The Facebook debacle & other issues

So the video where I found this information is a year old but the comments are recent. If this was brought up before, I'm sorry for retreading an old topic. But I was not aware of all of this and...I don't know what to make of it. Knowing this I'm kind of amazed that I so often see videos of people buying new Smart Dolls. 

Oh wow. With how fast limited dolls of any kind tend to be, having to hunt down a secret password sounds incredibly rough.

The questionnaire is a minor inconvenience at worst; they make the wrong answers really obvious so you're not gonna mess up unless you're intentionally choosing the outlandish questions. I was also able to get the doll in my cart immediately after checking, so this might've been a site error.

The password thing, though, is uhh...interesting. Buying Smartdolls could be a competitive sport at this point.

On 8/7/2024 at 9:34 PM, ladyandlion said:

So the video where I found this information is a year old but the comments are recent. If this was brought up before, I'm sorry for retreading an old topic. But I was not aware of all of this and...I don't know what to make of it. Knowing this I'm kind of amazed that I so often see videos of people buying new Smart Dolls. 

Scam artists, yes, they exist, but it's mostly scalpers.

That I can understand, but resellers make me confused. Is he saying that people on Ebay or anywhere else aren't allowed to sell his product? 
And technically, all Smart Dolls fall under limited time items lol 

Edited October 6 by SonataAvalon

Honestly, regarding purchasing, it comes down to this: DC is the only one who enforces such ridiculous practices. No other doll company to this day acts like this. It's not normal, and it's not acceptable to treat every single person like a criminal. 

Honestly it's beyond me why fellow doll lovers accept such treatment like it's warranted, or they deserve it for some reason. They don't. 

10 hours ago, Ageha said:

Honestly, regarding purchasing, it comes down to this: DC is the only one who enforces such ridiculous practices. No other doll company to this day acts like this. It's not normal, and it's not acceptable to treat every single person like a criminal. 

Honestly it's beyond me why fellow doll lovers accept such treatment like it's warranted, or they deserve it for some reason. They don't. 

and the fact they target children as whom the dolls are for, but pander to adults. plus how is a rated M video game for kids?" ( the weird cosplays by dc.  Hope this isn't off topic 

At this point your best bet is a dealer...

15 hours ago, Ageha said:

Honestly, regarding purchasing, it comes down to this: DC is the only one who enforces such ridiculous practices. No other doll company to this day acts like this. It's not normal, and it's not acceptable to treat every single person like a criminal. 

Honestly it's beyond me why fellow doll lovers accept such treatment like it's warranted, or they deserve it for some reason. They don't. 

I think a lot of doll lovers tend to accept it because it isn't just about the dolls for them. They are Danny Choo/Culture Japan fans just as much as Smart Doll fans. They end up aligning with his own points of view. They accept "wabi sabi" as a poor excuse for QC issues. They decide that his philosophy is best and think that what may be an innocent question that anyone would ask about a product gets turned into "ungrateful, unreasonable 'folks' who probably shouldn't by Smart Dolls." DC tends to talk a lot about social issues and the like and that can be appealing for some. I'm sure he has had to deal with scammers but I just wonder how much of that are legit issues and how much of it is made up as excuse to push back against people who just expect a normal experience with customer service without having to take tests, get passwords and jump through hoops. 

With all this I found it really strange that there is such negative experience. I did not get my first SmD direct and my first purchase was a milk bust that was recently on sale.

I didn't get any of these issues. Added to cart, answered the questions then paid. Item arrived the next day... 

I was even bugging Danny about purchasing and picking up instore but dropped the idea and purchased elsewhere.

6 hours ago, ladyandlion said:

I think a lot of doll lovers tend to accept it because it isn't just about the dolls for them. They are Danny Choo/Culture Japan fans just as much as Smart Doll fans. They end up aligning with his own points of view. They accept "wabi sabi" as a poor excuse for QC issues. They decide that his philosophy is best and think that what may be an innocent question that anyone would ask about a product gets turned into "ungrateful, unreasonable 'folks' who probably shouldn't by Smart Dolls." DC tends to talk a lot about social issues and the like and that can be appealing for some. I'm sure he has had to deal with scammers but I just wonder how much of that are legit issues and how much of it is made up as excuse to push back against people who just expect a normal experience with customer service without having to take tests, get passwords and jump through hoops. 

Jumping through hoops, like playing those impossible to win basketball games at the county fair.  I would think QC would be a priority for dolls made for da kiddie's lol

The only issue with all these complicated stuff to purchase is, back then he make a fuss of how volks DDs hard to get also their exclusive limited event.... and promising smart doll to be accessible easily and no limited stuff. NOW looks what happen... limited smartdoll is much harder to get and no first time buyer can seems able to get them and to be honest with my personal experience in trading cards and recent drama about LEGO , I personally feel those "hard to get smart dolls" seems to be "artificial scarcity" ... I would assume so people desire them more and FOMO kicks in to boost sales at least those few dolls available will guaranteeed to sold out