Noble Dolls Discussion Part 1

If there’s a tan Raspberry in stock, I’d love to switch my coffee preorder for it since my plans for her character changed over the last year

 

Well, she's pretty much ghosted me since that message, and I'm honestly pretty irritated

 

Puh, I see. Can’t blame you for it. x/

 

I now am totally convinced that we have all been completely let down. I really & honestly believe that now! I had a friend of mine contact Layla who made an inquiry for a Raspberry light skin doll via JpopDolls website & guess what? She got an immediately response & was told that the preorders were of course closed, but she could still accept a preorder & my friend was then told that the wait time would only be between 3 to 6 months max.
I've at this point been waiting 10 months, others have been waiting 2 years & she's still accepting new preorders if asked? So, what does that indicate? I've now got no recourse to do a thing about it & neither do a lot of others at this point in time. So, I'd advise any of those that have placed their preorders within the the six month period to go ahead & get in contact with what ever payment method was used & try claiming a case to be opened to get your money back quick, before you guys end up like me & a lot of others. I'm totally crushed & I feel so stupid for putting my trust in this company. The truth be told, I'd been warned prior to placing my order & I still went ahead with it.

 

Layla replied to my Facebook message finally. Essentially said she was still waiting for updates from the factory and updates would be posted as soon as she has them. It was a very polite response, with a thanks for reaching out and following the Facebook page. I know it's not the same, but I backed a Kickstarter plushie in 2019 the originally was suppose to be done in 2020 and the latest update is delivery in May 2022. As my money is long gone I think I'll hang onto the hope that my doll will still come... although if the Owlbear plush beats her home I may admit defeat.

 

I would like to say, if it makes you all feel better. I ordered a Raspberry from Jpop dolls in Sep 2019 and received her Oct 2020. So while it took a while, I DID get her eventually. And yes every time I emailed her, it was always "soon."
Just thought it might help those who are feeling like it's a scam. However I can only speak for my own experience obviously.

 

@skyealloway Good to hear she finally responded. I’ve yet to get a reply to the email I sent a few weeks ago. xP Not that she’d have anything different to say regarding my order ahaha. Hopefully she’ll have good news for us all sooner rather than later. Oof, sucks about the plush you’re waiting on.

@Nikkirose Thanks for the attempt to make us feel better bahaha. At this point I don’t feel like I’m being scammed (or going to be), but I do feel like I’m being given the runaround being left in the dark like this. D; I’m sure I’ll be overjoyed once the doll does eventually ship and I’ll finally get her home to play with and customize, but this wait is just awful.

 

Figured I’d drop by and give an update on some messages I just received in response to one I sent today to Jpop regarding Asella orders.

Alena, whom is currently handling Facebook messenger responses, informed me that apparently Layla had a pretty nasty spill off of a ladder and is currently on sick leave with a partly broken collarbone and a hurt shoulder. She shared a screenshot of a Kaye Wiggs FB group post regarding Layla’s injury as well as about how some Kaye Wiggs dolls were shipped to Jpop’s warehouse in October and recently arrived there and are currently waiting for Layla to recover so she can package and ship everything out. Unfortunately, Alena doesn’t have any news regarding the Asella dolls specifically, so I don’t have any news about them. Hopefully some of the Asella dolls arrived along with the Kaye Wiggs ones, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

 

Has anyone heard from Layla? I emailed her twice a while ago, and never received a reply. It has been two years since the grey preorder and a year since the tan one.

Now to be fair, I waited almost three years for my Dollshe order, but I was prepared to wait. Even if BJDivas doesn't reply right away, they always communicate, and they've never been short of pleasant. When I first inquired about layaway with Jpopdolls, the answer was brusk, and my reply never received another. I took the hint, scrounged up the funds, and bought Raspberry. They were happy to take my money right away, but didn't confirm the sale until days later.

Again, I realize the staff is much smaller than the teams behind other shops. They have an excellent reputation. The resin shortage is not anyone's fault. But this was my first time doing business with them, and it has not been a good experience.

Communication was okay the first time I made an inquiry in 2020. I did not message again until July and October last year. At this point it does feel like a scam. Every other doll I have purchased before and since both preorders has arrived or is in production. I feel like, if I have to tell the person waiting on a Raspberry with me, 'No, I'm sorry, there's been no update' , then the shop should at least be able to say that much. There's no shame in it. I was told in July that the grey Raspberries were expected in 'Four to five weeks' and then....nothing. Yet preorders for Raspberry have opened since. It feels like Dollshe all over again.

