Problems with DOLKUS

Dolkus still owns me a FL event head, btw.

 

Did you see how they are offering FL event heads as purchase bonuses? Makes me frustrated that they would do that yet still owe you.

 

@PaeoniaDrop It's an old story, I'm talking about 2 years ago. I litterally stalked them for months and after a while they stopped replying to my mails. And on FB as well. Never bought from them ever again. Ah, and then (since a LOT of people had problems with them) they invented a stupid story regarding a changing of personell in the customer care department. Too bad nothing really changed, because I challenged them again with that missing head problem and AGAIN they disappeared. So.

Also, a friend of mine won their lottery last year: do you think they shipped the prize? OFC no.

 

I once ordered a Switch Gyoha Divine head from Dolkus a few years ago, because they were no longer available but were hosting a re-release event in collaboration with Switch. Months and months went by. I contacted Dolkus several times, but they insisted they had not arrived.

I contacted Switch themselves and discussed this with them and they informed me they had shipped the heads to Dolkus months before!

I contacted Dolkus again and discussed this with them and they finally asked if I would accept a Gyoha head that was already painted (I had ordered a blank one). They had either not sent my order in, or shipped my order to someone else.

They at least corrected their mistake eventually and I got a free faceup out of it (which I wiped off immediately...was terrible).

I will never ever again order from Dolkus.

 

@Anshishoku Thank you for your story. It has been 24 days since I initiated the original complaint, and they are still giving me the runaround. They are saying that they are looking into the price of the head, but they should've done that to begin with. I'm getting tired of being polite and am considering initiating a dispute with Paypal once the one month mark hits. It shouldn't take this long to get an answer.

 

I ended up filing a dispute on Paypal because I waited a full month for this to be resolved. Had a thread of 28 emails going back and forth and then moved it to talking to Yumiko on facebook. I warned them I would file a dispute and they didn't take me seriously. I asked for a full refund and I'd paid to have the doll shipped back with all its original packaging PLUS additional packaging since I like to bag each piece of a full set individually. They went from wanting me to pay to have the head shipped and repaired -> "we'll pay for half of the face up and shipping" -> "we'll pay for the shipping and the face up" but refused to accept a return. I'm done with them. I don't want to have the head lost in transit on the way back and then have that be "my" fault because they refuse to accept any responsibility.

 

Ugh, they sound like such a nightmare to deal with... I will never order from Dolkus, I've heard so many awful stories about them along with yours!

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.

 

People have been having serious issues with DolkUS for *years*.... If we had a "Dealers to Avoid Like the Proverbial Plague"-list somewhere, I'm sure they would be on it.

The lesson here is to always do your homework. Just because you're ordering from a company that's been around for a bit DOESN'T mean they're necessarily any good.

 

I ended up ordering from them because they were the only one with the doll still in stock. It was a limited release doll and wasn't being sold, so I took a chance. The initial experience was good until my doll arrived scratched. It's a pity because they keep pumping out collabs.

 

Yes, I really wanted to get Dolk's zombie Picasso collab with Dearmine, but I didn't dare touch them because of all the horror stories I've heard. Very disappointing. It's really a roulette with them if you get a smooth transaction or a disaster.

 

Anyone know how long it takes DOLK to ship in stock items?

I ordered an in stock doll on 15th March and paid straight away. I then had an email to confirm my order and showing me photos, which I replied that I was happy with the item and to go ahead and ship. DOLK then confirmed they would ship and provide the tracking number on 23rd March...

Since then I have had no response from them so I am wondering when they will actually ship

 

I'd suggest pinging them again.
For me it took a little over a week from image confirmation to shipment when I ordered in-stock from them. But I had asked a question in the interim, so it sounds like maybe yours just had a bit of a delay!

 

You should email them again.

I ordered a doll through them once and when it came to shipping I had to chase them several times before they actually shipped... And this was after they'd said it was ready to ship, sent me pics and asked me to confirm my address.

 

Thank you both! I have already sent an email so fingers crossed they reply when it's daytime over there

 

I had the same experience. I had to really stay on them to get my order shipped. It took about 3 weeks for them to ship an in stock item.

 

Oh no I hope it won't take them three weeks!

 

Long long time ago I've ordered in stock shoes but they never replied my emails for a month.
At the end I had to start a dispute through Paypal.
Luckily I got my money back yet I will NEVER purchase from them again, and have been warning people about them.
That was the worst experience ever.

 

Oh no sorry to hear that happened to you!
I'm a bit worried now, I dont want to cancel the order as it was limited event doll

 

Just stay on top of them; I believe you will get your item. It may not be as fast as you would think given that the item is in stock. But, if you stay on them, they should get your doll out to you.

 

Ok thank you for the advice I dont mind waiting, suppose its still quicker than the usual wait times for made to order dolls

 

UPDATE

On 12th April 2021 Dolk emailed to say I had to pay additional shipping of $55
I had already paid $38 previously. Doll was then finally shipped on 14th April 2021

Total shipping $93! And 4 weeks to ship and "in stock" doll...... I will NEVER use Dolk again once my Minifee Alan layaway is paid off

 

@eihpos29 Ohhh wow, that's a LOT for shipping.... I'm sorry. A lot of places are asking for increases, but that seems really excessive/wrong for the in-stock item. I wish I had a suggestion to help you feel better, but I would have not been okay with that at all, myself. At least share your story on the transactions/feedback page, please....

