Strange Behavior

Personal story time. It's a bit away from the blog's purpose, but I think that it can still fit here.



This was around April and May when I was thinking about buying a doll from someone on Den of Angels. I kept looking back to their sales thread and the doll always got to me so I decided to talk to the seller and ask about buying her. I believe we set up a short layaway (Which I do a lot when purchasing dolls) and went on from there.

One day I decided to look at her feedback out of curiosity and saw that it was positive for the most part but there were a few negative transactions. It looked like the seller would 'pull a disappearing act' and visit distant family which would delay communications and shipping times. I knew it had been some time since I had talked to her but I didn't think anything of it.

Then... things started to get weird. We started talking again after she visited distant relatives, and we discussed a bump up in shipping price and what would come with the doll. In my mind I really hoped she wasn't trying to pull something but I agreed with her though out the revised choices. I really wanted to keep faith.

After another small delay the doll was shipped and reached me in amazing condition. We left each other good feedback and we even connected on other networks like Flickr. She even sent me more small gifts in the mail. I reevaluated the situation as her hitting some rough patches in life; she was a single parent with new love and was moving quite a bit.

So we talked on and off and I found that she was selling some more of her dolls. I kept a bit of a check on the situation and I saw it turn from normal to not so good. Two (or three) buyers said that she wasn't contacting/ignoring them and the terms they were agreeing on were changing. All parties were obviously not in agreement.

I think the situation calmed down, but I know that her account from Den of Angels was banned, her Flickr was closed, and I just haven't seen any activity of her. Personally I was hoping that the situations would have ended on lighter terms.


I've learned that in buying and selling online, you have to have good behaviour and keep on your toes with contacts. Having flakey/unreliable behaviour and not keeping your emotions in check can lead to negative turns near the end of the deal. I know that all of the sellers I've dealt with were very nice people, but most of them have strict rules after poor transactions or dealing with flakey buyers.

I guess this is one of those things to keep in mind and to check your ethics once in awhile.