Soom Super Gem Discussion (Basic, Limited & Special Order) - Part 8

The most confusing part for me is the fact that they changed so much lately, exchanged all or at least a lot of employees and wrote that apology... Only to make things seemingly worse
Such things are not to blame on languagebarriers at all ....
For me the reason seems to be bad organisation. Like they can't handle things added to an order properly.
Right now I just hope to finish my order things with them but my fear is it will take longer than I hope for.
I would like to say I will never again buy something from them but right now I am only interested in their aestethics.
They are so unique.

 

Thanks for all the lovely compliments on Amber!!

I'm hoping to do a photoshoot with her soon -- Real Life has been kind of rotten and stressful the last couple of weeks, so I haven't felt up to carting a giant heavy doll + stand + camera + portable chair outside to take pictures. Kira's back in college, so I don't have my "assistant" to help me drag everything out to the backyard!

-- A

 

SOOM's Q&A page is a very scary place @_@

 

[MENTION=59346]Arekushia[/MENTION] I had the same thing happened to me with Soom, they should've made announcement on the notice broad before following through with the new rule. I really want the wig that they just restocked, but I'm not going to pay $26 shipping just for one wig... I'm disappointed with Soom customer service and it's not the first time they made me feel that way.

 

Pfff what a bad costumer service! why Soom?? other companys like Luts don't have any problem with add some extra items in a currency order (like wigs, clothes or shoes) and they no add shipping cost.
I have a pair of layaways and I would like to combine other items but with that terrible answear, it's not possible

 

It seems so odd--I mean if you buy a fullset surely they would be willing to put in the eyes, clothes and accessories that come with the doll? I realize it takes a little more planning but not much more than having a cardboard box with the order number and a checklist as the items are put in..shipping departments in every other business manage to do that, even when parts have to come in from different places.

 

It honestly seems like SOOM is having enough trouble packing items from the original unaltered orders, I guess combining orders on top of that would be far too chaotic.

 

petiteballerine, Thank you =) He doesn't have any feelings or emotion. He is like in a crystal of ice where is nothing. No time, no sounds, no life.
But his story is the story with happy end =)
cowpewter, he is on Dollstown 18-age girl body, modified to boy ^^. I looked for some beautiful slim male body and didn't find it. So, we had to go through some modifications. I can show them if you want =)
Your Breccia has so cute ears^^

 

I wrote on their Q&A again because I wanted to remind them they should ship the wrong replacementpart in my Isha box.
Guess what?
They answer is like they hear the first time of this!
The first time they replied with very sorry bla bla we will send the right part....
NOW they write I have to send back the wrong part first .... SO EVEN MORE SHIPPINGFEES for me .... They wrote they will refund the shipping in points which I have currently no interest in to be honest or to my account ???
I would prefer to get the shipping refunded as MONEY to my paypal but I doubt they meant this ...

So my plan to string him up with the wrong part as long as I don't have the right part is impossible now...

I am so upset right now ... If my buisness is done with them I am going to write them a long letter ...
This feels so unreal ....

 

[MENTION=64275]Prince Whitemare[/MENTION]: this is just ridiculous. and it seems to be happening a lot at Soom. why would they need the wrong part? you can show a photo if they don't believe you? (why would anyone make it up?) I feel so lucky my order arrived with no glitches, but it took forever!
I have loved Soom for so long, but for now, so long Soom.
[MENTION=60037]azurra[/MENTION]: I want to follow his story. so, please post more of him when you can. one of my dolls is a little bit like yours. he's partly ocean-born. he doesn't love anyone. cool, doesn't like to be touched. lives inside himself. but, he'd never wear red. he's all blues & greens & grey.

 

[MENTION=48]petiteballerine[/MENTION] I have a photo of the broken white part right next to the box they send me with the ns wrong colour part.
But I think one of their customer service biggest problems is their chaotic system.
They never seem to look at the older messages and if you refer to one of their previous messages they don't know what you are talking about.
They replied to me like they never heard of this case before. And that's just plain bad customer service. This would just be annoying if their reply wouldn't be completely different in what they are saying.
Maybe it just makes me even more angry because I worked at customer service for some time but right now I am incredibly disappointed.
I love their dolls so much and their beauty deserves love but I wish they would transfer those dolls to another company with knowledge of how important customer relations are.
I don't know what is going wrong but it is wrong in so many ways.
I am still so hyped for my Kirin Isha but the same time I am scared that he gets here damaged or incomplete ( could totally live with a wrong coloured grey one ).
I now asked them if they will make me pay shipping once again to send me the right coloured part.
I am very interested in their answer.

@everyone I need to apologize not to worship your postings >~< Please don't feel ignored.
I enjoy to see those pics a lot because they make me feel less sad!

