I'm sad to make this post, because in all honesty, I thought very highly of this seller until I actually purchased something from her. Since it crossed the line from carelessness/laziness to actual nefarious behavior, I'm sad to say that I had to make this post here. I had really expected better of her, as an experienced seller with an Etsy shop, and someone I had spoken to for several months.
Very tl;dr version: Monsterhighclassof2014 on eBay/Bluebirddollshoppe on Etsy is a scammer. She sells items using outdated photos, often selling items she no longer has on hand, and drags her feet/tries to convince you not to file with Paypal with various excuses and delays.
She has an eBay account (
http://www.ebay.com/usr/monsterhighclassof2014) as well as an Etsy shop (
https://www.etsy.com/shop/bluebirddoll?ref=si_shop), and both have a few (but not many) negative feedback, so it's clear it's not just me having these problems.
I originally met Bluebirddollshoppe ("Seller") on Tumblr when I entered one of her contests, and we conversed in a friendly manner since then. I suppose my first tip-off was when it took her two months to ship out the prizes, and they were different than what she had first offered.
When she posted a picture of a pile of G4 ponies she had for sale (auction in question:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Piece-My-Little-Pony-Friendship-is-Magic-Lot-/181707625298?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a4e9e5352 ), I informed her that she would get more money by singling out the more 'rare' ponies for individual sale, and taking the stray G1 pony out of the lot. She informed me that she also had a bunch of G1 ponies she wanted to unload, and we started discussing pricing over email.
Now, unbeknownst to me, she had taken my advice, and sold several of the G4 ponies out of the lot to sell to another buyer on the side -
without updating her eBay photos to reflect that most of the expensive ponies were already sold. http://lotsoftinythings.tumblr.com/post/115576122836/pony-mail-arrived-these-are-from-justabadapple I believe this double-selling is reflected in her latest "positive" feedback on eBay; "Was missing two ponies but I do think I got a good deal with this buy." The feedback is private, but you can tell that she has only sold one MLP item recently. Considering the price of a MIB G4 Applejack right now, and that she essentially sold the same ponies twice, I thought this was textbook scamming.
Over email, Seller sent me a link to a Flicker account (
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/129810986@N06/ ) with pictures of all of the ponies she had for sale, and I made an offer on the 80 ponies and one thermos - plus "some more ponies she hadn't taken pictures of yet," including Wigwam. I thought this was a pretty good deal, and I made an offer on the whole group. She accepted it, I sent payment out ASAP, and the ponies were in the mail to me within days. I asked her to put in some bubblewrap, if possible, to protect the So-Soft and winger ponies in the lot. Otherwise, I said not to worry about padding, I don't mind if they get a little banged around. The ponies arrived without any padding, and one of the wingers had a crease in her wing; whether from shipping or beforehand is unknown.
I didn't think much of the offhanded joke she had made about "I tried to count them but I gave up after 20," until the box arrived, I started to count ... and
23 ponies from the photos were missing. Not one, or five, or even ten ponies.
Twenty three ponies! How do you "forget" more than a quarter of the items you sold?!
I responded as politely as I could, because at this point I considered us friendly; But after
three weeks of dragging her feet and nonstop excuses ("I have to go to an event! I'm too sick to clean! I can't refund you, I have no money! How about I trade my Barbie collection to the lady at the flea market for replacement ponies?" etc.), I started to get impatient. During the time that she told me she was "too busy" to clean her room and find the ponies (of which she brightly informed me that the thermos was "long gone" - why did you include it in your sales pictures if it's gone???), she managed to 1) start a raffle, 2) take photos of her raffle items, and 3)
delete the evidence of any pony sales off of her Flickr account. She didn't have time to find the ponies she sold me, but she did have plenty of time to hide any evidence of it!
After multiple delays, suggesting a Paypal dispute
twice and almost a month later, I've
finally received the replacement ponies that she was able to find. Of the 23 missing ponies, she found 13 to replace them - none of them are the original ponies I
paid for in the photos, but they're all G1 at least. However, she still kept three of them, because of 'sentimental value' - so I've received 10 ponies out of the 23 I'm owed. I've received as much of a refund as I'm going to get (the difference between the
actual refund and what I
received is only $1.25), and the ordeal is finally over. To her credit, she didn't ask me to pay for the shipping for the replacement box of ponies.
Throughout this process, I felt a certain amount of pity for her - at first, she came across as very disorganized and overwhelmed. However, when I discovered that she had A) pulled the same 'selling expensive items she didn't have' trick on someone else and B) deleted the proof from Flickr, I began to realize that this was perhaps more sinister than mere disorganization. She also ignored my emails for multiple days until I mentioned a dispute with Paypal, a very bad sign, and had a tendency to 'go silent' unless I prodded her for a response or update.
Hopefully she can get her business under control, but as of right now, despite being "made whole" in my transaction with her, I can't recommend her to anyone else as a seller. I am 100% sure that if I hadn't bugged her for
the better part of a month, I would not have gotten any kind of refund or replacement ponies. What I had hoped would be an easy transaction between friends turned out to be anything but.
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