The Facebook debacle & other issues

Danny having shady business practices?

 

I'm laughing in "playing ring around the rosie with my bank and PayPal over $400 he charged me."  Paypal won't do anything because the other was "refunded", but my bank was still charged.  My bank won't even let me dispute the transaction/get the money back.  Both are asking me to contact the seller, but of course because I'm shdow-banned, it's been complete radio silence on Danny's end.

2 hours ago, Meowjima said:

Both are asking me to contact the seller, but of course because I'm shdow-banned, it's been complete radio silence on Danny's end.

I would tell them that the seller refuses to communicate. 

Escalate to a supervisor if you need to.  

3 hours ago, Meowjima said:

Danny having shady business practices?

 

I'm laughing in "playing ring around the rosie with my bank and PayPal over $400 he charged me."  Paypal won't do anything because the other was "refunded", but my bank was still charged.  My bank won't even let me dispute the transaction/get the money back.  Both are asking me to contact the seller, but of course because I'm shdow-banned, it's been complete radio silence on Danny's end.

Hi! I actually work adjacent to the disputing transactions side of banking, which is pretty heavily regulated and standardized across US banks. Is there something I can do to help you? Hit me up via DM/messaging?

@Meowjima Holy shit, yikes! That sounds horrific; I really hope you get your money back soon. 😬

The story on the random Moonlight that was in the garage for $2500 USD was that she was up in the R&D department being used as a clothes horse for years, she was there when Ed and I visited in 2017.  Basically she was up there to setup new clothing prototypes.   She was no different than a regular release Moonlight.  Same wig, same eyes, same body.  She wasn't a first run, not a 3D molded head, nothing special at all..... other than the fact she was a prized Moonlight worth over $2K on the aftermarket. Danny putting her in the garage at that insane price was a cash grab pure and simple.  He's not unaware of the aftermarket on his dolls.  He knew exactly what he was doing with her.  So all his posturing about people reselling and all that?  Pure attention grabbing BS.

As for Cortex, it had the possibility to do really well except for the fact he wanted too much money for it.  I spoke to him about the setup and what he wanted to do with it and the things we chatted about made total sense and would really have done well in my opinion had he done them.  But for whatever reason, Cortex didn't turn out how he thought or wanted and he had to either recoup costs or make more on them than originally thought.  It really was set to do way better than it did but things didn't go how he said they would and it failed miserably.  Had things gone like we chatted about, I know he could have made a ton with it and people would be building kits left and right.

So yes, I have to agree with what others have stated.... money isn't important in Smartdoll Land.  Until it is.  Words to think about friends.

 

 

 

Billy

6 minutes ago, baldylox said:

The story on the random Moonlight that was in the garage for $2500 USD was that she was up in the R&D department being used as a clothes horse for years, she was there when Ed and I visited in 2017.  Basically she was up there to setup new clothing prototypes.   She was no different than a regular release Moonlight.  Same wig, same eyes, same body.  She wasn't a first run, not a 3D molded head, nothing special at all..... other than the fact she was a prized Moonlight worth over $2K on the aftermarket. Danny putting her in the garage at that insane price was a cash grab pure and simple.  He's not unaware of the aftermarket on his dolls.  He knew exactly what he was doing with her.  So all his posturing about people reselling and all that?  Pure attention grabbing BS.

As for Cortex, it had the possibility to do really well except for the fact he wanted too much money for it.  I spoke to him about the setup and what he wanted to do with it and the things we chatted about made total sense and would really have done well in my opinion had he done them.  But for whatever reason, Cortex didn't turn out how he thought or wanted and he had to either recoup costs or make more on them than originally thought.  It really was set to do way better than it did but things didn't go how he said they would and it failed miserably.  Had things gone like we chatted about, I know he could have made a ton with it and people would be building kits left and right.

So yes, I have to agree with what others have stated.... money isn't important in Smartdoll Land.  Until it is.  Words to think about friends.