 

Uh, not to be a wet blanket, but I've had to send wrong/broken parts back to multiple companies, and it's something that's not Soom-specific. I'd have spent a lot more of my time being angry about broken legs/feet/hands/whatnot if that was the case over the years, not to mention more than one doll company.

Where Soom fell down was in not communicating clearly to you at the outset that you'd need to send the wrong part back, that does suck. Believe me, I've had to send an entire wrong doll back to Soom before, so yeah, stuff happens (and yes, I am completely human and wildly fantasized that they would just let me keep her, but of course, she is actually someone else's doll so yeah ). If you don't want the points back, you can be firm and ask for a refund of the shipping in a PayPal payment.

So it's been me, I always send the offending part back to a company and get what's mine legitimately.

.hlp

 

Hmm, I broke my Cinderella wings and was able to buy replacements without having to ship back the broken ones. Granted this was before all their rule changes.

 

I will say that for me the main page of the website works again in Chrome--the sidebar displays properly, so at least some things are being tidied up.

I did have a question for all of you who buy the clothes--are they available only during the sale period of the doll itself? That would make sense; I missed the Breccia outfit by not realizing that and trying to go back later to buy it.

 

But Prince Whitemare already paid to ship back the original broken part. Then paid to have the individual replacement part shipped to him (despite already having another order the part could have been shipped with, saving him shipping). And then the replacement was wrong and Soom wants him to pay again to ship that back and, presumably, pay again to have the - hopefully correct! - second replacement shipped out... again presumably refusing to combine the tiny part with an extant order to save Prince Whitemare the extra shipping cost. It already cost $40+ just to get to this point - if Soom makes him pay the extra two shipping costs, his Benmore is going to end up having cost him almost $100 more than anyone else's!

Getting money back in Soom points isn't an appropriate resolution if your customer is paying real money to fixthe mistakes you made while trying to fix your original mistake. In my opinion, at least.

 

Well, her order period is over - did anyone end up springing for grey Beryl? I'm not a fan of grey skin so I didn't go for her.... But I must admit, I am a bit hesitant to order anything in any case, given the communication problems people are experiencing. I would still brave it for an SG mermaid though!

 

The clothes are usually on sale for the same period as the doll. The sales period is usually in the text at the bottom of the listing.

 

[MENTION=64275]Prince Whitemare[/MENTION]
Don't do it. It's not right for you to pay for any shipping!!! Keep fighting until soom gives you correct part andt not a single dime spent from your behalf. Also contact paypal if it comes to that. Or if you spend the mone already then insist it back!

I think we should stop just giving in for Soom. We pay a lot (nearly 1000 if not more, dont forget how big money thst is ) and we have to wait for months so we deserve money's worth item and service imo.
We should start some group of protest lol. I just want them to stop treating their customers so badly. .. even if i havent (luckily) had a bad doll experienxe from soom yet, it still makes me so annoyed and upset what so many others have to go through. But yeah enough of what I think

 

[MENTION=28955]heidipay[/MENTION] I would have been totally okay with sending things back to them but I think I kind of mixed my story up too much

So I had my CW Benmore Wristball snapped in two pieces. I contacted them with some pictures of the wristball. Even one with the broken parts on his CoA and his legs and head.
After a lot of confusing messages Soom FINALLY was able to give me an order for my replacement wristball. But it wasn't like replacing the part for free or something.
I had to pay the wristball AND the shipping, because they don't combine shipping anymore.
So I had to pay shipping even with my 1000 and something $ expensive Isha coming in with more than enough space in his box for the TINY thing.
Massive bummer number one
The wristball + shipping was 43,20 $
So it is like I bought a new part ... so there was no need to send something back.

The package went through customs (because Soom did not decalare ANY value on the form) and if I wouldn't have played tricks on our dear custom officers I would have paid something like 10$ custom fee on top of that.
Anyway ... we had to drive the way to the office just to have the next bummer ...
They sent normalskin instead of white skin ...

The order says CREAM WHITE in capslock .... just .. HOW ???



So I wrote them with a picture of the NS part they sent next to the broken CW piece.
They wrote:

I wrote them that they at least this time put the part in Isha's box, because I don't want to pay another extra shipping.
Asked for something else in this question and they only answered the last question.

Because I haven't heard anything yet I wrote them a reminder and their reply said something absolutely different.

I would be okay with sending the NS part back to them ... but what if they want me to pay to ship the CW to me ?
I have a hard time trusting them right now ... I asked them what is going to happen afterwards.
Keep an eye on the forwarding to deliveryteam thing ... what about the first time forwarding my case ?
Why did nobody contact me and tell that I have to send back the NS first?
I was the one who asked now ... if I did not nobody would have cared anyway I guess.

