Paging lulu222 - RESOLVED MEMBER MP BANNED

[Kiyakotari]

I hate having to do this, but I have been unable to get a response from lulu222 for over two weeks now, even though I know that she has received and read at least one of my messages regarding this transaction.

On 6/28/2012, I contacted lulu222 regarding a Dollstown Seola7 she had up for sale. After a brief and friendly negotiation, we agreed on 6/29/2012 that I would purchase the doll from her, on layaway, for $450 + shipping. The layaway terms were as follows: $150 immediately, $150 within 30 days, and the final $150 plus shipping costs (to be determined, but estimated by lulu222 to likely be around $22) to be sent no later than 60 days from the beginning of the layaway. However, I also expressed that I intended to pay off the layaway as quickly as possible, and would likely be paying for the doll in full before the first 30 days had passed, which lulu222 indicated was not a problem, but also wasn't necessary (her exact words were "Yes, that's schedule is fine with me! Please don't feel rushed - I'm pretty easy to get along with.").

My last communication from lulu222 on was 6/29/2012, shortly after I sent the first layaway payment of $150.

On 7/09/2012, I sent lulu222 the second layaway payment of $150 early, and a message letting her know that I had sent it and that I hoped to pay the day off before the end of this month. I received no response to this message.

On 7/11/2012, I sent lulu222 a message requesting a shipping quote, so that when I am ready to send the final layaway payment I can send it and the shipping all in one lump payment, saving both lulu222 and myself time and effort. I again received no response.

Shortly thereafter, it came to my attention that lulu222's inbox had been intermittently full, and while I had not gotten a notice that the messages were undeliverable due to full inbox on either of these PM's, I decided to give lulu222 the benefit of the doubt, and thought she might not have received them. So on 7/13/2012, at 9:40 in the morning, I sent lulu222 another message, letting her know that I had been trying to contact her, that I had sent my second layaway payment early (as we had discussed I likely would), and requesting a shipping quote. This time, I attached a read receipt to the PM. According to the read receipt, lulu222 read this PM at 10:04 that same morning, only 24 minutes after I sent the message. However, I still have not received any responses from her. I fully understand if she needed time to get the shipping quote, but that is something that she would need to tell me. The complete lack of communication of any kind has me very concerned.

As regards desired resolution: I have currently sent $300 to lulu222. I do not have any desire for a refund. I do still want this doll, and I wish to pay off my layaway (which I have been ready to do for a while now) and have the doll shipped via USPS Priority Mail with Insurance, as stated in the sales thread.

[Zagzagael]

lulu222 was last on the forum today. She is now Being Paged.

[lulu222]

Dear Kiya,

Hi! I don't know what is going on with my mailbox....!!!!!!!!! I did reply to all of your messages and my replies are in my sent folder...... So sorry.... I just assumed you had received them:0(

Please email me at. Littleyorks@yahoo.com. Obviously I cannot trust the DoA system to work right now....

I did get a shipping quote for you on the same day you requested it!

Again, I'm so sorry to cause you worry but I had no idea you weren't getting my replies.

Talk to you soon - I hope!

Lulu222

[Kiyakotari]

No worries, I fully understand computer problems. I'll use the eMail address you have provided to communicate with you from now on.

As of right now, lulu222 and I are once again able to communicate and I have received a shipping quote, and have sent my final layaway payment and the money for the shipping. This transaction will be fully resolved to my complete and happy satisfaction once I have received the doll.

[Kiyakotari]

I have not heard anything from lulu222 since this thread was closed on 7/15/2012, so it has been reopened.

In our last communication, she told me that she would be shipping my doll out on the afternoon of 7/16/2012 and providing me with a tracking number. I have sent her several PM's and eMails over the course of this week, but received no replies to any of them. Lulu222 has been logging onto the forum every day this week, but has not responded to any of my attempts to contact her either here on DoA or via the eMail address she provided above. According to her profile, she has not yet been on the forum today.

I just want to know when my doll will be shipped out. If it had been shipped when and how I was told it would be, it would already be here, so I know that it was not mailed on Monday. I understand that shipping delays happen. Sometimes life gets in the way. It's not a big deal, it happens to all of us. But I've always kept my buyers informed when something like this happens, and when I've had it happen with other sellers, they've done the same. As long as communication is maintained, these kinds of problems can be avoided.

Lulu222, please contact me as soon as possible and let me know the status of my doll.

[Kiyakotari]

Lulu222 has just contacted me via eMail, stating that she has been completely without power due to a storm at the beginning of this week, and thus has been unable to get online (she said that she was eMailing me from her niece's phone), with the exception of a three-minute period today when power was briefly restored. Her profile stated this morning that she was last on DoA on 7/19/2012. It now states that she was last on DoA today (7/21/2012) at 3:08 pm. She gave me a tracking number, but so far it is not working - USPS states that the number is not a tracking number, but that a delivery receipt may be available after the item has been delivered. Please leave this thread open until I receive the doll.

[Kiyakotari]

The doll has not yet arrived, and my mail has already been delivered for today, so hopefully she'll be here tomorrow. The tracking number is still not working. USPS continues to say that it is not a valid tracking number.

[Kiyakotari]

Mail for the day has been delivered, and still no sign of the doll. Tracking number still is not working. I suspect that the number is an insurance label number, not a tracking number, which is why it does not work on the USPS website.

[Kiyakotari]

Doll did not arrive with today's mail delivery, either. Tracking number is not functional, and a phone call to the USPS confirmed that the number could not be found in their system. Lulu222 has not been on the forum since 7/21, and has not replied to any eMails I have sent asking for a working tracking number.