 

 

 

Billy

"Money is not most important but you just can't say NO to it" 🤣

1 hour ago, baldylox said:

The story on the random Moonlight that was in the garage for $2500 USD was that she was up in the R&D department being used as a clothes horse for years, she was there when Ed and I visited in 2017.  Basically she was up there to setup new clothing prototypes.   She was no different than a regular release Moonlight.  Same wig, same eyes, same body.  She wasn't a first run, not a 3D molded head, nothing special at all..... other than the fact she was a prized Moonlight worth over $2K on the aftermarket. Danny putting her in the garage at that insane price was a cash grab pure and simple.  He's not unaware of the aftermarket on his dolls.  He knew exactly what he was doing with her.  So all his posturing about people reselling and all that?  Pure attention grabbing BS.

As for Cortex, it had the possibility to do really well except for the fact he wanted too much money for it.  I spoke to him about the setup and what he wanted to do with it and the things we chatted about made total sense and would really have done well in my opinion had he done them.  But for whatever reason, Cortex didn't turn out how he thought or wanted and he had to either recoup costs or make more on them than originally thought.  It really was set to do way better than it did but things didn't go how he said they would and it failed miserably.  Had things gone like we chatted about, I know he could have made a ton with it and people would be building kits left and right.

So yes, I have to agree with what others have stated.... money isn't important in Smartdoll Land.  Until it is.  Words to think about friends.

 

 

 

Billy

I'm curious as to what you think he could have done with cortex to make it sell better that he said he was going to do and didn't.  

6 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I'm curious as to what you think he could have done with cortex to make it sell better that he said he was going to do and didn't.  

My unwanted 2c on it - he sold them as whole dolls but at a similar price to vinyl (¥39,800 pre assembled), which made people prefer vinyl over cortex which just seems like a cheaper plastic. Feels like he overvalued cortexes and wanted them to completely replace vinyl bodies in the long run, but customers continued to choose vinyl. So he couldn't recoup the investment costs of cortex. 

Meanwhile he got his staff to assemble the cortexes, which are way more fiddly than vinyl assembly, and had a lot of chaos products - cortexes that were not glued properly. And there were several editions of cortex shells and frames, which meant that not all frames were compatible with the shells - you can see on facebook group that many people had to modify their cortex shells, especially in the upper arm areas, to get the frames to fit. So he would have to create new cortex molds, which is more investment, to fit on his new generation frames. I guess as long as he kept modifying the frames he would always have to modify the cortex, and that is not cost effective. Unlike vinyl where the molds could be used continuously for vinyl shells even as internal frames changed. 

At some point he gave up as it didn't seem profitable in the long run, and just threw all of them up in kits for sale, and also gave them to STEM students for free. That is sadly, when cortex really took off - people bought multiple kits (including me) as it was truly enjoyable to build them, however that was also when he stopped production on the cortex shells.

I think people would have loved an option to build their own Smartdoll, but he didn't give much chance on that - there was only a preliminary run on the final boss cortex kits (¥29,800) and ninja grade kits (¥34,800) - and meanwhile the youtubers who assembled their kits, as well as Danny himself made it seem really dramatic and easy to fail. He was offering job interviews to people who managed to fit their SMD Cortex kits together!! Of course it was discouraging to people who would think it would cost them 300 or thereabouts to likely fail. It was only when people started buying the cheaper kits (¥23500 for two shell and one frame) and shared that it was quite easily put together that it seemed more viable. Of course at that point he had already given up on the project. 

 

Edited to add - cortexes had certain points that did not survive customer stress testing. Many upper arms started to crack with daily play, which meant he had to replace them. Honestly, gluing the shell together added additional stress - I haven't glued mine together and theres no cracks whatsoever till now, because allowing shells to come apart helped with the tension. Its not a flexible plastic like vinyl, it acts quite differently.

Edited June 23, 2021 by sumdude

On 6/21/2021 at 3:23 AM, Lurks said:

Mr. Choo, I don't think this questionnaire where three of the four questions asks you to choose between a very exaggerated, obviously terrible and unethical choice or doing the opposite (with the last question being nothing but a bad meme) is the anti-scalper/anti-entitled trap you think it is.

