WORST Doll Experience EVER

My worst experience happened only a few weeks ago. I was strolling through this beautiful park with a befriended doll owner. It was a gorgeous day so we had brought a few of our BJD along to make pictures of them in that woodland setting. Normally...(yes, normally) I transport my boys in their doll-carrier. But since we were moving to a location only a few minute walk away I decided to carry my two boys on my arm.
Big mistake..while chattering away with my friend I suddenly tripped and fell flat faced on the rocky path! My two boys were launched like resin rockets and smashed meters away on that same rocky road. It was like a really bad movie scene..me crawling on hands and bloody knees towards my dolls, my friend in overal panic. So there we sat, on the side of the path, both sobbing while holding the poor fallen dollies. Thank goodness there were no damaged faces, but four fingers of my (ofcourse..) limited tanned boy were broken clean off! We collected them and I glued them back..still looks crappy ofcouse
So...I staggered back home, cursing myself for being so clumsy. Had nightmares for three days haha!

 

Okay my worst experience was signing for a package for what I thought was my Dollzone Yuu. I looked at the box and thought "Gee this box is a bit big" but it was my first doll his size at the time. I opened it up and found golf clubs.

I panicked and rang the post office who were able to track him down and came back and swapped the packages.

I then opened him up and was stunned - I ordered Natural Yellow Skin but he was so yellow he was jaundiced. I had purchased Dollzone ball joint hands that were a year or two old that were a lovely shade and they were so pale next to him. I thought maybe a mistake had been made as he was so dark.

Whilst expecting him I also found he was chipped. I contacted DDE and confirmed that it was yellow skin and I received a replacement for his chipped shoulders but I just never got over the shock of what I was expecting. I had waited around 2 years to get him and the character I had planned for him wouldn't go with his dark yellow colouring so I eventually traded him as I couldn't get past it.

 

Psychiatric hospital ..... BJD ..... hmmm. I know I could use some addiction treatment, and so could my wallet!

 

My worst experience was when I put the magnets in the head with the wrong polarity. Doll is of course LE, i.e. $$$$. Can you say "floating head"? Took 1.5 hours of digging, almost getting high on acetone and DH to fix it. But all is well that ends well.

 

Oooh, let's see...

1) When I was new and less experienced and still naive about selling dolls, I sold a doll that was paid for with an eCheck. Like I said, I was naive and shipped the doll and of course you can guess the check bounced! And I repeatedly PMed the buyer, despite being online several times a day, they never bothered to PM me back. So it became a race against time to intercept the package before it reached her. Several hours on the phone after calling multiple post offices, I FINALLY found the post office the doll was at, explained the situation to the amazingly patient man on the phone, and I asked them to hold it so I could file a request to have it mailed back to me. Determination and a bit of luck brought the doll back to me and prevented me losing a good chunk of change. I still sold the doll later...to a different person, of course.

2) Before I had ever owned a non-normal/white toned BJD before, I received a Pipos Baha in pink skin. It had some characteristic marbling that experienced owners know isn't that unusual but I was totally distraught when that happened! It was a good learning experience though and I still own that Baha, he's the doll that's been with me longest and is VERY unlikely to leave.

3) I ordered a Minifee Chloe in white skin and when I got her, I INSTANTLY disliked her. So I sold her. And that was sad, considering I'd wanted a Minifee for so long! I've since grown to love Minifees and ever am getting another Chloe, but it was awful to have waited that long for a doll that expensive, only to absolutely hate her and her size the minute I opened the box.

4) A doll I posted to Russia went missing for I think...8 weeks? Something like that.

5) Saddest of all, I have had one doll lost in the mail that was never ever found.

But overall, I've been pretty fortunate considering the pretty extensive amount of buying and selling I've done in this hobby.

 

My worst experience is a bit of an on going one, but over-all is more annoyance than anything else since I love my doll regardless.
Back in Spetember 2010 I bought my first BJD a Doll-Love Alice. I loved her to death, but she was strung so tight it was impossible to move. I ended up bringing her to a lunch doll-meet where it took 6 of us to try and get her apart to find out she was strung with string for an MSD sized doll.
I ended up purchasing the correct string to restring her and did so, but to this day I cannot get her to stand no matter what I do. I was planning on commissioning someone to help with her, but I ended up leaving the hobby for nearly a year...
Now that I'm back, I'm hoping one day the Fairy Doll Mother will take pity on me or I get around to finding someone willing to help suede, string and possibly wire her.

 

Came home and found my nephew playing army with my boy.....needless to say I had to almost molest my boy with a magic eraser to clear all his battle scars. Ugh.

 

I've been with the hobby since 2006 and I haven't had too many problems.

