Update Regarding Targeted Harassment and Disinformative Allegations

Regrettably, we are having to make this post following a dispute where we were never given the chance to provide our side of the story. We felt the need to publicize this, as we have been treated unfairly and with clear bias, despite our efforts to follow the rules that were in place. As there is no way for us to address what has happened, the best we can do is to present a full recounting of the events.

Today, after being ignored for almost a month and a half, we received an e-mail from Den of Angels indicating that we’d been suspended. Prior to this, on September 15th, the DoA moderators installed a “Dealer Caution” flag on our account, a flag that’s normally reserved for repeated, proven scammers. Due to our suspension from DoA, we’re no longer able to access our private Ask the Moderators thread so unfortunately we’re not able to provide screenshots from the thread.

We had opened a thread asking the DoA mods for help on August 31 to deal with the ongoing situation with Zest (see this post). We created a thread in the past asking the DoA mods to assist with the libelous content in Zest’s first review of us, believing that one of their top forum rules, “2. Be Honest”, would apply. Their response to that help request was that those rules didn’t apply for reviews, and that while we could ask them to review libelous content for deletion, that their decision was to leave the libelous content in Zest’s post up without explaining why. As DoA was one of the central gathering hubs for the BJD hobby and that thread was posted in a public section of DoA, with the DoA mods unwilling to remove the libelous content, the only course of action left to us was to make a public post about Zest, especially as Zest would rather carry on publicly on DoA rather than respond to our e-mails. The only response that we received from DoA in our Aug 31 thread was a message reiterating their position from the previous thread.

Due to Zest’s abusive behavior towards us, as well as his having expressed publicly that he would want the order transferred to DollZone, we transferred his order to DollZone. Normally, in the case of disruptive customers, we would cancel the order and issue a full refund, but we wanted to wrap up our relations with him as best as possible, and as he has been blaming everything from Covid-related wait times to order errors on us, we thought it best to not deal with him directly any longer. Following his direct harassment of our other customers, we adopted a zero tolerance policy against him and his friends, blocking them from all of our outlets.

Although DollZone initially accepted the order transfer, it proved to be more trouble than we’d anticipated. Several times DollZone wanted to cancel the order transfer, as they quickly realized that they did not want to continue to deal with Zest directly. We pleaded with DollZone on a daily basis to maintain the transfer, and we were able to get them to do so, albeit begrudgingly. This reluctance on their part manifested in them taking longer periods of time to respond to Zest. During these periods of time, Zest bombarded us with abusive e-mails, including content such as informing us that half of his family consisted of lawyers and paralegals and that he was going to open multiple lawsuits against us, then creating multiple new e-mail accounts as we banned each one screaming at us and accusing us of scamming him, and making unreasonable demands, intermixed with threats and profanity. Among his demands was that we needed to provide him with a tracking number for his order within 24 hours or he would open chargeback claims against us. He sent this demand on a Friday night CST time, after working hours, which was Saturday for DollZone. In this demand, he acknowledged that it was a weekend but, as he put it, “i will be keeping the chargeback claim open. “but it’s the weekend!” i dont’ give a fuck. you are a bunch of liars, and i KNOW you know it, therefore do you really want to call my “bluff”?” Zest was informed that his order wasn’t ready yet, which was true of all the customers who had ordered the same item (Cyborg Robot Ji-Zero fullset).

Zest opened chargeback claims against us while pushing DollZone to ship him his order. DollZone refused to do so without our agreement, which caused Zest to bombard us with another round of abusive e-mails. Meanwhile, we asked DollZone to ask Zest to close the chargeback claims and show them proof of doing so, and that once they received that proof that it’s fine to ship Zest the doll. Zest did not want to do so, and attempted to sabotage our relationship with DollZone, asserting to them that we were harassing customers, and that he had every reason to believe that we were scamming him so he didn’t want to close the chargeback claims. We have fulfilled all of Zest’s orders and issued him a refund for missing items, thus there was no objective reason for him to believe that we would scam him. We have never given any of our customers any reasons to feel this way in fact, as we’d faithfully issued refunds for orders far after PayPal claims or chargebacks would apply and often in situations where we hadn’t received the refund from our partner company yet.