[Kiyakotari]

No doll with the mail today, either. Tracking number still does not work. Attempts to contact lulu222 by eMail at the address she provided above have been met with silence. Lulu222 still has not logged onto the forum.

USPS Priority Mail, the service that was supposed to be used to ship the doll, takes at most 3-4 days within the continental US (unless a package is misaddressed, routed incorrectly, lost, etc). Having a working tracking number could tell me if any of these things had happened, but at this point, being without a working tracking number and being 6 days beyond the day that lulu222 told me that she shipped the package (and implied that it had been shipped before she contacted me, though she did not give me a specific shipping date), I have to assume that the doll has not actually been mailed, or that if it has, it was mailed well after she told me that it was.

I have also done some research into storms in the New England area during the time period of 7/8/2012-7/15/2012, the days that lulu222 did not contact me because she stated that she had been without power all week due to a severe storm that had taken down power for the entire area. There have been severe storms in New England, New York, and the surrounding states lately (within the last two weeks), but all of the articles that I have read indicated that public utilities services and power companies were able to restore power to customers within hours of power failure in all cases, and that there were no customers in any storms who were without power for such a massive length of time. Additionally, the worst recent storms in that region did not begin hitting the area until this week (the past 24-48 hours, actually), and were concentrated mainly in New York.

At this point, being completely without any form of communication, I am able to draw only the following conclusion: Lulu222 has not shipped my doll, and is ignoring my requests for an updated and functional tracking number because she is unable to provide such. She is avoiding logging onto DoA because she knows that doing so will be registered by DoA's software, and she does not want me to know that she is not, in fact, without power.

It is entirely possible that this conclusion is in error, but it is the only conclusion that fits the evidence I have at hand.

[Kiyakotari]

I have opened a PayPal dispute for my final layaway payment on this doll. I hope that lulu222 responds and I do not have to escalate it to a claim.

[Kiyakotari]

Further research into the storms in the New England/New York area during the time period that lulu222 says that she was unable to contact me due to being "without power all week" indicates that there were some rural areas that were without power from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday night, but I have found no evidence of any customers being without power for any length of time greater than that. According to all of the articles I have read, power companies and public utilities reported that all power loss from the storm damage was restored by late Wednesday night.

Lulu222 has not responded to the PayPal dispute. The doll did not arrive with the mail delivery last night. It has now been 12 days since the doll was supposed to be shipped, using a method by which delivery should have taken at most 3-4 days. It has been 7 days since lulu222 told me that the doll had been shipped, and implied in the statement that it had been shipped previous to that date, but did not give me a specific shipping date. I can only assume that the complete silence from lulu222 and the lack of delivery means that my doll has not been shipped.

[Zagzagael]

Lulu222 last logged into the forum on 21JUL.

[Kiyakotari]

Lulu222 finally replied to my eMails today. She said that she has been in the hospital for the past several days, and hence the lack of contact.

She also stated that the package was returned to her "because [she] used four priority boxes to wrap it in some post office along the way decided [she] needed 63.09 extra postage (charging full priority rate per box!)." I can only assume that by this she meant Priority Flat Rate boxes (the only USPS Priority boxes that have assigned rates), which I find very interesting, as the USPS has very stringent regulations on how these boxes can be used, and combining them is most certainly not permitted. (They even have printing on the insides of the boxes, to prevent people from flipping them inside-out and using them to ship things non-Priority in a "free" box.) Because they are provided to customers free of charge, with the expectation that they are only to be used to ship items Priority Flat Rate, USPS cashiers are very vigilant for people who are trying to misuse these boxes, and many times I have seen them deny shipment of items because they had wrapped a Priority Flat Rate Box in paper to hide it, or because the cashier suspected that they had done so, or because the person had taped two (or more) Priority Flat Rate boxes together.

However, Lulu222 has now provided me with a photograph of a post-marked delivery confirmation receipt, and when I ran the tracking number on that receipt, it did work. Assuming that nothing else goes wrong in the transit process, I am looking forward to the delivery of my doll within the next 3-4 days.

I will update this thread when the package arrives.

[lulu222]

Yes, I'm finally back after a stay in hospital.

I think KIya and I have things going in the right direction and that her package should arrive tomorrow!

Really... that's what happened with the priority boxes and I had done this many times before without a problem. And the postal clerk didn't say a word when I originally took the package to the post office! May be its something new since I last shipped a large doll? And I was shipping via Priority/Insured not Parcel Post.

Nontheless... she's on her way to KIya now and her tracking number is showing up in the USPS system :0)

[Kiyakotari]

I received the doll today. The package was mis-addressed, so I had to go to the post office to retrieve it. But the doll arrived safely and was well wrapped, so she did not incur any damage while in the hands of the USPS.

She does have significant yellowing (the front of the doll is several shades lighter/less pink than the back of the doll, so she clearly spent some time laying on her back exposed to light, and her head is a different color than her body - the color difference is particularly apparent when the head is opened, as the inside of the head has not been exposed to light and still maintains the original color). This yellowing was not disclosed in the sale description (she was described as having "no apparent yellowing"), but at this point I'm just glad to have the doll. I'm not happy about the yellowing, but I'm not going to make an issue of it. I do wish it were more even. The front-to-back color discrepancy is kind of jarring in some lights.

Her elastic is also totally shot and had to be replaced, but that's not a big deal - I'd planned on restringing her, anyway. I keep elastic on hand, so I've already restrung her with new elastic.

I consider this transaction resolved.