I've had dolls fall and re-stringing accidents. Once I was part of a group order and the person running the order went missing for about a month but I eventually got my doll.

I think the worst was when I bought my first minifee. I love the Shiwoo sculpt and I always wanted to own a minifee. Last year I bought a blank scar face Shiwoo for sale on ebay. The price was very reasonable even with shipping from the UK to the US. I got my tracking number and waited. A few days before it was due to arrive I got a message from the seller. He told me he had mixed up the packages. My head had been sent to someone in Kentucky. I was so upset. I mean this was a limited head. I had even started a layaway for a body. It did get sorted out after many emails. The seller was very apologetic and even paid for the shipping so I could send the Kentucky package to its rightful owner. I think it took about a month for my scar-face head to get home.

In the mean time I had finished paying off his body early. The seller was pleased but said they would need a week to ship since they were out of town. Perfectly acceptable. But a week turned into two weeks then three. I'd send a PM asking for a ship date and I would get some excuse. Everything from sickness to no ride. I was getting frustrated. After a month I ended up opening a Paypal dispute to try and get some of my money back. That did it. The body arrived 4 days later.

Good thing I love Shiwoos as much as I do because I think if it was any other doll I don't think I would have been able to bond with him after all this trouble.

 

I've been in the hobby for 6 years and have had a few 'disappointing' experiences which I will share:

I once sold a doll on Ebay, she went really high as she was very sought after. She didn't come in a box as I got her direct from the individual artist, so I removed her head and packaged her really really securely in a slightly smaller box. I included lots of extras, fully insure at my own expense. I felt I'd covered everything. Little did I know that the person was new to BJDs, received the doll, went berserk and started bombarding me with emails about the doll being a pile of old rubbish, she couldn't put the head on, she was really abusive and nasty. She even sent emails to the artist telling her that I'd sold her a broken doll. Of course all this happened during my night time so I didn't see it until I woke in the morning to many emails. I was horrified. Luckily the artist was lovely and knew me and my doll, and knew very well that I'd not sold her anything but a perfect doll. We think she had buyers remorse and didn't really know what she was buying and just had to blame someone!!

Another experience was with Bambicrony tanned Emily. I bought her secondhand from my friend in the US and she kindly marked the value down to $30 and as 'gift'....I was watching the tracking and saw that she'd was in the delivery system so would arrive that particular day. Then the postman knocked on my door, he was shaking and told me that my box containing Emily had been stolen from his motor bike whilst he was delivering letters. I was so upset. However, it had a happy ending for me, although not for the postman. His boss was horrified because he'd left the bike in a different street, totally unlocked with the parcel on display and this wasn't the first time. So the director of the post office asked for my invoice from paypal and they paid me the full amount for the doll!!!

So then I ordered a new Emily to replace the stolen one. She arrived months later than expected with two right legs!!! It took Bambicrony a couple of months to sent me the correct leg. I ended up selling Emily because I just couldn't bond with her after all that.

Another bad experience with a Bambicrony product. I ordered a tanned tiny from them, again a much longer wait than expected, but when she finally arrived she was in a terrible mess....all dented and scratched, really badly made and poorly sanded, and worse still, a white spot right on the end of her nose as well as spotting all over her faceup. BC were really terrible to deal with, couldn't see a problem but eventually agreed to refund the cost when the doll was returned. However, they charged paypal fees and we had to pay the shipping, so I ended up losing more than $125 on that purchase.

And finally, although I'm sure there are more stories I could share, I don't want to get boring!!! I ordered a lovely real skin JID Asa from Iplehouse and had really done my homework on the faceup, so when she arrived and looked completely different, I was so upset. I wrote to them telling then that I felt I'd got the wrong faceup as it was nothing like their photos and was basically told 'tough luck....it is what it is'....I was so disappointed and still haven't really done all that much with her, she's pretty but she's not what I ordered.

 

I've been in and out of the hobby for quite a few years, and was involved in lots of buying and selling- so I've had my share of experiences... Fortunately, many wonderful experiences, too, but some that I took to heart at the time.

1.) First of all, I find it terrible and pathetic when people gather just to badmouth and ridicule other people and their dolls. So obviously, when I found out I "fell victim" to such behavior, I was very upset. It was a few years ago, and today I think that my main reason for being upset was that before finding out about it, I had no idea that people did that. I was just shocked and appalled to ifnd out that people actually spent their free time doing stuff like that. It made me think about leaving the hobby, as I didn't want to be a part of a "community" that included such people and such behavior. But eventually, I figured out that it was bound to happen anywhere where there are large groups of people (especially women, lol...). I just stay away from that kind of places now, so if there's any badmouthing going on, I wouldn't even know about it.