 

 

  

On 6/15/2021 at 8:38 PM, Misheru said:

The whole thing just makes me sad. I really really respected the man back in the CJ days.  Then I worried about him when things began changing and getting weird. I worried he was growing too fast to do the things he had set out to do.  Then it all completely derailed, changed direction and it was like a different person had stepped in. I still worry about him sometimes. But basically it just makes me sad.

Sadly Danny Choo always has been like that, he hasn't changed, there are plenty of old posts about him on forums before he started Smartdoll, especially about his shady actions with his books about Otaku rooms back in 2009/2010.

I can't find all the threads I read back then but I found this one, this post is particularly interesting: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=948403#948403

Danny was already posting rants about haters in 2010 lol: https://dannychoo.com/archive/en/posts/dealing-with-haters-part-1

Edited June 23, 2021 by Nyx Whitestar

14 hours ago, Nyx Whitestar said:

Danny was already posting rants about haters in 2010 lol: https://dannychoo.com/archive/en/posts/dealing-with-haters-part-1

I'd make two observations.

1) People always have a reason for why they do things, the reason itself may not be rational or based on anything external to the person, but it's always there. So his definition of haters doesn't exactly wash. I can pretty much guarantee him that all the criticism in this thread is based on something he did that invited criticism.

2) In his first example of dealing with a hater, it sounds like he improved his Korean for the joy of rubbing the other guys face in it. I can't fault his logic in the sense that self-improvement is better than feeling down about yourself, but his motivation says something really ugly about him. He might want to re-read his own paragraph about low self-esteem and bullying, and then take a long look into a mirror.

 

15 hours ago, Nyx Whitestar said:

I can't find all the threads I read back then but I found this one, this post is particularly interesting: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=948403#948403

Sound very similar to what someone else posted about the creation of the models for his early doll heads.

On 6/22/2021 at 1:11 AM, MaleficentMrsofEvil said:

Removed the remaining post for brevity.

Hello! I’m new. I’m up to page 20 (?) and working my way through. Promise I’ll keep going - but work and sleep and stuff. Also - I’m typing this on an Apple tablet. Heh heh.

At the risk or resurrecting old drama (and with sincere apologies if I am), this post has convinced me of one absolute certainty (I’m sorry to be the one to break it to US SmD fans), and that is Mirai Company is never coming to the US. 
 

Here we have a regulatory agency called the Federal Trade Commission, and most (if not all) states have consumer sales practices acts. California’s is particularly strong. 
 

This sort of behavior runs afoul of US regulatory requirements and laws. I don’t see any business case for Mirai Company to make an investment in creating a US subsidiary, based upon our legal system surrounding consumer sales. In other words, this sort of behavior would not fly. They would spend a lot of money setting up shop, and then spend a lot MORE money defending a lot of litigation.

 

Sorry, y’all. Mirai isn’t coming to America…

 

Then wouldn’t he cause problems for his US reseller by imposing his “rules” on her sales? She is US based regardless of the product.  It makes me worry because she is a nice person.

3 minutes ago, Misheru said:

Then wouldn’t he cause problems for his US reseller by imposing his “rules” on her sales? She is US based regardless of the product.  It makes me worry because she is a nice person.

Tbh I don’t think his arbitrary banning would run afoul of rules (unless it’s found to be against a protected class - race, gender etc.) - it might get him a bad rating but I don’t think it’d be grounds for fines and penalties…

Now, him failing to provide adequate customer support in the form of replacing genuinely faulty products, that could be an issue which could only possibly be managed at her expense.  (Same with selling them as safe for children, but far as I can tell that branding isn’t being echoed, yet.)

On 6/23/2021 at 4:34 AM, Nyx Whitestar said:

 

Sadly Danny Choo always has been like that, he hasn't changed, there are plenty of old posts about him on forums before he started Smartdoll, especially about his shady actions with his books about Otaku rooms back in 2009/2010.