I don't want to drag Layla, but communication is important. If she has been recuperating from an injury, more power to her. Yet as a business, she should make the effort to reply to customers when she can. I hope sincerely that the messages got lost in the shuffle, and that she's doing better. At the same time.... Raspberries?

 

@Loptr I managed to get a hold of Layla the other day via Facebook messages; she doesn’t seem very reliable to reply when it comes to emails. Which like…yeah cool I totally love having to rely on a social media platform I never use to get information about my freaking order.

Here’s the response I got:

So yeah…supposedly the coffee skin Raspberry orders will be in “soon”. Definitely haven’t heard that one before.

I was too heated to respond at the time to ask about the Grey Elf girls since y’all been waiting even longer than I have, let alone all the Asella doll orders that have happened since the Coffee girls. She just spouts this information regarding her assistant and so on like I’m supposed to know about those details that she NEVER posts to the Jpop FB page that she insists everyone follow for news. Like, woman…I would have never found out about the fall + broken collarbone if I hadn’t been told by the person handling your FB messenger while you were recuperating. AND EVEN THEN THEY SENT ME A SCREENSHOT OF A PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP’S POST.

And it’s only now that you’re going to switch casting companies??? When they were already proving to be unreliable after the Grey Elf and Coffee skin girls?

Ooooh I’m still heated, can y’all tell? I am so fed up with Jpopdolls and Layla’s godawful communication. Just waiting for the doll to finally arrive and it ends up busted in some way lmao.

 

Yeah, it's massively shady at this point. There isn't an excuse for this sort of delay besides massive incompetence.
Dollshe wait times are the way they are because the man can't get his sh*t together, and we all know that. And I seriously doubt there have been so many Raspberry orders that recasting would be taking this long. And how did her mother get dolls cast without all this failure rate?

She could've asked if people would've accepted the 'off' colors or something instead of waiting (depending how wrong they turned out to be). Anything, without having her having to be constantly nagged for any scrap of info. The tracking page on the site wasn't even updated until last year (that entire area is a useless mess, imo)

But If you can't manage a business on your own, hire staff. Or a temp. Or just admit you can't do it.
How many years' of 'transition leeway' does she expect people to give her before the reputation her mother built is run firmly in the ground?

At this point, 2/3 of my entire span in this hobby has been waiting for this Raspberry, lol.

 

I'm waiting for darkest tan elf raspberry, so next month I will have waited a year. And I paid in full up front. I'm thankful that those of you who are getting responses from her keep posting them here.

I'm honestly not too upset about it yet. I backed two different kickstarters within a few months of this preorder last year (one for dice, one for a plushie) and the updates from both of those artists are the same - there are many unforseen delays, lots of issues with manufacturing, things taking a long time. The estimate for the plush is this summer.

I'd be mad too except I'm hearing consistent messages of problems from other manufacturers using Chinese companies so I'm willing to accept that a lot of this is out of her hands.

BUT I admit it's highly suspicious that she still is listing preorders despite these problems.

Altogether I hope she recovers well. Ive broke my collarbone before and that is no fun.

 

Ooh! Ooh! I finally have something relevant to say, ever, in this thread! Oh how exciting.

Yes! I emailed Layla last week, and she replied two days after. I emailed because my partner very kindly preordered me a coffee tan Raspberry for my birthday (very generous!!!) and of course, all has been quiet on the order front. I've been keeping a very vague eye on the website's "preorder status" chart, but that's not been updated since August. I know her mum died (just awful) and she'd had a bone break (when my uncle broke his collarbone colliding with a French man on a mountain at speed, it was a very long, painful, and debilitating rehab, so I have a lot of sympathy!) so I wasn't personally worried by the wait. But, I emailed in just to see where things were at, and mentioned that I couldn't access the facebook page via the website (not that I even have a fb account to see what's going on over there).