2.) I think that the worst experiences I had were as a seller. I always find it incredibly stressful to be a seller, because I know that I'm a very flexible and understanding person. When I want a doll, I will accept some minor glitches as long as I get the doll and it's in a rectifiable condition (for instance, I once paid a fortune for a doll head that turned out to be *extremely* yellowed. I also paid lots of money for a doll that showed up full of weird black stains, which I managed to remove with some hard rubbing using a magic sponge...). It's not that I like being screwed, it's just that I try and keep things in perspective. I love my dolls, but I do know that they are just dolls, and there are much more important things in life. So I try and keep cool and not stress about this sort of stuff. But for some people, it's such a big deal I'll never even understand it. So I know that things that are completely normal and tolerable for me, and I don't even pay special attention to, might be extremely meaningful for others. So I never know what to expect from a buyer. I always try to present my dolls as accurately as possible, but some things I am never prepared for. Like one person not liking the faceup as much as she thought she would (it was a gorgeous faceup done by a sought-after artist), and insisting I pay her back the faceup's worth (over $100) so she can get a new one. Or another person going insane over the box not being the original one (I know some people care about that, but I never mentioned an original box, and it was so meaningless for me I didn't even think about mentioning that... Big mistake I'll never reapeat again! Although I do think that if a person cares this greatly about a box, they should ask the seller to make sure it is indeed included). I ended up losing lots of money on those specific sales, as I care greatly about my feedback, and sometimes as a seller you're a bit of your buyer's "hostage"... Even if you don't agree to their demands and find them unreasonable, and end up losing money because of them, you don't want to take the risk of having your perfect feedback tarnished. Not to mention the risk of your Paypal/Forum account being suspended, etc. So you just swallow the frog and move on.

3.) One of the worst things to happen to me (over and over again... >.>) is when I get a doll with a faceup I love, but think it can be improved upon. So I either make a small adjustpent to the faceup and end up ruining it, or erase it and send the head off to get a "faceup refreshment", only to find out that it's not nearly as special as the original faceup was... It's borderline tragic for me, since for me the "right" faceup is the most important thing about a doll. I ended up selling all those dolls, being so disappointed and frustrated over it. It's that horrible feeling that you had a great thing and you blew it, wanting more...

4.) Selling dolls and regretting it later. Always feels bad.

5.) I sent off a head to get a faceup from an artist, and she disappeared for quite a while with my head, and a bunch of other people's head as well. That was the only time I ever posted a negative for someone and made things public,being scared I was never going to get her back (she was also a tan doll, so I couldn't buy a new head seperately). After she finally came back, I sold her shortly after. I just had a bitter taste left after the whole experience.

 

This. I once bought a head represented as "no visible yellowing" . I like to call him banana boy.

 

Trust me restringing will work out fine.

 

I've been an active collector for only 6 months, but still I have two experiences that are bad enough.

First, when I sent the head of my Planetdoll Mini Riz, my first (and only at the time) doll, for a face-up. This was entirely my fault. I was tired when I wrote the address on the package, and wrote the wrong street name. The package was almost lost for 15 days, but for once, post office services did a great job and searched the person's real address, and delivered the head. When I got it back more than a month later I was SO glad!! If the head had been lost, I think I would have sold the body because even if I had bought a new one, it wouldn't have been my Mélusine, my very first doll.

Second bad experience was with a seller. I sent them a check for a Minifee, and they received it two days later, telling me that the doll would ship at the end of the week. On Saturday, without news from them, I messaged them, only to be told that the doll would ship at the end of the week after, without giving any proper explanation, or admitting they had lied. They even made as if they had never said the doll would ship so soon. I was really disappointed, it's not that I can't understand RL issues, it's just that I didn't get any explanation even though I asked several times, if I hadn't messaged them I wouldn't have known, and besides they acted as if they were doing me a favor by sending the doll the week after...
And to top it all, when I mentioned this in the seller's feedback, they left a public message telling me to PM them if I had something to say about it XD Needless to say that I will never buy from them again.

 

Once upon a time I was a brand new bouncing Doll owner. I had two dolls at the time and was just cutting my teeth on DOA. I found this Lovely EL head with a very dark and soulful look to it. I was in love. The head was in France and I am in the USA. So after some talking with the seller they told me the price and how much shipping would be. So I had a friend who was helping me get the money up and get it sent off to her. new to paypal as well lol. Well I heard she got the money and would ship soon. Well needless to say soon was about 2 weeks. Then come to find out the seller did not mail the doll it was a family member who did. The doll was sent I think parcel or whatever that service would be oversea. It was not insured and I had no workable tracking number. I was very very upset. I waited a month and contacted her and told the seller the head had not arrived. They ask me to give it a little bit longer and everything went down hill from there.
I spent with the help of friends almost 4 month before I got my money back. The head never show up at my house and I do not know if the seller got it back. Commication was very very slow with the person as well. It almost made me want to give up the hobby and sell the dolls I had.