I can't find all the threads I read back then but I found this one, this post is particularly interesting: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=948403#948403

Danny was already posting rants about haters in 2010 lol: https://dannychoo.com/archive/en/posts/dealing-with-haters-part-1

I only knew what I read/watched on CJ. I did not visit other places.  I recall when I first started reading anything about him mentioning haters. I think it was in reference to those who did not like his Otaku persona.  At the time, he refused to respond and seemed mature when it came to it...applying the Golden Rule.  Of course that may have just been a face he put on and decided later not to concern himself with even trying to.  
 

My only soft spot for him comes from the fact that it was through him that I first saw a Dollfie Dream doll (his Aoi, I think). I was instantly hooked and my large vinyl doll journey began.  I also got much of my early doll stuff from the forum connected to CJ.  But none of that can save him now in my eyes.  

Edited June 24, 2021 by Misheru
Fixed grammar and typos

I’d say part of my early exposure to Dollfie Dreams was largely in part due to danny and culture japan.

The hater stuff is a bit odd, because I don't think anyone here wants to see him fail..? I know I want good things for Smart Doll, at least. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

I wish he'd stick by one of the things he wrote at the end, about just letting it be if someone expects you to be something you're not. A lot of this thread wouldn't be here if he'd done that and just let it the hell go, instead of banning and shaming people who complain or critique. 😕

I can't really fathom getting motivation from 'haters'. That sorta stuff is just unpleasant to me.

Edit: is it odd that I only became interested in vinyl dolls because of all the drama? Lots of people complaining about Danny on confession tumblrs got me curious as to what these dolls are. I guess there really is no such thing as bad publicity haha! I found the dolls cute enough to look past it, and look forward to having more adventures with vinyl dolls (I want that MDD!)

Edited June 24, 2021 by Katsudon

On 6/16/2021 at 11:55 PM, bbotss said:

The answer seems to be no, but on the other hand in smartdoll land, you get stuff like this:

I can see if someone needed the money due to losing their job because of the pandemic... but if you are buying to only resell a product (any kind) for money... that is WRONG!  Might as well be a scalper who buys up all the PS5s  (apologies if off-topic).

On 6/23/2021 at 9:16 PM, Misheru said:

Then wouldn’t he cause problems for his US reseller by imposing his “rules” on her sales? She is US based regardless of the product.  It makes me worry because she is a nice person.

That's going to be a highly fact-specific situation, and it hinges massively on the relationship between the US reseller and Mirai Inc. Is she an authorized dealer? Did she agree to honor the original warranty? Is she, in effect, an employee of Mirai Inc.?

 

Think of it like consignment. If you buy a Chanel purse on consignment (my understanding is that Chanel purses have a lifetime warranty), and something breaks, would you go to the consigner for your warranty claim? No - you'd go to Chanel. 

Soooooo...how long until DC starts ranting on Volks for "copying his look" with the new DDH boy?

Although if Volks does start focusing on boy DDs more, maybe that'll push DC to do the same?

5 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

Soooooo...how long until DC starts ranting on Volks for "copying his look" with the new DDH boy?

All Volks has to do to counter that is point at the face and say “Look, depth.” 

I agree the faces were giving me smart doll vibes

@BeyondTime Oooh, burn. It's so true, though! 🤣

@monkeypizzasonic I'd argue Volks already has, releasing two new boy sculpts at the same time. If that doesn't say they plan to focus on guys more, I don't know what would.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Selenae

2 hours ago, Selenae said:

I'd argue Volks already has, releasing two new boy sculpts at the same time. If that doesn't say they plan to focus on guys more, I don't know what would.

What would really make a difference is for Volks USA to bring Dream Choice to the US. That wouldn’t help our friends in Europe and other regions outside of North America, but it would make boys somewhat more accessible outside of Japan. 

@BeyondTime Yes, it would, but I don't ever see them doing this, especially considering their reasoning behind the location in Akihabara.

People keep leaving the Smartdoll community/ facebook groups completely...

Edited July 14, 2021 by sumdude

39 minutes ago, sumdude said:

People keep leaving the Smartdoll community/ facebook groups completely

Glad to hear it - perhaps the consequences to the Smart Doll practices might bring about some change.
But, of course, still saddened and disappointed overall 😩