Finally, Zest sent DollZone a screenshot of closing a chargeback claim, but it was only for one of his six layaway payments. While DollZone was taking a break from responding to Zest, he bombarded us with yet more abuse, yelling at us that he’d closed his chargeback claims and demanding that we ship. He attempted to defraud us and getting a ~$600 doll for ~$100.

Eventually Zest showed DollZone a screenshot of closing his entire chargeback claim, so we got DollZone to expedite Zest’s order, persuading them that the only way for both of us to no longer have to deal with Zest is if they did so. DollZone wanted on many occasions to cancel the order and refund it, but as Zest was bombarding them with e-mails to the effect of, “I desperately want this doll I’ve waited so long for it”, we urged them to stay the course. To achieve this, they had to backlog the other Ji-Zero fullsets and cause them to take longer to be finished.
While we were working through all of this, we were harassed by Zest’s friends. They sent us abusive e-mails or posted libelous and retaliatory reviews on DoA. In their reviews, they twisted events, intentionally leaving out important facts, and included opinions asserted as fact. As is written in the rules of DoA, we posted one response to some of these. As per the rules of DoA, the original review posters are not allowed to post another response, but DoA turned a blind eye to them doing so. We reported these posts that broke DoA’s own rules, but DoA cited us reporting these posts as one of the reasons that they suspended us.

Other situations that have occurred during this time are as follows:

• We received an alert that someone contacted our host pretending to be us with a request to delete our website. They triggered the security protocol and were not able to get in. This was not a random attack, and we’d never been subjected to anything like this prior.
• We received an e-mail from someone claiming to be a friend of Zest’s, with a message purporting to want peace. This message contained a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.. As a team that is predominantly BIPOC and/or queer, the irony of the words of a human rights leader being used in a situation like this one was not lost on us. Furthermore, this “friend” has the same alias that Zest used in previous purchases with us, as well as sharing Zest’s surname. Although it is possible that the alias is his mother or a relative, it seems very unusual for them to then pose as a “friend”.
• During the time that Zest had been posting in as many places as possible about how horrible we are, he made a purchase from our site for an in stock item. He managed to bypass our block by using an alternate e-mail address and a VPN to generate an alternate IP address. The shipping address was the same, we did not block based on the shipping address. That issue has been rectified now.
• Someone has been attempting to get the personal information of our staff members, including ones that are no longer active. We’ve received cautionary messages from our partners about e-mail addresses without names asking them for detailed information about our staff, posing as concerned parties that need that information to contact us because of emergencies. –
• We received a tip from someone claiming to be affiliated with one of the anonymous Tumblr confession blogs while Zest was perpetrating his harassment of us. The tipper warned us that someone had been submitting confessions that attempted to incite real life violence against us, for instance encouraging others to swat us (swatting: the action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address). This individual sent their tip from an anonymized e-mail and indicated they were only doing so because they were disturbed that the confessor said that it would be hilarious if members of our team were shot.

There are some gravely serious implications to Zest having our personal information, especially since he has already gone through extreme lengths to discourage and threaten us. Personal security and privacy, especially of our former staff members, is a huge concern to us, and these unprecedented times are difficult enough to safely navigate without the additional fear of personal boundaries being willfully breached.

We apprised DoA of the events, offering to share screenshots to back them up (including ones from individuals who had given their permission to share), even asking them to corroborate the information with DollZone. They continued to ignore us and did not contact DollZone or ask to review our evidence.