 

@Prince Whitemare : I think that "refund to your account" means receiving refund in money to your Paypal account/credit card or whatever you paid with? It makes sense that they'd offer refund as points first, many other companies do this same too (I remember at least Dollmore and Leekeworld, I've had to send some stuff back to them in the past), but they did mention the other option as well. Maybe you should first make sure that you won't have to pay for the shipping of the correct part (from Soom to you) and that you can receive the shipping fee refunded in money, see what they answer and make your decision then It was their mistake to send you the wrong color part in the first place, so they can't really expect a customer to pay for a mistake they did. Based on the answer you received, it doesn't really look like they're expecting another payment from you, but you should ask again to be certain. Hope your situation gets resolved happily!

Seeing that message makes me think that Soom's customer service is just the same as it has always been, they still do seem willing to help, whether it's in good or bad way in people's eyes. The fact that they're not combining orders anymore is a sad thing, but there are companies that have never combined orders and if you forgot to order one thing, you'd have to order it separately ^^; A sudden policy change like this can seem harsh, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to combine orders, especially now that they've had most of their staff changed. It's probably best for the customers too, so that there's no confusion or mix-ups.

From my earlier experience and what I've read, if you receive a doll with wrong/missing/broken parts, Soom would send them to you for free, but if the damage happens after many days have passed from the doll's arrival (= it was not Soom's fault), then they'd ask to pay for the replacement part and shipping? This also seems normal to me.

Also, I wanted to add that these are still just individual cases that have problems. Within a month or two, I've received two Soom dolls for a friend and another friend has also received two, all of them have been in perfect condition and were shipped within the promised 100 days. Personally, I haven't experienced any problems with their customer service. I don't think that me and my friend are the only ones who've been this "lucky" ^^; Of course the ones who are having problems speak more loudly than the ones that have received their dolls with no problems.

 

[MENTION=44425]safir[/MENTION] I think you are absolutely right with all your points. It was without any doubt my fault (I can't describe the feelings about that moment in any words) and that I pay for the piece (and the shipping with their new rules) is fine.
Just the thing that is annoying is their lack of organizing their Q&A stuff.
I just hope my Isha (currently day 98 since paid in full) gets here soon and as flawless as possible.
And I swore to myself if it is the fact I will write a positive review for Soom.
Because as you said ... people tend to only write down the negative things and just skip the things without problems.
I really love Soom and without this specific company I would most likely not be here.
It was their aestethics and fantasy parts that pulled me into the hobby and bad reputation can really harm them to a point it might even be their kill off someday.
I don't want that but still I wanted to share my experience with this case.
Part of this might be the feeling of helplessness and frustration but part of it is to show there are those problems and if I interpreted some of the Q&A headlines at least there are other problems aswell. Even in the Soom waiting Room are some cases. Or the case posted at the imda facebook site with the broken hand replacement part. I would still say there are more problems than there should be, because they are so easily avoided. Like you have an order and put everything needed in one box. Even new staff should be able to do this. Broken on transit .. okay .. happens ... but missing parts or wrong colours seem to happen a lot more than they should.
So nothing is pure white or pitch black, that's for sure.

 

Maybe I'm alone in this but I think it's very important for people to make any problems they experienced public knowledge. By default we all expect to receive a doll in perfect condition with all the correct parts and in the right colour, within the promised time frame. It's important to know if there is a possibility of having issues with your order and how the company fixes (or doesn't fix) those.

When it's a new company, of course you should talk about both good and bad experiences... but Soom has been in business for years and has built a reputation of being a trustworthy company. So I'm sure by now the majority of us believe that ordering dolls from Soom is safe.

The only times I've ordered dolls from Soom were in 2009 and 2013 (I think) and I didn't have any problems, so based on my personal experience I'd naturally expect perfect service if I were to order now. But if Soom no longer holds up to their old standards, which certainly seems to be the case from all these recent posts about wrong parts and bad customer service, I definitely want to be aware of that.


Prince Whitemare, I hope that Soom will refund the shipping fee to you as money rather than points and that you'll finally get the correct part the next time. Even if the part getting broken in the first place wasn't Soom's fault, it's a fact that they screwed up when they sent you a normal skin part, so they shouldn't make you pay additional shipping fees for fixing their mistake. :S

 

It's also important to know when everything goes well : indeed, it's expected from the compagny, but it can enable to know if there is 1 problem for 4 shippements (big problem, so) or 1/10, 1/20... it enables to know the safeness of the compagny ! (Hope I'm clear, english is not my native language ^^; )

But, for you probleme Prince Whitemare, I agree that they are really bad to fix it :/

 

Well, you might have misread my message since I didn't say that people shouldn't bring problems to public knowledge, in fact I think it's very important. My point was that even though there have been many problems with the company, there are still orders that are received with no problems at all and I felt like I wanted to point that out, in case some people were thinking that the whole company is not trust-worthy anymore and should be avoided. @Alishino actually said it very well, that it's also important to know when things go well There are problems for sure, but to me it seems like Soom is still fixing them, like they always have.