Anyway, this is the response I got:

Im so sorry for the delay in response. We are having some changes occur in jpop and thats creating some chaos. Our website does need an update , but our facebook page is very active. Im expecting the coffee tan dolls to be arriving very soon. We have had some casting difficulties that have delayed our shipment but rest assured your order is up next to be delivered to us. I will be emailing everyone individually and updating the website very soon. Thankyou so much for reaching out and for your patience.​

I feel that, like, Jpop has been around for longer than I've been in this hobby (so longer than 15 years, crikey) and they've always come through in the past, and have had fluctuating wait times based on external circumstances before. People have sometimes got life circumstances that, in my opinion, absolutely trump whatever material desires I have, and that really is the case here. Even without the parental death and personal injury, it's been a really unbelievable couple of years globally if you're in any kind of business that interacts with supply and shipment. Even my own business has been affected to the point where I can't currently proceed with it, and I'm a very small person doing very small things. Many usually incredibly clockwork-reliable manufacturers have been performing really randomly for me: products have come out weird, quality control has been variable, shipping times (even domestic) have been unpredictable, I receive order update emails at funny hours (so many places are clearly overworking or understaffed). Things are profoundly weird at the moment. I don't imagine Jpop would be immune.

It sure is a "long wait" by normie hobby standards, but honestly, I've waited for similar times for small artist productions before and I don't think it's particularly unusual in this hobby to be sitting for a year or more.

I do absolutely think that good communication is key to running any kind of business, and I don't think we're receiving anything like "good communication" here, so there's certainly room for improvement in that regard. But, I'm reassured by the email I received and the timescale in which I received it. I look forward to being absolutely eviscerated by UK customs in due course @_@

 

PS. Forgot to add - I don't think it's particularly weird that they're still running pre-orders, and actually find it very reassuring. Pre-orders are where the cash intake happens, and allows structural plans for future business-running. The pre-orders that are coming up are very much the stuff of Jpop's "core range", and this tells me that they are at least planning for the future and active within their business framework. It would be much, much more concerning if we got a message like "sorry lads no more jpop pre-orders!" because without that predictable revenue, the business will tank. And then you'd be looking at trying to scoop your pre-order out of a company that is also trying to financially, administratively and emotionally handle folding, and that's just the absolute worst thing. No-one has fun in that scenario.

 

Well my year just wants to get worse and worse. One of my friends sent me screenshots of this post on BJD Addicts this morning.


Original post from creator.
Same post translated to English by Facebook.

I…am livid. Mhm.

I’ve sent screenshots to Layla on FB messenger. We’ll see if I get an answer. I’ll be sure to keep you guys up-to-date on that. I would suggest others try to get a hold of her too. Bear in mind it is Sunday and tomorrow is Presidents’ Day so I don’t know if she’ll even be online checking her business’s messages.

 

Oh no

 

Yep, just saw the FB post today myself.

I am incredibly angry, because like most everyone else I was willing to give chance after chance to this woman and she has been lying to us all for literally years. To not even have placed the orders to the casting factory after all this time means she is committing outright fraud.

And to drag the her mother's business' legacy in the doll community through the mud, too!

 

I mean, this still illustrates what I said above that she's really intensely struggling with life/grief/business management and I would hesitate to read it as Deliberate Crime Malice, but it has more Ugh repercussions for us, with hundreds of quids tied up in preorders that may never have even been set in motion, let alone processed. I wonder what's to do? Personally, I'd actually still rather like my Raspberry, but failing that, a refund that I could, er, blow on my new horrid overhauled UK energy bills......

 

Hiya, regarding Jpopdolls, there seems to be a misconception about them previously being a good company or being in good stead. Yes, they had become a well-known name in the doll hobby, but actually their feedback has always been poor to mixed.

I went through their feedback thread on Doa and counted.
28 orders positive.
14 negative or in some way problematic.

That is a really high proportion. And doesn't count other separate threads made - if you search their name here, you can see them. People questioning how long they take to respond, slow communications, waiting on orders etc.

I know it isn't much use to those of you who have ordered now, but personally, I wouldn't be sitting back on this and trusting them. They have a long, long history of poor/no communication, slow shipping, missing items and shoddy items. My own experience is not posted on DoA but I had the same, poor experience years ago.

Best of luck to those of you waiting and anyone considering ordering from them - please don't...

 

@Lupie_Stardust I agree I dont think the posts flying around Facebook and Instagram are convincing to me? Like ok the Chinese manufacturer says they don't have the orders....are you sure jpop still uses that manufacturer? How can you be sure? What exactly was the conversation?