On September 18, the DoA mods locked our feedback thread, claiming it was for a “cooling off” period. Prior to them locking the thread, there wasn’t any drama being perpetuated in the thread. Many customers had left positive reviews for us to help demonstrate that the norm of our service is not what Zest and his friends claimed it to be, and that the issue was rooted in Zest rather than us. They would’ve continued to do so had the thread not been locked. The timing of our suspension is too convenient to be a coincidence. Zest is about to receive his order from DollZone, thus enabling him to be able to leave a negative review of us. By suspending us, DoA has put us in a position where we cannot respond to his review. It’s very likely that they will lock the thread again after Zest posts his review so that additional positive reviews cannot be posted. DoA allowed these posts that broke their own rules to stay up, now citing that they are doing so under the guise of offering future readers visibility. However, they conveniently allow the posts bashing us to stay up while attempting to suppress the ones supporting us.

The first reason that DoA claimed for their decision was, “On August 31 you posted in Ask the Moderators requesting assistance regarding the opinions of several members that were posted on the forum. The moderation team was in contact with you regarding your expectations as far as moderator assistance. Rather than waiting for our response or replying with factual rebuttal posts you instead took matters into your own hands, and began reporting every post that you did not like, and started making a public spectacle of things on your Facebook page.” This is an inaccurate representation of the events. The Facebook post we made about Zest was done after the DoA mods specifically stated to us that they weren’t going to do anything about the libelous content that he posted in a publicly-visible area of their website. We left several factual posts in our Ask the Moderators thread, even encouraging them to contact our partner DollZone for the corroboration of facts. The DoA mods neither responded to us nor contacted DollZone, instead outright ignoring us for over a month while taking actions against us. The notification of the ban is the first communication we’d heard from them since September 3rd, and in that response all they had done was reinforce that they weren’t going to do anything about the libelous content posted about us. All the posts that we reported were ones that broke their own rules, specifically the rule about bringing offsite drama to DoA not being allowed and responses to responses not being allowed in the feedback thread. We feel that it is unreasonable that DoA regulates actions off of their site, especially when those actions are done by a business trying to protect itself from libel. They base their judgments on circumstantial information, and despite touting their dedication to facts, they don’t actually review the facts. It is clear that they didn’t look at our Facebook post that contained facts supported by screenshots and receipts.

They issued us an underhanded threat of, “As you have chosen to address said posts in the manner you did, all posts will be left visible and intact so that forum members can read both sides of the situation and make an informed decision regarding your services”. We did address what happened with each review in a factual manner and thus stand by all of our responses. We hope that the DoA mods will stand by what they said and indeed leave all the posts up, as those posts demonstrate how they don’t follow their own rules. Their rules specifically state that responses to responses aren’t allowed in the feedback thread, but they’ve allowed that to happen in our thread as well as allow bashing of us from unrelated parties. They also allow feedback to be posted by people who have never made a purchase through us, thus making the entire thing wholly subjective. Our supporters who have contacted the DoA mods expressing concern about individuals posting libelous content were informed of the rules that the DoA mods themselves don’t follow. Those posts that break their own rules were among the ones we reported, which they framed as posts we “don’t like”.

They asserted that, “We also have credible information from forum members indicating that the drama on this forum was intensified by your actions in posting in a Facebook group”. This is the DoA mods yet again attempting to regulate what goes on off-site, and regulating content that isn’t what they assert it to be. The group that they speak of is the BJDivas VIP Member Group, a small and private Facebook group, and the only posts related to this entire situation were ones asking for advice about if we should go public with our position after DoA refused to take down the libelous content against us. Furthermore, we’d have been more than happy to allow them to enter so that they could’ve properly investigated the objective facts. No one-sided information is “credible”, especially not in a situation where opinions rule. But again, they’ve never asked us for our side of the story or even just the objective picture.

Although it was entirely unnecessary in meting out judgment, the DoA mods used derogatory terms and phrases towards us. We are disturbed that they did this, but not as much as that they would believe someone who compulsively lies as well as wrangling his friends into lying does not at all create drama. They also see nothing wrong with Zest’s posts in which he actively attacks and calls other posters names. Their double standards do not apply to the fact that Zest has been perpetuating the drama on other places such as the BJD Discord, but they happily attempt to regulate what we do on our own pages.