Lucky I pulled through and did not leave which I am glad about. I am older,wiser and have grown up in the DOA family a bit more. I check my feedback more and ask a lot of question and for clearer pictures if needed Now.

 

I'd have to say buying for Luts back in '08.

My first doll with them (and ever) they sent me the wrong one in '06, my second order was great in '07 but my third was during an event period when they'd decided to stop taking payment via paypal. They never recieved my bank order, I had to got to three different banks to try to get the money put back into my account. They held the order for me at the event price and were fine about waiting for me to sort out the money, then randomly sent me a curt message saying I hadn't paid and they were cancelling the order, then told me to forget the message. Wha? I was almost ready to cancel the order myself. It took three months to have the money put back in my account, lots of stress then when she arrived her face up was nothing like the promo picture, hardly any detail, very basic. Her promo face up was the reason I wanted her so much. I tried relaly hard to learn to love her but in '10 I sold her and re-shelled the character. I never bought from Luts again after that, they are a great company but I was just tired of stressful orders. I moved on to new companies and never had a problem since. Now I don't dread a doll arriving.

 

My apartment is *very* tiny. My kitchenette is part of my bedroom and my fridge is shorter than I am. With little room for surfaces to display things like dolls on, I have to utilize everything I can. For a while, I had a small display of figures and such on top of my fridge, among which was my PukiPuki, Vash. A few months ago I was boiling some noodles on the stove, which is next to the fridge. Everything up top was secure as far as I knew. I'd opened and closed the fridge many times without so much as a wobble from anything up there. But I guess Vash had had enough. I shut the fridge and heard a plop. I looked up, thinking "what was that?" and saw poor Vash in the pot facedown, rolling with the boil. Before my brain could tell me "hey, don't reach in there with your hand stupid," I was already reaching in there with my hand. He was rescued in seconds, but immediately thrown when the pain registered. But... where was his wig? Where were his hands? Like a complete unthinking imbecile, I reached in again for his wig, which was floating right on top. Then I threw that, too. Luckily, I could hear my thoughts over the swearing finally and pulled the pot off the stove to poke around in the noodles with a spoon for his hands without sticking my own in there. Which is good, because they weren't in there. They had both popped off when he hit the counter after being thrown. With everything located, I stripped him down, rinsed him off, and checked for damage.

None. None at all. He was fine.

Wish I could have said the same for my hand, though. Blisters within minutes. Second degree burns on the middle digits of two fingers (they came in contact with the bottom of the pot), first degree on the other two. Thumb hurt, but was okay. It took a while to heal, but it all healed just fine.

Sometimes I look at Vash, standing on his new little shelf (away from the stove) and wonder if he did it on purpose. Troublemaker.

 

Wtf? That sounds like a really weird nightmare or something! I had to read it over a little to make sure I was reading it right Weirdest doll story I've ever heard, but it made me laugh with it's obscurity thank you!

 

See, this is why I'm not leaving my niece alone with my dolls EVAR. She's only 3 months old right now, but still.

 

I've had a lot of lows.
Breaking dolls, falling out of love, horrible sellers/buyers, interactions with absoultely horrid people in this community, but I think my worst came at school.

I was in college taking a photography class and my professor had randomly seen a doll photo of mine one day while I was going through my memory card during class.
He stopped the entire class and huddled everyone around my computer while we looked though my doll photos. He fluffed my feathers and told me how amazing my work was.
Fast forward a few months and we're working on final projects. i decided to do portraits of doll owners with their dolls.
We do group critiques and when it came my turn, he was less than impressed with my work, then proceeded to try and explain why he found my dolls interesting. Calling them "sex dolls" and insinuating that doll collectors had actual relationships with their dolls.
I looked up to this man for months and I was just gutted while he sat there and displayed myself and my passion as a perverted subculture. I was barely able to hold my composure in class and for the rest of the period everyone just stared at me as it was obvious I was seconds away from cracking.
Luckily I made it out of the class and to the dorm room of a doll friend before I fell apart.
I'd never been so humiliated in my life and it took every ounce of personal pride I had to continue and finish that project.

 

O my, Knibitz...hope your friend gave you a good cuddle after that.

Try to see it tihs way: it where his thoughts that made something beautifull into something perverted, not yours.