Ugh I hate how the hobby explodes without all facts. Maybe I'm just too optimistic but these posts I'm seeing are just jumping to conclusions.

 

This is just gut-wrenching!

 

For those with doubts regarding the news, I understand not wanting to jump on the bandwagon and not assume anything without 100% proven facts. I’m currently going to allow Layla a chance to respond to my messages until the end of the week. If she doesn’t get back to me with anything concrete (or doesn’t respond at all), I’m going to my bank to see if I can get my money back.

But honestly? I’m far more willing to believe what Cecile/Asella has to say to be true. Layla has been giving us all the runaround for well over a year. Contacting her is consistently hit or miss, we get a lot of “it’ll be here soon”s and then no follow up when any timeframe she has given comes and goes, she didn’t even so much as post on her FB page regarding her injury and how she’d be indisposed for X amount of time. I’ve even personally witnessed comments that were critical or negative get deleted from her FB page.

Any information we’ve gotten about Jpopdolls in this thread has been from us posting about whatever correspondence we could get in private emails or FB messages. Any other competent business owner would have been posting publicly about the delays. As far as I’m concerned, Layla has wasted away any amount of good faith I’ve been willing to give her and I am no longer interested in giving her a benefit of a doubt. I need full transparency and PROOF that these allegations aren’t true.

But anyway, as it is now, we have the creator of the dolls stating that things are too iffy for her to ignore and suggesting customers to look into ways to get their money back if at all possible. I really don’t think she’d take this stance for no good reason.

Speaking of, she posted a comment to my IG post regarding the situation:

I’ve since asked her if she could possibly let me know who the casters are. I’ll post here with any new information I get.

Also got this other comment from someone else on my IG post.

I replied to them to request sources, I’ll post again here if/when I hear back from them. But yeah, if this claim is also true, then yeah, I’d say nail meet coffin here.

As for the message I sent to Layla, FB messenger says she has viewed the messages more than 14 hours ago and I have not gotten a response yet.

Anyway…really wish none of us had to deal with this crap. I was already having a pretty piss poor month and then this comes out during what was supposed to be a fairly relaxing long weekend for me. 14 years in the hobby and this is the first I’ve ever dealt with something as bad as this.

 

I may be more fortunate than most, since I live in the same state as her so I may be able to get a police report or small claims suit filed, even 2 years on.

For people who live elsewhere, it is definitely going to be an ordeal. This is my first time ever dealing with something like this.

My FB message to JPop has also been left on Seen so far, btw.

 

Got a response a little earlier on Facebook from Alena (the volunteer that helps handle Jpopdolls’s messages there) to email Layla about the situation. Wasn’t expecting to get a response, but I just did a few minutes ago.

Take that as you will. We’ll just have to wait and see what statement comes out in the coming days. Frankly, I’m taking this response with a grain of salt at this point.

 

I got the exact same message. We'll see.

 

We prolly all got the same message regardless of whether we contacted her about orders or to complain about the Fb post.

 

@Candycanes02 Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s just been copy pasting the email she sent to me to everyone else because others have noted that they had ones that started with “Dear Alisha” instead of their names lmao. What a freaking mess.

 

I guess maybe I'm less upset because my money is gone either way and either I'll get a doll or I won't? I'm just not outraged like everyone else? I don't think we've been given the run around, being bad at communication isn't a crime. Stealing money is a crime but I'm not convinced that's what happened. She doesn't seem to be suited to be a small business owner and that's ok, not everyone is. I'll just keep hoping for my doll. If I was still within the PayPal claim time I'd file a claim but I don't feel like calling my bank.

 

It’s probably my depression but I don’t care what happens with my order cause the money is gone anyway, and I’ve been doing just fine without it already. I do want people to beware about ordering from them though cause I know not everyone can gamble with $600-700.

 

Imagine being a doll artist produced by Jpopdolls, having you dolls sold as preorders years ago (2017 for me), everybody got their doll a VERY long time ago, but you never receive the payment for those preorders... I just want to inform that it's not only one problem with one preorder for one artist, those problems are way bigger. And I'm not the only one...