We do sincerely apologize to the mods for contacting them as much as we did. We held them in high esteem and thought of them as objective individuals who did not abuse their position of authority within the hobby. Had we known their true position and some of the history of DoA that we know now, we wouldn’t have attempted to communicate with the mods, or have ever registered on their site. Their siding with Zest and other individuals who have no issue with posting demonstrable lies on their site has made it abundantly clear that we were deeply mistaken. To use this as a reason to punish us however is ridiculous.

During our time on DoA, we’ve not ever paid them for advertising or donated to them for their anniversary events. It seems clear now, despite it not having been financially feasible for us to do so, that we should’ve contributed to them, as it appears (based on their reactions to posts from dealers that do pay them) that not having done so has had a big part in their actions towards us. The first three years as a startup business, our profits for each entire year were negative. 2020 was the first year in which the profits were not negative, but due to the impacts of Covid they were in the four digit range. That is well below the poverty line for income, and we were able to survive as a business solely because of our members putting in financial assistance from their personal savings. This year, we thought that we would finally be able to contribute to DoA, but then the fire and flooding situation happened, and such an event has been very expensive to recover from (as well as being a situation that we’re still recovering from even now). We did not think that the impact of contributions would be so great, but as DoA does not flag other businesses registered on their account who have multiple reports of scamming and ones that have demonstrable proof of plagiarism, instead choosing to flag us, it is sadly very clear what drives their decision-making. We had gone to them because we thought that with their staunch anti-counterfeit stance that they would care about demonstrable proof of plagiarism. They did not, because the plagiarism was against us. The primary difference between us and the plagiarizer was that the plagiarizer regularly spent money on DoA while we did not.

We’ve been informed by several of our supporters that they’ve either been warned by the DoA mods for their support of us or have been suspended for being supportive. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of libel, abuse and harassment have not received any disciplinary action from DoA. The DoA mods stated that our suspension will end in a month but that our Dealer Caution flag will remain for six months, after which we could “appeal” for its removal. Based on their treatment of us thus far, we feel that this is just lip service and do not have much hope that any of our efforts will affect anything six months down the line. As such, we will no longer be maintaining a presence on DoA, as it is very clear that they are not interested in treating us fairly. Despite their actions against us, we will not be discriminating against DoA mods that wish to use our services. We will, however, continue to refuse service to parties who are actively abusive towards us.

We will no longer be assisting independent artists with registering their creations on DoA, instead promoting these creations on other platforms. We apologize for the inconvenience that this will cause to people who might want to discuss these new dolls on DoA. As far as we’re aware, no other bilingual dealer has been interested in registering new sculpts on DoA. This is yet another thing DoA has punished us for in the past. They would always quickly remove our news posts regarding dolls that haven’t been registered, but not remove the posts from other dealers about the same dolls. We’ve managed to be able to post these dolls after going through their registration process, during which other dealers would skip the process but still post their advertisements without penalization.

During this time, we have conferred with legal counsel as well as the authorities. Zest’s behavior has been reported to both our local police stations as well as his local police stations. We ultimately decided not to move forward with legal action at this time, but we were advised that there is definitive action that can be taken against both Zest and DoA, for the events prior to this suspension. We felt that the money that would go towards legal counsel would be better spent giving back to our customers, thus we are starting programs such as the sponsorship of artist advertisements (see this post). Furthermore, as we’d been receiving a lot of feedback indicating that DoA is a dying platform, we’ve decided that it isn’t worthwhile to invest funds in combating the situation over there. Instead, we will be focusing our efforts more on social media and other platforms that are becoming the new centers of the hobby.

We thank everyone who has supported us on DoA and who has left feedback for us there. We are in the process of setting up other locations where feedback can be collected. Should the DoA mods change their stance and conduct a proper and objective investigation of the events, we will do everything in our power to facilitate such an investigation. As it is our belief based on their actions that they are uninterested in doing so or in treating us fairly, this post is the action that we have decided to take instead, so that the full events can be known publicly.

Finally, we apologize for the delay this has caused in our ability to answer inquiries. Conferring with legal counsel and the authorities has been taking up a great deal of time. Now hopefully with this matter behind us, we can focus our attention on all of you.