 

I wouldn't of minded the shipping increase so much, if the communication was better and they didn't take so long to ship

 

@eihpos29 Yeah... I mean, I just think that "in-stock" generally means to all of us that the doll is there and ready to go, so they should know the current price quotes for shipping and those should be correct.

In the cases where waiting times have been since last year and so much has shifted in supply chains between the time people made orders and now, I can understand why a company may need to ask customers to help cover increased costs, but your items still shouldn't be held hostage over it.

Ugh, yeah.. just overall sorry to hear you had a bad experience. I had an okay experience with my in-stock doll from them for the most part, but didn't read over here before putting another doll on pre-order... and I just worry about that one a lot these days

It would be easier to stomach if they didn't always seem to have such nice offerings

 

Yes definitely! If it was a pre order and shipping had increased that would have been fine. I'm just glad it's been shipped now, I've been so stressed out

 

@eihpos29 totally understandable!

 

Glad to hear that your item finally got ship. It took me a month to get my in-stock doll ship too, dealing with Dolk really isn't a good experience. They have some item that I just NEED to buy from them though.

Here's a reference :

29 Dec 2020 (Actually I ordered this doll on... 12 Dec 2019 but this is the day I confirmed that she is in-stock)

And then I ask again after 2weeks past with no clue.

19 Jan 2021

And I got the real ems no. on 25 Jan 2021

I sold the girl in this order and bought another(Same sculpt) because she have an issue with faceup... what a sad story.

But I'm good now! My girl (the 2nd) is working hard on her job

 

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience too! They apparently have a lot of bad feedback for in stock dolls. I'm hoping my Minifee Alan will be better as its a pre order

 

Yeah, you're gonna have to stay on top of them and hound them. It pays to be persistent. Dolk is terrible to buy from, period, because of their communication and shipping issues. I've bought both in-stock and pre-order from them and both times, I had to fight to get the doll shipped. (And they charged me extra for shipping, too. )

Good luck, and I hope you get your doll soon!

 

Oh no so it will be the same for my
pre order too Not looking forward to the stress of this again

 

I always feel that Dolk's meaning of 'in stock' means 'in stock in the original company', not theirs. That's why it took a month or more for them to get ready to ship 'in stock' doll and items.
The dramatic increase of shipping happens way before pandemic, it looks like the shipping from original company to Dolk.

 

Hopping on to this old thread to add my own experience thus far.

I ordered an in-stock Souldoll Zenith body from Dolk after Souldoll suddenly announced that they were pausing/stopping production to catch up on orders.

Shipping from Dolk was already estimated at $84. Now that I've finished my layaway, they're asking for another $77 for premium shipping. I don't know what 'premium shipping' is, but I told them I refuse to pay any more than I agreed to, and they can either send the doll or cancel my order and refund me. They replied it was for premium shipping (again), and I replied again that they either ship it for the $84 I agreed to or refund me (again). $161 for shipping is ridiculous.

 

@Praesagium Thanks for sharing, please update if they choose to ship or refund.

I'm personally done with their online service(and prefer not to use it ever again), but still have to buy some item from them since they are one of 'not many' physical bjd store around my area //Sigh

 

Heels are dug all around. They quoted EMS at an additional 246.48, said they'd escalate to a manager, and that they can't cancel the order. I made a Paypal claim for all of my payments to Dolk and escalated them to disputes already. Their defense is that I was told ahead of time, it's on their website, etc etc. Now we're just waiting for Paypal to side one way or the other.

At this point, I don't even want it anymore. If the head the body was intended for wasn't so limited (Migi Fairy Jina), I'd sell it. As it is, I may just box it up and put it away for a while.

 

I know EMS has gone up since it's reopened, but that sounds nothing short of absurd. I hope they do their best to honor the original shipping quote with management and Paypal, since that level of disparity is definitely a make-or-break point for a purchase.

 

@Praesagium Fingers crossed for you. That is totally untenable. These are cases where it really does have to be the duty of the company to come to an acceptable agreement or midway point with a customer and accept a loss on an item sometimes. I'm all about everyone trying to come to fair conclusions.. but ensuring customers feel heard in these crazy cases is very important in running a good business.

 

So much for escalation; I'm just sitting on my hands with this Paypal claim/dispute/whatever, and they've made absolutely zero attempt to ship it or refund me.

It's been over two weeks since I finished my layaway, and instead of a doll in hand, I have nothing. I'm almost tempted to post something on my Instagram or make a Facebook account just to yell at them to ship my shit or give me my money back.

edit: I posted on Instagram.

 

At this point maybe worth it to click the extra button to have Paypal step in and review the claim - I think it's a secondary step you have to do when the company doesn't respond.

Blah, sorry you're going through this, @Praesagium

 

I already have; it's been under review for about a week now. I'm just so done with this situation and want it to be over so I can move on.

