Canceled smart doll order

My friend bought from smart doll, she took a nap and when she woke up, she got an email from smart doll saying the order has been canceled and refunded.

She’s never bought from the company except today, so I guess she’s a first time buyer, anyway does this mean she’s banned? My friend doesn’t have an account on here, I’m writing this for her with her permission.

There are some odd conditions for buying a smartdoll (and the list of conditions has been growing over the years)
Apparently, first time buyers are sent an email with some questions, and answering these ‘wrong’ (or maybe not answering) can result in this. Did she say anything about that?

There also seen to be some items that are off-limits to new customers.

Lastly… is she Australian? I don’t know if he’s lifted his nonsense ban on an entire country yet (the official ‘reason’ was ‘too many people refused to pay customs’, which aren’t a thing over $1000AUD anyway, so I’m highly suspect he’s actually wary of our consumer protection laws and is using the ‘some customers were bad’ thing as a cover)

The only other possibility is that she has said something unflattering online about the brand somewhere and he found out it was her. Or worse, got mistaken for somebody who did.

Without knowing the exact reason though she won’t know she is banned or not. If she only tried to purchase something off limits to new customers, she should still be able to order something that first timers are allowed.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Monty

5 minutes ago, Monty said:

There are some odd conditions for buying a smartdoll (and the list of conditions has been growing over the years)
Apparently, first time buyers are sent an email with some questions, and answering these ‘wrong’ (or maybe not answering) can result in this. Did she say anything about that?

There also seen to be some items that are off-limits to new customers.

Lastly… is she Australian? I don’t know if he’s lifted his nonsense ban on an entire country yet (the official ‘reason’ was ‘too many people refused to pay customs’, which aren’t a thing over $1000AUD anyway, so I’m highly suspect he’s actually wary of our consumer protection laws and is using the ‘some customers were bad’ thing as a cover)

The only other possibility is that she has said something unflattering online about the brand somewhere and he found out it was her. Or worse, got mistaken for somebody who did.

Without knowing the exact reason though she won’t know she is banned or not. If she only tried to purchase something off limits to new customers, she should still be able to order something that first timers are allowed.

She’s from USA, she hasn’t said anything about Smart Doll online, I don’t think she sent a email to smart doll.

I asked her about it and she just said they sent her an email confirming her order, an email from PayPal and then like two hours later a cancellation email.

Did your friend try to buy a doll or just clothes and accessories ?

Since unfortunately buying clothes before buying a doll apparently is its own experience, pardon the expression, but such seems to be the way of the company.

Although so far I believe the procedure has been a confirmation inquiry about what doll the stuff is being bought for.

But considering what happened with the australian angle I wouldnt be surprised if this side was made more strict without any prior notice.

But if your friend was getting a doll, then im a bit puzzled, since typically that just leads to the "Why smartdoll" questionarie email.

Although there are a plethora of speculations I could make, some more sticky in nature than others.

 

EDIT, as an afterthought, you mentioned Paypal. Was there any kind of discrepacy between the personal info your friend gave the store, and the paypal account used?

Edited July 22, 2023 by finnleo

What did she buy? If she tried to buy some of the chaos items that were released earlier this week, they can only be bought by existing customers who have placed a certain number of previous orders. (I think it is 3 orders but I could be wrong)

More context is needed to find what might have caused it.

What was she buying?

You mention she didn't get an email from Smart Doll, did she check her spam email?

Does the information she provided, match the information registered to paypal?

Does your friend tend to cancel orders a lot? I ask this question as Smart Doll store uses Shopify and they have a fraud tracker that tells the store owner that this individual is known for cancelling/chargeback on orders. As I also work for a company that uses Shopify, when we see that alert we just cancel the order and issue a refund as we don't want to deal with a chargeback.

Did the cancellation email have any information as to why? If not, she can polity email Smart Doll and ask why the order was cancelled.

Edited July 22, 2023 by CrimsonSkadi

Seeing this thread and i'm worried. I've been following Danny's insta for awhile and I'm interested in seeing the new boy doll he's working on and I'm highly considering getting it when the doll is finally ready! Is it hard to purchase a smartdoll? I've never bought anything from Smartdoll Land before. Are first time buyers allowed to purchase a doll or are we supposed to do something beforehand? 

1 hour ago, fallabeau_faebelle said:

Seeing this thread and i'm worried. I've been following Danny's insta for awhile and I'm interested in seeing the new boy doll he's working on and I'm highly considering getting it when the doll is finally ready! Is it hard to purchase a smartdoll? I've never bought anything from Smartdoll Land before. Are first time buyers allowed to purchase a doll or are we supposed to do something beforehand? 

I was quite nervous to place my first order myself, having read some of the nightmarish stories of people having so much trouble purchasing.

However, it went incredibly smooth for me! Here's how it went for me, if it helps ease your nerves a bit:

I ordered Mirai on the afternoon of Friday, January 19th, and at around midnight, Saturday 20th, CST, I was sent an email, explaining that since I'd never purchased from Smart Doll before, they wanted to know how I discovered Smart Doll, and wanted to confirm my address, to ensure it had no typos. I replied when I woke up, and recieved a response at around 3 a.m. CST on Sunday 21st, thanking me for responding, and that they'll ship Mirai soon. I was sent an email with a tracking number for Mirai yesterday, on the morning of Tuesday the 23rd, and she's already only an hour away from me! 

To sum things up, yes, first time buyers can purchase dolls, just make sure to respond to the newbie email promptly and kindly. To my knowledge, the only things new buyers can't purchase are items from the Chaos section, and clothes, unless you can prove you own a Smart Doll.

