. She spend a month and a half in shipping limbo. XD And since it was my first, I checked the tracking every hour, or so. It was excruciating but the wait was totally worth it.

 

I have a scary story that is short, but it has a happy ending. I was planning to do a photoshoot with my favorite doll. She's a rare and discontinued sculpt. I had to remove her head to put on her clothes, then realized her eyes looked wonky. As I was readjusting her eyes, she slipped out of my hands and fell on the hardwood floor! I screamed, thinking I had cracked the head or something! Thankfully no damage was done, and now I'm even more careful with all my dolls!

 

That is horrific!!! How did they get into your account?? Was it another bidder who really REALLY wanted your doll?

 

Something a bit similiar happened to me too :'D. I bought Iplehouse Freezia from here Doa, everything went smoothly, I watched tracking. One day it had arrived in Finland and I was tracking when the package would arrive. I saw same "Delivered" in some random city and I panicked and called to my boyfriend that my doll has arrived to wrong location! Gladly, after calling to post office they called back to me later and told that there had been some error in the code, the package should be at my home soon (I was at school). Some short time later my boyfriend called and told that the package had delivered to home. Good ending, but oh those horrors thoughts while waiting for an answer from the post office. I almost cried "now somebody random will open my doll box and I don't know what they will do to her" :'D