 

@Praesagium Ah! Sorry - I should have asked if you had before recommending!

I think last time I did it, it wasn't clear to me what all I had to do to get Paypal involved and then they sent me an email that was like "if you don't escalate this to us soon, we'll assume it's taken care of" which confused me because I had thought the initial submittal meant they were already reviewing

Did you pay with a credit card?

 

It's all right, I wasn't exactly clear because despite having Paypal for over 20 years, I've only used the claim process all of once for an unrelated hobby (perfumeries), so I mix the terms up frequently.

You know, I thought about paying the layaway off with a credit card towards the end and I sure wish I had; the extra protection would've been nice. I'd say "next time", but Dolk isn't getting a "next time" after this, no matter the outcome.

 

I crowed just loud enough yesterday and Paypal ruled in my favor and refunded all three of my payments to Dolk. I'll be leaving a negative service review for them and doing everything I can to scrub my account from their site. Never again.

 

@Praesagium Glad to hear you got what you needed. What an ordeal!

 

Almost 4 weeks ago, I ordered an IOS Tauros from DolkUS seeing as it is in stock. Everything went smoothly during the payment and confirmation, I paid in full, no worries, but as soon as it was time to ship out, you really have to force your way in just to get an update or reply.

To make it worse, they charged me $111 on top of the $68 shipping fee 3 WEEKS AFTER TELLING ME MY PRODUCT WILL BE SHIPPED AND THEY'LL GET BACK TO ME WITH AN EMS NUMBER. I don't mind paying the premium but they could've at least told me that upfront or sooner after I've completed my payment.

 

They're notorious for this sort of behavior, it's really appalling.

 

Eh what?? Did you actually pay it? Are they even allowed to charge you more after the fact? I'd look into Paypal rules about that. This doesn't sound kosher to me! They can't just decide you owe more 3 weeks after you pay in full.

 

Sadly, this isn't the first time I've heard of this happening... someone else posted not so long ago about a similar experience about DolkUS suddenly demanding an additional and quite substantial fee on top of the shipping fees they'd already paid... And many people, including myself, have had to chase them again and again when it comes to shipping, whether for preorder or 'in stock' items.

It's best to just avoid DolkUS altogether.

 

I had a similar situation happen with a DolkUS order in February this year -- my doll was ready to ship and they told me that I needed to pay an additional $50+ for shipping costs because they said the pandemic had affected available flights. This was a situation with a doll that was not in stock. I'm not sure if that changes the equation at all.

 

Welcome to dolkus.

 

I had the same issue last year! I had to wait nearly a year for the doll I wanted to be shipped. And by that point I didn't want it anymore lol. No refunds...

Then they tried to make me pay extra for shipping! I held out, and they eventually shipped her for free...

 

Yes, DolkUS does this regularly, and no, Paypal does not allow it. The tl;dr of my part in that thread was Paypal ruled in my favor when I disputed all transactions and cancelled the order. DolkUS would not cancel it themselves nor would they ship unless I paid more for shipping.

 

Good lord! Makes me wonder how they havent gotten banned here yet if they keep charging people so much post transaction O_O

 

Almost $200 for shipping?! I bet one of their workers should hand-deliver the package for such a cost.

 

I ordered a doll head from Dolk Station/Dolk US. There was a notice in the fine print of the emails that extra shipping might be required, but I didn't think much of it.

Until I was quoted a number almost equal to the amount I had already paid and told it might be required on delivery. That was a surprise. I assumed it was pandemic shipping weirdness + customs fees stuff. I wasn't charged anything extra at delivery, but thinking for a while that the total out-of-pocket shipping was going from 50$ to nearly twice that has put me off buying thorough them. Hearing that it seems to be a common experience might place them on my avoid entirely list.

 

Aaannndd i finally got the tracking number and guess what. They used EMS lol. Here i thought after paying $179 worth of shipping, they would ship it using DHL or FedEx

 

@cocowinters thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. I'm sorry that It was negative :c

I was thinking about ordering a few things from them as they have interesting items in stock but after reading all these comments... no way.

 

This is unfortunate to hear. I was hoping to order some doll carriers and eyes from there but now I'm concerned about this happening to me too

 

Check rates and delivery days - Japan Post

This is the shipping calculator from Japan Post. I usually use this for checking shipping rates ahead of time and in order to decide which shipping option I want. You might also use it in order to check if a store made you pay too much for shipping (I imagine you would also have to check the news section on the JP Post website to see if any shipping fee increase happened recently) Some stores only use certain shipping options to certain countries (eg EMS), so then I can also choose weather the shipping fees are worth a purchase, because I hate paying more for shipping than I pay for the actual items. Can somebody confirm if Dolkus overcharged on shipping fees? I have never ordered from them, but I have some experience with Japanese stores in general.

 

Dolkus doesn't always (?) ship from Japan though?

When I ordered from them, they actually shipped from China, apparently from their China branch. At least that's what they told me. I think they might ship depending from where the item you want is from? The doll I preordered from them was from a Chinese company.

 

The one I ordered was from Korea. While it's sound advice and very helpful, I don't think it's applicable in every situation.