As for the guy specifically, I'd heard rumors that Danny wouldn't let people buy a guy unless they also owned a girl, so I emailed and asked, and just got a response last night. He said that "those rumors are designed to help folks reconsider their Smart Doll purchase."... odd. I'm quite fond of the grey vampire guy. He's pretty handsome. I hope there'll be enough for everyone who wants one! 

I hope this helped.

- Cole

2 minutes ago, Wonderously_Strange said:

To my knowledge, the only things new buyers can't purchase are items from the Chaos section, and clothes, unless you can prove you own a Smart Doll.

Speaking as someone whose first direct purchase was a pair of elf ears and some hands, all the "Proof" you really need is just mentioning you already got a doll secondhand/from a dealer/etc. You don't even need to include photos or anything. The stories make the process sound much scarier than it is, but it's really not bad at all. The team is just making sure you're a real person and not an obvious reseller, really.

Chaos is a different story, though. You have to have made at least 2 separate direct purchases from CJ, and I believe they do check your order history via your email to make sure you're eligible. So make sure you're using the same contact info with each order just to be safe, if you're interested in that!

4 minutes ago, Oculae said:

Speaking as someone whose first direct purchase was a pair of elf ears and some hands, all the "Proof" you really need is just mentioning you already got a doll secondhand/from a dealer/etc. You don't even need to include photos or anything. The stories make the process sound much scarier than it is, but it's really not bad at all. The team is just making sure you're a real person and not an obvious reseller, really.

Chaos is a different story, though. You have to have made at least 2 separate direct purchases from CJ, and I believe they do check your order history via your email to make sure you're eligible. So make sure you're using the same contact info with each order just to be safe, if you're interested in that!

Oh, that's great to hear! Thanks for letting us know! Definitely going to keep that in mind.

18 hours ago, Wonderously_Strange said:

As for the guy specifically, I'd heard rumors that Danny wouldn't let people buy a guy unless they also owned a girl, so I emailed and asked, and just got a response last night. He said that "those rumors are designed to help folks reconsider their Smart Doll purchase."... odd.

The actual source of that is probably that Gemini, the last SmD guy to be released, was, to my knowledge, only available through the Chaos section "Pebble" blind box. It wasn't really much of a blind box in this case, because you could select the gender you wanted, and he was the only possible guy. So in essence , you had to have bought a girl doll before you could get a boy - boy dolls hadn't been available at all for a while, and I imagine making purchases just to get access to Chaos is the kind of thing that would get your order canceled. This was quite frustrating for many. I imagine mentions of that got taken out of context by people who weren't familiar with the entire backstory.

The limiting of Chaos items to people who have ordered from the Smartdoll site twice before is such a frustrating hurdle. The prices for a Chaos head are so tempting, why won't you just take my money! But if I want a head, I essentially need to purchase a doll and then clothes or other option parts first, correct? It feels a bit backwards to me.

2 hours ago, Tira said:

only available through the Chaos section "Pebble" blind box.

Are there any reports of someone actually just getting a pebble? 👀 

16 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

Are there any reports of someone actually just getting a pebble? 👀 

Not that I know of. I think it's another "why you shouldn't buy this" kind of thing. I haven't heard of anyone getting a genuinely defective doll, either, but I imagine it's also intended as a defense if something like that did happen - after all, the order page said the box could just contain a pebble, so no complaining about what you got. 

Thanks everyone for the info!!! Im a fan of boy dolls, so I'm really glad that Danny wont make people purchase another doll before we can have a chance to get the new boy model coming out. I love his work, but it's too expensive for me to buy a lot of dolls from him especially all at once! I'm really hype about the new model!! He shared some designs in-progress on his insta today! 

Are Chaos items the uncut and unattached parts for dolls? I assumed the "pebble" was a random mystery item. Some of the wording on the site can get a little confusing for me >.< 

2 hours ago, fallabeau_faebelle said:

Are Chaos items the uncut and unattached parts for dolls? I assumed the "pebble" was a random mystery item. Some of the wording on the site can get a little confusing for me >.< 

If you go to the Smart Doll store, hit the 'secret stuff' button at the top of the page and then on the left is a link to the chaos outlet. It only shows current stock but in the first paragraph is a link to show all the sold out stuff too. There is also a link that takes you to a page explaining what chaos is.

Pebbles are usually special releases, the last one I remember was C.C a licensed character from Code Geass.

On 1/25/2024 at 12:49 PM, Wonderously_Strange said:

I was quite nervous to place my first order myself, having read some of the nightmarish stories of people having so much trouble purchasing.

However, it went incredibly smooth for me! Here's how it went for me, if it helps ease your nerves a bit:

I ordered Mirai on the afternoon of Friday, January 19th, and at around midnight, Saturday 20th, CST, I was sent an email, explaining that since I'd never purchased from Smart Doll before, they wanted to know how I discovered Smart Doll, and wanted to confirm my address, to ensure it had no typos. I replied when I woke up, and recieved a response at around 3 a.m. CST on Sunday 21st, thanking me for responding, and that they'll ship Mirai soon. I was sent an email with a tracking number for Mirai yesterday, on the morning of Tuesday the 23rd, and she's already only an hour away from me! 

To sum things up, yes, first time buyers can purchase dolls, just make sure to respond to the newbie email promptly and kindly. To my knowledge, the only things new buyers can't purchase are items from the Chaos section, and clothes, unless you can prove you own a Smart Doll.

As for the guy specifically, I'd heard rumors that Danny wouldn't let people buy a guy unless they also owned a girl, so I emailed and asked, and just got a response last night. He said that "those rumors are designed to help folks reconsider their Smart Doll purchase."... odd. I'm quite fond of the grey vampire guy. He's pretty handsome. I hope there'll be enough for everyone who wants one! 

I hope this helped.

You actually helped a lot! Thanks to this information dump you provided, I was able to follow instructions correctly and successfully order my first Smart Doll! Thank you very much!