Also, there has been problems with Soom's dolls ever since 2012-2013, so it's not like they're not "up to their old standards" anymore, the same problems have been there for many years already. People might not even be aware of if they received their dolls with no problems back then. But from what I've heard, the problems have still been resolved.

 

Yes, but by the end of the day, what we read here is just DoA. Who knows how many issues - or no issues at all - there are outside of this forum, because not all of Soom's customers frequent here. In the light of that I wanted to point out that people who are experiencing issues shouldn't feel discouraged to post about them here, because it's important to hear from everyone. And yeah, if someone has ordered within 2015 and hasn't had a bad experience with Soom, by all means: write about it. But sometimes there are people who haven't actually ordered from Soom recently and use their past experiences as reference when defending the company, which isn't very helpful when people are trying to figure out what the current situation is.

And even if the problems eventually get resolved, I'd still like to hear the whole chain of events to figure out if it was easily and quickly resolved, or if it took a lot of time and energy and led into further issues, like in Prince Whitemare's case. Back when Victoria was the rep, I only heard praise about Soom's customer service... but lately there are more people who are displeased with the service they've received, so it does mean something and shouldn't be ignored, even if it's only one out of five people who's experienced a problem.

Lately it seems like Soom doesn't make that many public announcements themselves on their website (I'm still waiting to hear an official statement from Soom about the whole Beryl body swap debacle), so pretty much the only way to find out about things is from other customers. Like the whole "we no longer combine orders" policy.

 

petiteballerine, I am very pleased, that you are interested in Elle's story. If you don't mind, I will write you a private message about him =)
Here is the latest picture of him for you (sorry for offtop-doll).
IMG_7212-1 by NESSY THEBEST, on Flickr
And you can find some old photos in my flicr (the tag is "Elle")

Prince Whitemare, I hope with all my heart that you will be successful in solving your problem with SOOM.

 

Soom took forever to ship out Arekushia's Sweet Witch post MD lottery win. And then when it did arrive they had forgotten to include my eyes! Though they promptly sent out the replacement eyes with no fuss that I remember.

But I have ordered Volo's outfit, and a Thera from the FCE and a Zard for mom (with optional blossom bust combined into the order later on) and neither of those orders had any problems.

I haven't had any nightmarish experiences like the ones you have described, though perhaps the fact that I haven't ordered the dolls you did has something to do with it?

 

I am like 100% sure somehow and at sometime I will have the right coloured part here and I will of course keep it updated here too.
So I am almost sure this will have a happy end ...
Just a matter of WHEN ^^°

Thank you @everybody so much for not hating at me, for leting me share this and for all the fingers crossed for me.
How should things not become right with so much hope from all sides

And @azurra I totally forgot to write that I am absolutely in love with your boy. I fall so much for the more soft looking ones and yours has this awesome atmosphere to him ~
I sneeked in for your flickr and the way you pose your dolls brings them really to life!

 

Prince Whitemare, hope you'll receive Isha soon and as ordered
Me and The Cats wish you a good luck!
Прогулка котиков (03) by Toria Soll, on Flickr

 

[MENTION=67340]Rook_Sever[/MENTION] your cats are so sweet

 

[MENTION=16841]fishcake[/MENTION] thank you =^.^=

 

[MENTION=60037]azurra[/MENTION]: yes, please send a PM. I can share my quiet boy with you. (he's a Fifth Motif) my boy has never been kissed, so Elle is more outgoing than Ariel.
Loving your Elle photos (+ others) on Flickr.

 

I am soo soo soo glad right now !
Soom replied after I reworked my message on the board with several screenshots and pictures and it seems now that they will send me the piece without me having to send back the NS part.
I highly highly highly recommend using pictures and screenshots as reference for their own messages because the customer service seems not to do this on their own.
Maybe they want the NS part back later but not now, their message seemed a littlte unclear about this.

I sat down and worked a bit on my boy in parts and I felt already quite good because what I have done came out like I wanted only to come back to the Q&A board and see this

I could almost cry ... I never expected things to change so drastically and so fast

Thank you so much for all the support, let's hope Isha and the ball come here soon and without any further problems

 

Wow So glad this is finally getting resolved for you!

 

New thread started!
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...sion-(Basic-Limited-amp-Special-Order)-Part-9