 

I'm so very sorry to hear this & you do not deserve that, but I'm glad that you have spoken out about this company as well, just as Asella did bc it means that now ppl who are still waiting or hanging in there for their doll orders can pack up the dream & move on. Some of us (maybe most of us) are not made of money & it's quite heartbreaking to be taken advantage of like this, when we work hard to save up our money to be able to afford to buy a BJD. But what really gets to me the most is that this woman Layla knew there were issues going back 2 years ago, but still kept taking preorders 1 after the other. By that stage she knew she was not going to be able to deliver, but kept on taking ppl's money on the pretence that we were going to eventually get our dolls.

 

There's a preorder right now for MSD Raspberrys on the artist's instagram! Login • Instagram


(Summary of order details per the post)
Open through April 30 (or all orders taken). Normal (400 euros), light tan and blue (420 euros) and dark tan (440 euros). No faceups. Includes doll, heel feet, and shipping bag. Professionally cast. Layaways okay 2x or 3x. PayPal preferred. Shipping available worldwide.

See the artist's post for details and how to order.

 

Well, here we are in June - Spring is ending (if we count Summer as beginning on the 21st of June) and I've not had any updates about the Raspberry pre-order since the email I think most of us got in the wake of Asella's Facebook post in February. I emailed 2 weeks ago saying that I'd like a shipping guarantee by the end of Spring, or else a cancellation of the order. I am not surprised that I've not had a reply yet, but I am disappointed!

I have a lot of empathy for their situation and I'm patient for dolls - but they are running a business, they do have all our money, and it's kind of not... our problem to solve.

I'm also quite sad because I wanted to cancel my order and get in on Asella's own Raspberry preorder that she ran earlier this year (which would have suited me better in any case as I'm in the UK), but of course I had no reply to my email requesting a cancellation in the time frame that would have allowed me to participate.

Has anyone ever had any luck juicing their money back, bank-side? I don't think my partner used PayPal. I'm just kind of miserable about it at this point. I was so excited for an opportunity to buy a little artwork I've wanted for years.

Mind you, this is my first rubbish experience with a pre-order in 15 years of being in the hobby, so that hit rate ain't so bad...

 

I've heard that some buyers are considering a lawsuit, but that may only be possible for US residents.
Maybe you can talk to the bank and hear if they have any suggestions?

 

If your partner didn't use paypal, I think disputing it might actually be a little bit easier, since if you circumvent paypal, paypal itself can and will probably kick up a fit... your experience would probably depend a lot on your specific bank and what their timeframe for disputes are. Honestly I'd reach out to them now, since I think Jpopdoll's actions (... and inaction is an action), speak louder than anything else, at this point.

 

For anyone else who is out a doll+money, there is a FB group for people to organize. There is a link to the WA Attorney General to submit a fraud report -- the more people who submit, the better. The post with the relevant business info and link to the report form is pinned to the top of the page.

Here's the group.

 

I just realized I never posted on DoA after getting these dolls! I ordered a couple of handmade dolls from Asella back in 2018 and 2020, and they arrived in August 2023. Side note: The wait sounds way worse than it was - there was a lot of communication. I wasn't ever worried about them getting here.

I originally ordered a milk white Rivanone and a pink Rendezvous. The Rivanone eventually turned into a pinkish Raspberry instead (I might be biased but it's literally the best sculpt ever). Both dolls are gorgeous! They're not as "professionally" finished as the Raspberry I ordered from Jpopdolls, however, they're still very beautifully finished. I really love the handmade touches they have. They also arrived with faceups and body blushing (GORGEOUS body blushing at that). Asella also included hand-written CoAs for both dolls.

Rendezvous is a sculpt that was originally supposed to debut in LDoll 2020, which was cancelled for obvious reasons. She has a cute open mouth, although I do need to sculpt a new tooth piece since the one she arrived with causes the front of her head to sit a little unevenly with the back.

Interestingly enough, the Raspberry I ordered from Asella has different hands and thigh joints than my Jpopdolls Raspberry, so it turns out I did NOT buy the exact same doll twice thank you very much. I was told by Asella that this is the improved version of the body with improved sitting, which I have to say is definitely noticeable! The dolls still need to be restrung (hopefully getting that done next month) but they sit quite nicely even though they're quite loose.

Photos of Raspberry: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Photos of Rendezvous: imgur.com

And here's a photo of both!